McHenry Public Library District Digital Archives

McHenry Plaindealer (McHenry, IL), 23 Jun 1886, p. 6

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w THl GOLDEN BBtDOK. tM blm IMN, whoso would know, Concerning r ~ t$>y- l̂ ifMmof King TM Fob: rllMta, With rtmnA It rolled wave of in rivwr or gold; . J it* walla with their ninefold twin#, i bride** that eroaa them are ninety and t at aoon aa the wind of morning blows, And the my in the east takes a fleck of rose, jttaoa each bridge 'sins the shuffle and Mast Or hundreds of hoofs and thousands of Hat; And all day long then is dnst and din, And the cooly elbows the mandarin, v And gibe Is given, and oath an<i b'ow-> *Twas thus in the time of King Tee Pol; * i*'*' 0 . . > in. R grieved the kins that it should bajft; , Then out of his wisdom spoke King Tea Poh. 'vii. rr. *Bnild me a hundredth bridge, the beat* Higher and wider tlian all the rest; With p sts of t«»ak, and oe.iarn rails, And planks of sandal, with silver nails f CKld it and paint it vermilion red, : J?And over it place the dragon's head; And be it proclaimed to high and low That over this fortunate arch shall go passenger none? that doth not throw jOolden toll to the riyer below. "'And when the piece of gold is cast ' Shrice let the trumpets sound a blast, And the mandarin write with respectful look SThe passenger's namo in a silken book. So that I, the king, may have in hand ..The list of the wealthiest of my land." Straightway the bridge was buflded ao As had spoken the wisdom of King Tea Poh. Lnd every day from dawn till dark they who watched the fortunate arch could mark [iike a cloud of midges that glow and gleam the gold toll cast to the hurrying stream: Lnd all day the trumpet Founded loud, . ad the mandarin of the puard kowtowad, is ho wrote the name, with respectful look, 3>f the passengers high in his silken book; knd all the while j,*rrw the renown "7 the fortunate sirch in Pekin town, ill of the wf althiest it was told: » i spends his day on the br îfB Of gold." TIT. , ' I when a month and a day wore Bpent tie King Tee Poh for his treasnror sent. ?o to the bridge," said he, "and look }t the list of names in the silken book, ad of all that are written, small and gltM^' mfiacate to me the estate ; i the sage Coofucins well doth show, , L wealthy fool is the state's wont foo." And the treasurer whispered, bending tow; ".Great is the wisdom of King Tee Poh. --George T. Lanigan. a THE MURDERED PEDLER, BT_PAUIi PAST NOB, • for- fane, as the reader may determine, to spend Mime two or three days at the little village Of Bayville, on the shore of Long Island Sound. I arrived somewhere near the middle of the afternoon of a raw November day, at the comfortable little hostelry of my friend Pitts--one of the old-time inn keep­ ers of Long Island, a gentleman who is my bean ideal of a landlord of the old fash- foned type, and who certainly knows how lb make his guests more comfortable with ••skillet and two eggs than many a metro­ politan landlord with th« resources of a Well stocked market at his disposal. I arrived, of course, very hungry, and very tired, having tasted nothing eince eight 4t*clock in the morning, and having been wmost steadily upou the road since five O'clock the preceding evening. Landlord Pitts soon made me entirely at home, and brought forth for my refreshment, even at that untimely hour, the very best which the iiouse afforded. As I thankfully sat down to my steaming repast, Mr. Pitts took his Seat opposite rhe, in that unobtrusive yet Hn miliar way, BO pleasant to travelers who «re used to home comforts and home so­ ciety, and remarked: "Lots of excitement in Bayville since yon Here here last." : "How so?" I inquired, stopping opera- lions, hungry as I was, and staring the landlord curiously in the face. "The headless ghost has been seen he replied, dropping his voice : to a whisper. "It's been more than 1 years since he put in his last appear- -Anee, and we were beginning to think he H liad quieted down for good; but night before last, as Sam Edson was driving along peace- % fully on the lower Bay road, coming home arom the village, what should he see rise f- $p out of the rocks by the water's edge but , : 4 white figure. Sam's horse saw it too, and ; $topped still and snuffed the air like a dog. " 'Hello, there.' said Sam. 'Who are you?' But the figure answered not a Ifcord. It walked slowly up into the road, And there Sam could see, against the Bnoonlight, that it hadn't any head. Up to | - ptie neck it was the perfect figure of a 'loan, dressed all in white, but there it , ended. It didn't even carry its head under Its arm, as headless ghosts are generally to do, but all the while it kept sort of •waying and stooping around, as if in fleuch of something. Sam says he felt his felood run cold. The mare, too, began to lick and snort. Sam hit her with the •hip, but she wouldn't budge an inch, and 8am says he don't know as he wanted to liave her, either. Finally she backed off ;fiie edge of the road, and Sam cramped the Wheel and turned around, keeping his eye the ghost all the while, and when he got | leaded the other way, he says, if he didn't V lay on that whip and rattle off he hopes to Hover drive a fast horse again. He looked Hack over Ms shoulder once or twice, but file ghost didn't seem to be minding him in file feast--only just stooping and poking along in the road, as if mortally anxious to #nd something it had lost. Sam stopped With me that night--didn't go home at all--- and a scareder fellow you never saw in jour life. He kept me up talking and amoking with him all night, because he Was afraid to go to bed, and it wasn't till kroad daylight that I could persuade him i to hitch up and go home and quiet his folks." During this recital I hod kept my eyes feed upon the landlord's face with a sort fltf irresistible fascination, and when he Anally broke off the narrative, observing #at I had scarcely touched food since he jjegan, the spell of the strange story still lingered upon me. "1 wouldn't 'a told yon if I'd thought it v; * %as going to take away your appetite," he ' Apologized. "We Bayville folks are so *8ed to the story of the headless ghost that ® don't make a mite of difference with our , Higestive apparatus." , ; ^ 1 assured the landlord that my appetite 'fcad in nowise been dissipated by the ex­ citing tale with which he had favored me, \v , ,Fut ouly held in abeyance until the climax V- £'a8 *eache<i- Nevertheless--it may have v* .j twen because the food had grown cold--I was * . - finable to take hold with my former gusto, <, for, be it known to the gentle reader, it was •(absolutely necessary that I should pay a yf s . to a client of mine living on that very fe,r . ,|Bume lower Bay road, that verv identical jnght. The business upon Which I had traveled so far and so expeditiously was <of the utmost importance, and I would not * i **»? have lost my fee, as well as the pros- peel of a future fortune, but also my repn- < tation and my self-respect, if I had allowed a common countryside ghost story to frighten me out of a professional eneaee- ^ ment. ^ - ; As I finished my late afternoon repast, £ithe «alhenn? d«Bk of the late Novem- 9 - oer evening. I gleaned, " evening. I gleaned, by a series of close questions, the following fucts from mine host with respect to the headless ghost. More than twenty years aeo--in the early fall of 18f>3--the headless bodv of a peddler was found among the rocks, on the shore of Long Island Sound, a few iods from the road between Bayville and Center Island--the lower Bay road, aB it was «al)ed by the natives. The body was badly mutilated, and the head, which hud, ap­ parently, been severed from the bodv by some dull, heavy, and jagged instrument, was nowhere to be found. The peddler had evidently been murdered for the purpose of robbery. His pockets were rifled, and the less valuable contents of his pack were scattered in every direction. The day previous it is known that he visited Center Island and collected quite a aum of money, for which, un­ doubtedly, he was murdered; but why his head should have been severed from his mgmmmmsSSSSSSSŜ BŜ body, and especially why it should ha' been so carefully removed or concealed that it coald not anywhere be foimd, are mysteries which have never been solved. Ever since the time of the murder, at ir- Kjular intervals, sometimes yean elapsing tween his successive visits, the figure of the headless peddler has been seen wan­ dering up and down in the vicinity of the spot where the tragedy took place. Many witnesses have seen the strange apparition, and all unite in describing it as a headless figure, with a slow and uncertain gait, and a forward-leaning attitude, as if in constant search for something lying just in front of it. I asked the landlord if it generally ap­ peared for several nights in succession, after its long periods of disappearance, and he replied that it did, invariably, and that anyone who traveled along the lower Bay road after dark, for six or seven nights succeeding its first coming, would bo pretty sore to meet with it. With this cheering and positive assur­ ance. I retired for a few hours' Sieep before taking my lonely trip to the house of my eccentric client on the shore of the Sound. At eight o'clock, well bundled into a light, narrow buggy, behind landlord Pitts' best horse, and with a comforting cigar between niv lips, I started out on my somewhat unenviable ride along the gloomy shore of the Sound. I had not told Mr. Pitts where I was going, nor the road I was to take. Perhaps, if I hnd. ne would not have entrusted me with his best horse. I only told him that I was going to see one of my clients who lived about six miles off, and would probably be back a little after midnight. lie called after me to "be sure and keep off the lower Bay road," but as that was the only road leading to the house of my client, I did not very well see how I could avail myself of his advice. I struck the lower Bay road at the cor­ ners. and dashed off down the rock shore at a good round pace. A small apology for a moon was hanging low in the western sky, and caBt a fitful and feeble light on the black waters of the Sound, the jagged rocks between me and the shore and the gnarled and shapeless cedars on the other side of thf road. For more than fifteen minutes I bowled along without seeing or hearing anything unusual, although I could not help casting my eyes apprehensively along the ugly wilderness of boulders that lined the lonely road. I was beginning to congratulate myself that my fears were groundless, after all, and that the headless ghost of Bayville was nothing but a myth born of the credulous imagina­ tion of the natives, when my horse sud­ denly shied, and with a motion so quick and unexpected that I was almost thrown from the carriage. I looked up, and there, directly ahead, in the middle of the road, was a white figure, standing motionless. My heart jumped into my throat, but I managed to speak a soothing word to the horse, reining him in with a firm hand, and taking the whip from the socket. I was resolved to go ahead at all events, if possi­ ble. The road was so narrow at that point that I could not have turned around had I wished, and my impressions of the urgency of the business which brought me there were still strong enough to enable me to control my fear. I touched the horse lightly with the whip, and he sprang for­ ward for a few bounds and then came to a sudden halt, shivering in every limb. I saw that I must alight if I wished to avert a catastrophe, so I jumped quickly over the wheel, with the reins still in mv hands, and leaping forward caught the horse by the bit. I was now within a few rods of the ap­ parition, and directly facing it. I shall never forget the sensations which crept over me, as I stood with that struggling horse at my side and the unearthly figure of the murdered peddler blocking my path. I could see the apparition with the utmost distinctness. It was that of a medium sized man, broad but somewhat stooping, with long arms and immense hands. A portion of the neck remained upon the headless trunk, its jagged edges showing how rude and imperfect must have been the instrument with which the head was' severed from the body. All these horrible details flashed over me in an instant, as I stood facing the ghost. I could feel the hair tingling and rising np straight on my head, and cold shivers ran down my back in a steady stream. I was prob­ ably the first person who had ever de­ liberately held his ground so close to t he dread apparition, and I am inclined to think that, if ghosts are capable of sur­ prise, that headless peddler was consider- ably taken a back by my temerity. "What do you want?" I demanded, in a hollow voice. "Get out of my road!" At the same time I pulled at the horse's bit and took a step forward. The horse reared and snorted, broke my hold on his bit, and with a strange infatuation plunged forward, brushing me aside, and bounded down the road with the thunderous speed of an avalanche. Whatever became of the ghost I don't know. I picked myself up in a hurry and stared about me. No sign of a presence anywhere, actual or spiritual. Far down the road I could hear the thunder of the runaway's hoofs, and--blessed sound--the stentorian shout of a native trying to stop him in his wild career. I lifted my voice in reply, and started down the road as fast as I could run. Once or twice I was ter­ ribly tempted to glance back over my shoulder, but I knew if I did I should see the headless ghost pursuing me. Finally, all breathless and with trembling limbs, I arrived at a little house by the roadside, and told my story to the stalwart man who was waiting for me there. "Yes, you have seen him, sore," he re­ marked, sapiently, as I concluded. "Yon might have known it--and this being his time, too." I suppose you didn't see which way my horse went?" I inquired. "Yes, I did," he replied, in a cool, matter of fact way. "He went into my barn there. I caught him for you." Ten minutes later I was sitting opposite my client, and discussing a bottle of sherry. "You shan't go back to-night," he said. "Not for the world!" I exclaimed. And I didn't. At the Gate of a Convent. I fancy there is a time in every girl's life when she wants to go to a convent. A girl always once in her life falls in love with a married man, falls into a pure, fervent, holy love that is de­ liriously hopeless. She sobs and sighs and dreams and weeps, and then the cloister seems to be the only place that can give her life its finish. This lasts a week or so, and then she goes to a ball, dances with a young man of un­ principled sentimentality, and after that they are at th*> opera and the park and the Cliff House in turn all the time. It's awfully lucky if the girl meets the married man early in life. There are only a few men like Charles Warren Stoddard who want to be monks. Nature predestines the monks, but circumstances make the nun. I have heard of a yonng woman who made up her mind that the world with its pomps and vanities, was not for her. So one day she laid away all her finery, all her jewelry, the gauds that women wear and men pay for, and knocked at the gate of a convent, am not quite sure of the course of preparation necessary for being a nun but this young lady went through it all up to the very last ceremony. After that ceremony the world would see her no more, and it was at hand. She could yet turn back. She difL She left the convent after dark one night* having declared her desire to do so, and next morning early her friends met her walking down Kearney street in full-blown bustle and a bang, and all the fixings of a girl of the period.--- San Francisco Chronicle. THE SENSE OF TOUCH. mm CwlNl aM Interesting BlporlMeati fcgr Two Swiss tonab. Of all the senses we possess the sense of touch is at once the most com­ plex and the least understood. Blittd ness and deafness are only too common, and we can all more or less appreciate the nature and extent of these dire afflictions. Btit who ever thinks how he would be affected by deprivation of the capacity to feel, inability to dis­ tinguish by touch between smoothness and roughness, heat and cold, or by an impaired power to receive the various sensations of pain and pleasure which reach us through the surface of the body? How is it that the same finger which tells us that a substance is hard or soft, tell us also that it is hot or cold? Have we, as some physiologists aver, a sixth sense, that of temperature ? If not, how comes it that a single touch of the finger conveys to the brain, in the same instant, two distinct impres­ sions, perhaps three, for the substance in question may be wet, as well as hot or cold, hard or soft? Physiologists cannot tell us; they only know that the sensations so conveyed are Reparable, and that the ways by which they reach the brain are not the same. The sub­ ject is by no means new, but fresh light has lately been thrown on it by the researches of two Swiss savants, M. A. Herzen and Prof. Soret. The observations of these gentlemen, besides being highly interesting, psychologic­ ally as well as physiologically, are of considerable practical importance in their relation to the training of the blind. Pressure on a limb--asy for instance, when we are asleep lying on one of our arms--if continued for some time, makes it more or less numb. It grad­ ually loses the power of transmitting sensation to the brain. According to the observations of Mr. Herzen, the first sense lost is that of touch, the second that of cold, the third that of pain, the last that of heat. He says that when one of his arms is so torpid that he has to feel for it with the other, and it is impervious to a pinch or a prick, it is still sensible to the warmth of the other hand. If the pressure be prolonged, the limb ceases to be af­ fected even by heat. There are people otherwise healthy, whose capacity of feeling is so far incomplete that they never know what it is to be cold so far as sensations conveyed by the skin are concerned. Winter is the same as summer. This probably arises from an abnormal condition of the spinal cord. M. Herzen mentions the case of an old woman whose legs, partially paralyzed, could feel only pain and cold. At her autopsy it was found that the spinal cord in the neighborhood of the nervous centers of the back was shriveled and otherwise in an unhealthy state. But Mr. Herzen has not rested content with observations on his own species; he has made experiments on the lower animals, classified several of the sensations of touch, and discovered their localizations in the organism; and Prof. Soret, taking up the psycho­ logical branch of the subject, has tried to find out how far the sense of touch may be made to convey to the sightless an idea of the beautiful. For as a deaf musician may enjoy music, despite his deafness, so may the blind man find pleasure in beauty of form, notwith­ standing his blindness. In the one case he pleasure comes from the rythm, or rather from sonorous vibrations in the air, produced *by the playing; in the other form the symmetry and regular­ ity of the objeot handled. "When music is going on I feel some­ thing here," said to M. Soret a deaf- mute who enjoyed operas, putting his hand on his stomach. The blind, even those born blind, as Prof. Soret has ascertained by inquiries among the in­ mates of the blind asylum of Lau­ sanne, have the same love of symmetry as the deaf. The girl embroiderers at­ tach much importance to the perfect regularity of the designs which they are required to repeat in their work. The basket-makers insist on the willow withes they use being all straight and of the same length. Solutions of con­ tinuity in the things they handle are, to the blind, indications of ugliness. They like evenness of surface, regular­ ity of shape; a cracked pot, a rough table or a broken chair causes them positive discomfort. But to create in the mind of a person born blind an artistic idea involves a measure of psychological development which it is very difficult to impart and requires from both teacher and scholar great patience and long-sustained effort.-- Pall Mall Gazette. world, in whjcji i mother must responsibility of bringing up the children--out it is a • misfortune wherever it occurs. Then there is an element of unnatural* ness in it--and it should be avoided wherever it is in any way possible to do so. It is the duty of every Christian man to stand by the side of his partner, and help her in teaching and rearing the children in the family. The father and mother are both necessary. The man and the woman make the one unit which God meant in the creation of the race. Often men who live such an un­ natural life, look forward to the time when their business shall be in such a state that they can attend to their households. They say it shall be a year longer, and the next year, and the year following, and the year after they tumble into the grave. They are al­ ways "going to." It is always "by -and by" with them. Then there are those infelieities which exist in one's own self--for there are few persons who are perfectly har­ monious; and this life is a school in which we are to study harmony. It is here that we are to learn how to love. Nobody knows, off hand, how to love. There is an impulse of love; there is a sentiment of aftection; but true love is a thing to be developed by education. No matter how good an ear for music one may have, he cannot be a master of music, and excel, if he does not bring genius to the bench of industry and ed­ ucate it; and one of the most subtle and difficult of all the attainments of man is the power of loving. Nature did not give us everything that we need to en­ able us to love. In nothing do we need more education and culture, and drill, than in that; and the .household is the school where it is to be learned.' Now, men go into this relation of marriage, and of household care, with­ out thought, or With only the jauntiest notions; but when they come into the family and find where asperities are, where repulsions are, if they be right- minded, they commune with them­ selves, and say: "This must be mended, my hasty temper must be controlled; and I will control it." But when? The night cometh; and, if anything is to be done, with your temper, it must be done now. To roll it off and say: Sometime; by-and-by; when I have less to annoy and hinder me"--that is not wise. Oh! how many times I have seen uninterrupted tears drop from-the eyes of those who were returning from the grave!--Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. THERE are many men who delight in playing the fool, but who get angry the moment they are told so. Mistaken Mortals. There are a great many things that we mean to do in our households, in the matter of the amelioration of manners, of refinement, and of customs, of a dif­ ferent and nobler mode of intercourse, of a better culture for our children, and of a purer and sweeter conversation day by day; that is, we are going to do these things. Men are constantly put­ ting off things which they are disposed to do, and purposing by-and-by to at­ tend to them. In the first place, I protest against that style of doing business which takes a man out of his family to so great an extent as it does with many men. It is often the case that men who are doing business in our great cities get up and go away so early that their children do not see them in the morning, and eome back so late at night that their children have gone to bed before they get home. In many cases it is only on Sunday that there is anything like a family day; and that is a languid day-- a day of rest from weariness, on account of the ex cessive pressure of occupation. And there is this everlasting excuse, that if a man is going to do business in New York, he must do as others do there. It Wttpuestion, then, whether you will m^pbur duty to your household, to your children that you brought into life, and for whose care you are re­ sponsible, or whether you will give up to the inexorable demands of business, I do not believe there is any need of such addition. to business as makes it necessary for a man to give up his mornings and his evenings. I do not believe that a business is profitable to which one's whole time is devoted, believe that any business, the success of which depends upon the action of the brain, is better conducted in eight hours than in twelve or ten. I believe that the spreading of one's self over an excessive broad space induces an ele ment of feebleness in business. I be lieve that it is better to contract the water that we have into a narrow chan nel than to let it spread wide over the whole meadow, and so lose depth and strength. What right has a man to stand in the relation of a father to a household, and be forever absent from that household ? "The mother," it is said, "takes care of the children." There may be such cases as those of seamen, who are obliged to go on errands around the Roaring Pemaqnid. Pemaquid Point, near Damariscotta, Me., has been said to be, in a gale from any point of the compass between south­ east and southwest, the roughest point on the Atlantic coast. It is literally out to sea, and the waves of the At­ lantic, rolling in from 3,000 miles of ocean, without let or hindrance, break with explosive roar upon its bastions of stone, which are worn into endless forms by the attrition and abrasion of ages. It is very rarely that any point of the mainland possesses all the con­ ditions of an uninterrupted breaking lace for the waves of the ocean. Out­ laying rocks or islands or the conforma­ tion of the adjacent coast usually break up or check the course of the waves long before reaching the mainland. Nothing lies between Pemaquid Point and the broad Atlantic, and even in the calmest mood of the sea the roar of the surf upon its walls is remarkable. When the southerly gale is on the spray is flung hundreds of feet into the air. The noise is deafening. Huge pieces of rock are broken from the walls and thrown up on the bank. Pemaquid lighthouse stands on the promontory, several hundred "feet back i'rom the edge, writh the house of the keeper adjoining it. The light is at least three hundred feet above the sea level. Yet in a southern gale a few years ago, a large stone was hurled by the waves through the thick glass of the lantern, and the spray came down the chimneys of the house in such quantities as to extinguish the fires. History and legend also lend their attractions to Pemaquid. No part of the country was earlier known to voy­ agers. The ships of Pring, Weymouth, and Oilbert, had ploughed these waters long before the settlement of James­ town, and Pemaquid was the rival of Plymouth and Boston as a metropolis in the infancy of New England. The old fort at the harbor was for near a century on the disputed territory be­ tween Massachusetts and Arcadia. Gov. Chamberlain claims for Pema­ quid an older date than Plymouth. Few know," he says, "that years be­ fore the PilgrimB set foot on Plymouth Bands, there were established English settlements at various points on the shores of Maine--that Pemaquid was a seat of trade, and at one time the me­ tropolis of all the region east of New York. "--Rockland, Courier-Gazette. Points About Feet. I don't believe that it is when a wo­ man has a small foot that she wants to show it just a little. I am open to seri­ ous correction, but there seems to be quite a satisfaction to a woman in know­ ing that she has a pretty foot, and a woman has a way anyhow of believing everybody knows what she knows un­ less it be a secret. Then she never be­ lieves that anybody else knows even if she's told it them a dozen times. But when a woman has a small foot and has had it all her life, and known it and been told about it for twenty years--I beg pardon, no lady is ever over that age, say ten years--she gets so accus­ tomed to it that it ceases to be a piece even of her vanity. It's the woman with the long foot and the high instep that wants to show them. The high in­ step sometimes goes before a fall, and that's why people with high insteps are always said to have plenty of pride. When a woman has succeeded in pinch­ ing a big foot into a very small shoe she does not propose that all that trouble is to be gone to and all that ag­ ony suffered for nothing. So she al­ ways makes a point of having it dis­ played somehow. I beg pardon of the ladies for thus drawing attention to something I have no business with. I think the rudest thing I ever heard of was what one of the papers said about Mrs. Langtry, that after one of her scenes several of the ladies threw flow­ ers at her feet. Mobbing her was all very well, but throwing flowers at her feet was carrying things too far and an outrage. Did you ever see a woman try on a pair of shoes? You have! Then you're either married or engaged in a shoe store, I hope. She had a lovely foot, and her visi­ tors were admiring it. They were la­ dies, of course. A man w-feo is not a shoemaker dares not mention such • thing unless they are alone in a dim corner of the drawing-room where no body can overhear. "What a beautiful foot yon have, dear." "Yes; p^toays when we go to Europ» hell have a bust of it made." Songf- San Francisco Chronicle. » v , =S|SSB5B-95SBB5S= Bat eoeial ettaietle in HoUand is not to be oompared to that of the table. If the one is ourioos, the other is su­ premely droit It is amnaing to see the Dutch eat. They take their plate­ ful as soon as they afe helped, and cut it up into morselB. "Then they lay the knife in front of the plate, and leaning on the table with the left hand, pro­ ceed to eat all with the fork. I never saw food eaten otherwise, except that some desserts are shoveled with a spoon instead of the fork, two spoons lying with knife and fork at each plate. All this is etiquette. Beside the plate a hand-rest is sometimes placed, for it is necessary that one shotdd half recline on the tabfe. There is no such thing as changing covers, and be the courses two or twenty, they are served on the same plate, and the same knife, fork, and spoon are used. The napkins ara kept in service until the washerwoman has to meet a big bill for soap! The meals are breakfast, lunch (koffij), din­ ner, and supper. The first meal is at any time from 6 to 9, and among the better class of people the guests can take it in bed if they prefer. Lunch is at 12 o'clock; dinner from 4 to 5:30; supper is at any time--7, 9, or 11 o'clock in the evening. Breakfast and lunch are exactly alike except that there is tea at the former, and coffee at lunch. Supper consists of tea, biscuits, and pastry, and is served in the parlor quite as often as in the dining-room. One supper at which I was a guest I shall always remember. At 9 o'clock the hostess left the card-board, spread the tablecloth, and placed the dishes. Then she brought out a spirit lamp, which she lighted with a match from the match-box on the table, and having ground some coffee in a hand-mill, she set the cafetiere over the lamp, where it boiled merrily during the meal. The bread came on in a loaf in a long basket, and was cut into thick slices and so Sassed around. The butter was in a ttle round earthen pot, each person scraping out with his own knife as much as is wanted for each piece of bread. The cheese came to the table in a simi­ lar pot, and was also scraped and eaten spread on the bread over the butter. Near the bread basket on a round tray was a partly cut loaf of brown bread, and slices: of three or four kinds of cake, including the invariable fruit-cake. Preserves were placed on the cloth in a shallow dish, and it was passed around. The milk, fresh from the dairy, was drawn for the coffee from a jug that in the absence of a sideboard naturally re­ posed on a mat at my lady's ^ide. After the meal a china wash-bowl was brought out, and the dishes washed on the tea- table by the mistress, who used the • snowiest of serviettes, and neither spilt a drop nor wet her fingers. While the dish-washing was going on, the family and guests remained sitting, the hos­ tess performing her task standing where her chair had been, and the master idly puffing his reina. All this may seem quite romantic, but I was annoyed, not only at the basket of bread, the sloppy scraping of butter, and the continual hissing of the coffee over the spirit- lamp, but as well to have dish-water used on the table, and to have the mistress preside over it. But it was "the fashion," and I might add that the table was that of Prof. Yanderkamer oif the Hague.--Springfield Republican. Senator Ransom's Story. • • «It steems to read so," said Sam Han­ som, of North Carolina, in response to something; probably a clause in some bill that was shown him. Another sen­ ator, standing by, made some laughing criticism upon the expression. "You don't know North Carolina slang," said Mr. Bansom. 'An old tavern-keeper in one of our pine-wood towns, was a rough, lialf- pions, wholly honest man, who utterly declined to bet. But one of his guests, a professional gambler, could not live without some excitement of the sort. One day he insisted on laying a bet that the name on a sign across the street was spelled without the r it needed to make it a name. Every one could see that the r was there, but he would bet; and finally the landlord took him up, and of course the man lost. He stayed on, however, a week or two; but finally packed his bag and called for his bill. The place was too slow for him. The landlord gave him the bill, $160. The man looked at it, and then said: 'Do you ever read' the Bible, landlord? Were you piously brought up ?'" " 'Oh! yes, I know my catechism now, and I read the Bible--more or less.' ' 'Do you know the story of Sam­ son?' " 'Well, I guess. I was brought up on that. My mother told it to me when I wasn't knee high.' " Ah! What kind of a jaw-bone was it that Samson killed the Philistine with? I'll bet you don't know.' ' 'Why it was a jaw-bone--just a jaw­ bone, and nothing more.' ' 'I thought so. I'll bet you $165 that it was a new jaw-bone.' "It was too much for the landlord. He succumbed again, although he felt as before that he was betting on a cer­ tainty ; 'but, if the man would do it'-- "The man took a little worn Bible out of his bag, turned to the chapter in Judges, and read that, with 'the new jawbone of an ass, did Samson slay Philistine.' "The landlord turned round, saying: "Look for it in my mother's Bible?' taking it down as he spoke. "The gambler found it, and held the text under his eyes. " 'It seems to read so,' said the land­ lord in a humbled tone, feeling the whole board bill float away from him as he spoke. "And it has been adopted in North Carolina slang ever since.--New York Independent. The Last of the Brigands. A Vienna correspondent writes : The last of the Hungarian brigands, Savanyu Joszi, has fallen into the hands of jus­ tice, and is being Icied like a common criminal. The "poor fellows," us they were called by the peasants, were once renowned in Hungarian history, and the life of Botiza Sandor is still sold in thousands of copies at every fair, but the age of chivalry is gone, and Savanyu Joszi and his band will probably be found guilty of some twenty-seven crimes, set "forth in the indictment, ranging from murder to theft, and if they escape hanging they may count themselves fortunate. When Mine. Adam was in Hungary the brigand sent her his photograph, and the stories of his romantic doings in western Hungary are numberless. IT takes four things to make a gentle­ man--you must be a gentleman in your principles, a gentleman in ymir tastes, a gentleman in your manners, and a gentleman in your person. PAINT and powder cover a multitude of freckles. rht&mdrnl resolve them into their elements? Pio- tnre the moat fantastio seme and the most fantastic pantomime that was ever Men in theater or circus, and multiply the effect ten thousandfold, picture thousands of masked and dominoed men and women, attired as demons, as Mephistopheles, as imps and apes, as cats and dogs, as frogs-and vegetables, conjure up hosts of ghosts, think of the most horrible nightmare or the awful things of an opium orgie, and .you have something of the effect produced on the mind by one's first impressions of a Nice carnival. Imagine this great pan­ tomime, in which fifty or Bixty thou­ sand people take part, giving themselves up to the daring frivolities of the carni- three or four hours in the open air with a burning, blazing sun. The ingenuity and the taste which are ex­ pended upon this wonderful ceremony are extraordinary, and not less impress­ ive is the astonishing variety of the costumes assumed by the crowd which has flocked here to take deep draught of diablerie. The tops of the long col­ onnade werie black with people, and there was no window and no point of vantage which was unoccupied. Up aloft some were contented to brave the dangers without masks, but the majority were both masked and dominoed. Op­ posite the prefecture was placed the throne of King Carnival, and the enor­ mous figure of that awful potentate tow­ ered thirty feet up in the air, a Gargan­ tuan monarch, with features modelled in proportion to his height. Like the horse of Troy, his belly serves as a re­ ceptacle, not for men but for fireworks. On the last night of the revelries a fuse is lighted, and the King flies up to the starlit heavens, illumining the evening sky with a million lights, crimson, golden, silvern, shooting hither and thither, and dropping their liquid fire on the crowd. "The King is dead. Lbng live the King!" cry the fickle plebs, and until 1887 the king and his court are forgotten. Bound this huge figure, standing out like some savage idol, file the procession, slowly moving up the street to the braying of trum- pets, and the beating of drums and the flre of guns. The grotesque throng keeps admirable order as the proces­ sion marches slowly past, cheering and shrieking with laughter and cries of admiration, keeping up fierce flre of confetti the while. Bands of men, wo­ men, and children pass, clad in long, flowing dominoes of every conceivable cut and fashion, red, pink, blue, green, violet, slashed with trimmings of other colors, affording vivid contrasts to the body of the fabric. The masks are hideous and beautiful, with eyes bleared or languishing, mouth all awry or of perfect form, noses dwarfed, noses elon­ gated, hooked, bent, broken; faces bloody, faces rouged, ochred; wigs of pink, tresses of flowing yellow or of coal black. _ Many wear paper masks, which admit of even more startling effects. One sees clowns in sugar-loaf hats and parti-colored robes, panta­ loons and harlequins, and troops of devils. Even the babes and children are disguised, and mother would not recqgnize son, nor husband wife. Pearl Oysters. In the Gulf of California there are extensive pearl fisheries. The pearls are found inside of a species of oyster that grows at the bottom of the Gulf. The district is about 300 miles in length, extending out from the shore some ten miles. Most of the fishing is done by Mexicans or half-breed In­ dians, who dive for them from boats. The divers take heavy stones in their hands to help them reach the bottom. They also carry baskets which they fill with oysters. A good diver can go down fifty feet, and remain under wa­ ter from two minutes to two minutes and a quarter. Diving is not an un- health business, and there is no danger from sharks. A more extensive business is carried on by means of divers clad in marine armor. These go in shooners fitted out with all the necessaries for a voy­ age of four or five months. The armor- clad divers sometimes go down more than 100 feet deep, but the pressure is so great that it produces rheumatism, and the armor-divers rarely live to be more than 35 or 40 years of age. As soon as the oysters are in the boat they are opened, examined for pearls, the beards or soft portions cut off, and the rest thrown into tubs. When the days work is over, the pieces in the tub are carefully examined again, and then spread to dry in the sun. The dried oysters are shipped to China, where they command a high price. The common opinion is that a pearl is caused by a grain of sand or some similar substance finding its way into the shell and irritating the oyster, which thereupon incloses it in a smooth covering. This is not true of the pearl proper, but such substances are always glued to the inner side of the shell, and are covered with "nacre," the well- known "mother-of-pearl." Some of these substances thus imbedded are very curious. The writer has seen a parasite, apparently a blood-sucher, or a worm nearly two inches long, thus coflSned in a most gorgeous crust of mother-of-pearl strong enough to hold him tight, and yet showing his shape perfectly. The real pearl is probably the effect of a disease. It is always found imbedded in the muscular portion of the oyster. It begins as a sac filled with a clear liquid-like water. At a later stage the water thickens, becom- inj first cloudy, then like jelly, and finally hardening into the perfect pearl. Specimens have been found in all stages, but it is not yet decided whether the sac increases in size during the har­ dening process.--Christian Union. Old Love Letters. Old love letters are much like cold soup. A love letter that telegraphs a delightful tingle to the tip ends of the fingers and toes, makes the heart thump fast and even warms up the stomach when first written, if read after the flame which inspired it had died, pos­ sesses all the flatness, stateness and nauseating quality that are in a porky bean broth that has lain in the refrig­ erator since vesterday. Soup has this advantage--it can be warmed over, while love letters cannot.--Lewiston (Me.) Journal. A Dog'Goned Insinuation. "Look here, Uncle Mose, yon ought to shoot dat dog. He is gwine ter hab hydrophobia sure," said Jim Webster. Uncle Mose, somewhat alarmed, asked what were the symptoms. "He am afeard to drink water. Dat am a certaiu sign." "G'way, fool nigger! You Saint drunk no water yerself in de last ten years, and you aint bit nobody yit. Does ver want me ter take a gun and shoot bofe of yer bekase ver don't drink water?" --Texas Sifting8. $liBl»re is tattlafl by but til* Welsh rarehit is fa OIGFHAAIAW. Av intelligent bull alwaj BURiST"' A BAVAKA akin rightlr loeated forma as muoh of an obstruction to the high­ way as would a mule. ̂ "JKBTEBSON DAVIS," says a Chicago * newspaper, "spOaks elegant English. * ) Yea, but he speaks rather toi» much of ̂ it.--Arkansaw lYavaler. \ Al HE (at the horticultural show)--This fa a tobacco plant, mjr dew." She-- ̂ "Indeed! howveirf interesting! Bull *' don't see any cigars on it." A PATENT MEtrtCDCE maker advertises "unparalleled Wires, incredible were they not in our midst." That is the place where cures Bhould be effected if anywhere. "JAKE, vat you going to gif your* son for a birthday present?". , *1 don'd know; it's putty hard times. I gvosa I haf some buddons sewed on his clothes.rt "Yes, dat's so. I guess 1 haf myT'r haircut." Yoima amateur (president of newly j formed village dramatic society)--O, ̂ d o n t l e t ' s t r y a n y t h i n g v e t y h a r d - a f r • ' j first. Let's begin with some easy play. ^-1 like "Box and Cox," or "Much Ada • S About Nothing. " I IT was the frequent saying of an old ̂ hunter in the North woods: "If all men knew as much as some dogs, fools would be skusser'n they are now." He was a wise old hunter, too.--New Haven Palladium. A FEW days since a gentleman saw » little 6-year-old fellow playing during; ^ school hours, about a quarter of a mile. from home and inquired: " Johnny, why! are you not at school?" "Mother was sick, and I staid home to take care ot­ her, " was the ready reply. "IF you would get at the truth of this matter I advise you--" "The truth of the matter! Great Caesar's ghost! Whati do you suppose I care about the truth of the matter ? All I want is to havet my prejudices backed up. If you can tell me who will do that for me Til thank you."--Boston Transcript. IN Kansas they hanged a maw to the Eommel of a saddle on a fractious orse an then frightened the horse and let him go. The animal ran five miles and the man was probably the worse Eommeled man that ever died. And e wasn't guilty of horse-stealing either --he had merely murdered a woman.--• Judge. CAPT. BANGS--"I always understood that Jones was shot in the discharge of his duty." Private Bungs--"Well, some jay he was shot in the sutler's store,! and others say he was shot in the leg; but he got his pension for nervous pros-, (ration brought on by dodging the* pro­ vost-guard in Washington. "~LovDel$ Citizen. STRANGEB (to country store keeper) --"Can you tell me where I can findL James Holt, who wrote this recom­ mendation for Coffin's consumption, cure? He lives here, I believe." Mer­ chant--"He did before--" Stranger-- 1 "Before what?" Merchant--"Before | he died of ^ consumption."--N. Y.\M Graphic. : .:..M THIS is not the only enterprisingj j country in the world. An English ad-" (1 vertisement«reads as follows: "Ayoungv jj man, sober and reliable, who has » jl wooden leg and cork armj is willing, fort y|j a moderate salary, to allow his falsef limbs to be maimed by wild beasts any reputable menagerie, as an adver­ tisement. No objection to traveling." : PROFESSOR at Yassar College--"Now, young ladies, I propose to lecture on human anatomy, but I cannot while- there is so much bustle among you."! All--"Professor, we can take our bus­ tles off." Professor (confused)--"I--1$? didn't mean it that way. You misun­ derstood me." All--"Ah, thanks. You think they are out of shape, bat they are in style;" < "BROMLEY, I'm in an awful humor this morning. I had an awful quarrel! with my wife." "I'm sorryto hear your say that, Mr. Darringer. But it can be remedied, don't you think? You have, only to offer the pipe of peace, you^ know." "O, hang your pipe, Bromley. The whole trouble was about a. pipe."- "I didn't know you smoked." "Idon't.' It was a stove-pipe that smoked." f, YOUNG Mr. Smythe was passionately^. enamored of Miss Browne, and was squirming in his chair preparatory to % • proposal, when the young lady said: ' "Mr. Smythe, you pass Mr. Thinplate, the jewelers, on your way home, do you not?" "Yes," he said huskily.?, "Well, would you mind doing me a littleii,}~ favor?" "Mind! dear Miss Browne, he replied, with a look of unutterable 1 reproach; "you have but to name it." , "Thanks! Will you kindly ask Mr.f Thin plate if he has tightened the setting, of my engagement ring which Mr. George Simpson left with him yester-C day." How Freqch Girls Are Wooed. I remember, just before the Franoo-|̂ Prussian war, a Millie. Pairier, a very. wittv and intelligent girl of 18, at-, tentfed the day-seliool in which I was,, teaching. She had passed her examin­ ations at l'Hotel de Ville, but was so . fond of her school that she^ protested - she would not leave it until it was time,.-; for her to be married. She was a^ privileged character among thei, * teachers and pupils--a sort of parlor • boarder. One day she came running^ to us and said: "Mamma has seriously gone to work to find me a husband. IV /j saw a candidate last night at the theater, ̂ :'3 but I don't like him. He squints. I, am going to see another at the Opera Comique to-night." The next morning our question was: "How did you like him?" "Can't like him; papa heard that his property was entailed, and that, his father died of some hereditary : disease." Thus, every morning, to our . amusement, she would come With a new story, told in her own sprightly way. Once she told us that one of her; mother's horses was lamed; she sup­ posed that he (the horse) was heartily tired of running after a husband for her. At last she found the right one, or rather the right one was found for her. She then at once stopped joking, and, with the dignity she at once as­ sumed as a fiance, she forbade us so to do. Her husband is a rich manu­ facturer of cloth at Elboeuf. --Brooklyn Eagle. ^ A STORY is told of an American pro­ fessor whose specialty was entomology. Some of his students, wishing to test his knowledge, prepared a bog with j great care, making it up of the wings, legs, &c., of the different insects. Carrying it to the professor, they said, "Professor, here is a strange specimen that we have found. Can you classify it?" The professor studied it a few moments, and then said, quietly, "Gentlemen, this is a hum bug."

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