B seem tessatensd with a new variety. of crook--the scienti- fic. According to very circum- stantial reports from Washington, the experts of the Treasur@ Department have been experimenting with a new -chemical compound said to rob steel of 4ts temper, and hence making safe- cracking easy. This compound, called thermite, is reputed to possess mar- -velous virtues. When mixed with mag- mesium powder {it will destroy the hard- counts do not fail'to say quaky things of how cracksmen have already put these discoveries to practical use. Owners of strong-boxes are advised not to sleep too well o' nights. All this is very interesting if it happens to oe true. The profession, it may be ob- served, has never 'been slow to make improvements. It was a great day for the grafter fraternity when dynamite 'came to town. They 'took up with it sat once. Popular fancy endows the knock-out fiend with a large knowledge of chemistry. There is hardly any branch of Deviousness that has not participated in the unparalleled ad- vances of the times. And much may be looked for. Sir James Crichton Browne spoke not long ago, in Eng- dand, on the improvements of the pol- soners' art. He pointed out the im- mense possibilities that lle in cultures of deadly bacteria, to say nothing of some of the recent chemical prepara- tions. The real art, he contended, is mot simply.in defying detection, but in mot arousing suspicion. All the famous Polsoners of the Middle Ages were, in his view, a clumsy lot. It was the same old story always--arsenic, arsen- ic, arsenic. The tales of the magical potions of those days were fables. The Borgias would gurgle with delight be- fore the resources of the present day. 'The picture drawn by the eminent English physician was not so very re- assuring to them as actively cultivate 'the luxury of enemies, but it is safe to say that whatever 'be the possibilities, they will never be realized to any great extent. The fact is that any man on 'vengeance bound who started In to per- fect himself in this line would get 50 interested In his experiments that he would forget all about his plot. That ds one of the beauties of modern science. Some Roycroft Humor. HERE is a story, writes Elbert k Hubbard, that bears upon Its features the mellow tinge of time, to the effect that Ralph Waldo Emerson once got up in the middle of the night and, in the <ourse of his gropings, fell over a chair or two and knocked down the family what-not. Mrs. Emerson felt softly for her mate, and finding that he was not there guessed confusion, and called in alarm, do, Waldo! are you ill?" And the pla- cid answer was, "No, my dear: only an idea." So that is the story, but the new version runs this way: Mr. Emerson got up in the middle of the night, and, after falling over the family rocking- chair and knocking a plaster of paris cast off the mantel, was accosted by his good wife thus: "Are you ill, Wal- do?" And there was no answer--save thea scratching of matches on wall, floor, bureau and chairs. This was tn the day when matches came in sticks, and you broke them off. The lady heard the matches split off, and then she heard the scrape and scratch. "Are you jll, Waldo?" again she called in alarm. "Ill! Ul nothing-- why don't you say sick?--there Is no one listening. No, Iam not ill. I have an idea, andywanted to write it down, but these confounded cheap matches you bought of that Connecticut peddler will not light--plague take everything that comes from Connecticut, say I!" Then there was a final scratch on the wall, and philosophy came to Mr. Com- pensation'S rescue, as he said, "Well, well, It wasn't much of an idea, any- way; besides that, I've really forgotten what it was." And he crawled back into bed. In the morning Mrs. Emer- son discovered that every tooth had been broken out of her high-back comb. Cosmopolitan New York. The new Cathedral of St. John in New York will, in addition to its main hall, have seven "Chapels of Tongues" where German, Spanish, French, Swed- ish, Italian, Armenian and Chinese ser- vicas will be held each' Sunday. Nev- ertheless, by the time the great cathe- dral is finished it is not unlikely that the crypt and tionalities. Bishop Potter the otheg day to ask that some provision might be made for re- ligious services for some Mesopota- mian immigrants. "Really," replied the bishop, "cannot a handful of Mesopotamians be pro- wided for in connection with your Ar- menian congregation?" The young clergyman of the tene- ments smiled. "I do not know what you call a handful, sir. There ure some eight"hundred famifies of Meso- potamians within ten minutes' walk of where we are sitting this;-moment; and es for their attendance(upon Armen- mentioned as present in Jerusalem on the first Pentecost after the crucifixion are already represented in New York, and the problem now is the same as it Was then, depicted Marconi's invention, were quoted. But some further cases ght. In the third part of "Gulliver's Trav- els," Swift describes the two satellites of Mars. the London "Spectator" points out, whee Swift wrote, astro- nomy had not advanced greatly beyond Huygens's contentment with the twelve bodies--six planets and six satellites-- which made up the 'perfect number' of the solar system. Certainly no one euspeoted that Mars had modns of its own. Thus Swift made a very wild guess when he announced of the La- 'They have like- satellites; which revolve about Mara, whereof the innermost is distant from the center of the primary planet exact- ly three of his diameters, and the out- ermost five; the former revolves in the space of ten hours, and the latter'in twenty-one and a half.' Not only were there mo grounds for the prediction of two satellites, but such an estimate of their distance from the planet was un- precedented; it was as if our moon should be within twenty thousand miles of the earth, and rise and set twice or thrice in the twenty-four hours. Nothing could be more impro- bable. Yet in 1877 Professor Asaph Hall, with the great Washington equa- torial, actually discovered two tiny satellites of Mars, whose distances from the planet are 11-2 and 31-2 dia- meters, whilst their periods are 71-2 and 30 hours respectively. The agree- ment with Swift's guess is in the main 60 remarkable that it is hardly possible to ascribe it to mere accident; and yet these satellites are the merest points of light, which no telescope in existence before Herschel's day could possibly have shown." Many other similar anticipations are chronicled in the Philadelphia "Era." We quote as follows: "The law of gravitation was an- mounced by Newton in the year 1685. Had it not been foreseen by Shake- Gpeare in 16097 At all events, In 'Troil- us and Cressida,' he put these lines in- to the mouth of Cressida: But the strong base and bullding of my Is as the very center of the earth, Drawing all things to it--Act iv. sc. 2 "A contemporary of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, anticipated the modern eir-cushion. In 'The Alchemist,' he makes Sir Epicure Mammon, in enum- erating the pleasures to be his when in possession of the philosopher's stone, declare that I will have my beds blown, not stuffed; Down is too hard, "In another play the same author credits the Dutch with an invention that foreshadows the Holland submar- ine boat: It is an automa, runs under water, With a snug nose, and has a nimble tail Made like an auger, with which tail she wriggles Between the coats of a ship, and sinks it straight. "In France, Cyrano de Bergerac showed himself full of scientific pres- cience. The airship In which the hero of his 'Voyage to the Moon' (1650) made his trip to that sphere was a pretty chose foreshadowing of Montgolfler's balloon, as will be seen from our illus- tration, made for an edition that long entedated the aeronaut. "In the same book he clearly fore- d d the "The supernatural being who acted as the hero's guide gave him for his entertainment some of the books made by the Inhabitants of the moon. They were enclosed in boxes. This Is what he saw and heard: "On opening the box I found inside @ concern of metal, something like one of our watches, full of curlous little springs and minute machinery. It was really a book, but a wonderful book that has no leaves or letters; a book, | for the understanding of which the |; eyes are of no use--only the ears are necessary. When anyone wishes to read, he winds up the machine with its great number of nerves of all kinds, and turns the pointer to the chapter he wishes to hear, when there comes out, as if from the mouth of a man or of an instrument of music, "the distinct and various sounds which serve the Great Lunarians as the expression of language.' ... "Among Fenelon's Fables, written in 1690 for the instruction of Louis XIV.'s grandson, is one entitled 'Voyage Sup- pose,' and among the supposititious marvels of which it is compact we read: "There was no painter in all the country, but when they wished the por- trait of a friend, or @ picture repre. senting some lovely landscape or other object, they put water into large bas- dns of gold and silver, and made this water face the object they wished to paint. Very soon the water would con- geal become as the face of a mir- ror, where the image dwelt dnefface- ebly. This could be carried wherever one pleased, and gave as faithful a picture as any mirror.'" "Is not this an anticipation of photo- graphy?" Great men of the tive tem- Pperament, observes the "Era," build better than they know; and "the world looks back and sees what they were @riving for, what they were aiming at, though they themselves knew it not, er only dimly it." of the same kind are now brought to. a came "Don't you m called loudly, to be heard above the wind. 'Why, George Gilbert, is it you?" she exclaimed. She held out her hand. "How did you ever happen to get here? Come right into the | house. Rick's room of the house, which served the double purpose of parlor and kitchen. In one corner stood the stove; above it a long shelf covered with neatly scalloped oe on which st lamps and timware. A safe with per forated tin doors was in another cor- ner. A bit of ingrain carpet, a rock- ing chair and a round table with a red cover made the parlor. "You see, I'm traveling for a grocery house," the man said, sitting down, "and I make Houston now, and your folks said I must be sure to come out and eee you. How are you doing?" "Doing!" Kate cried, scornfully look- ing around the room. 'Can't you see? Making just enough to keep soul and body together--corn fourteen cents and aince she came west. "Rick never seems to think of It. Be- sides, I don't think we've got money enough to take one of wus, let alone both. I just long to go. Sometimes it seems like I'd go wild staying here. A man can get along better'n a woman.' "Are you coming?" he ask She stood a moment straightening the cover on the table. "Yes, I'll go," she said decisively. "There are a few things I must take, but I can be ready in 'half an hour." "It's four-thirty," George called. She laid her hat and cloak on the bed. "Ym glad I baked the bread and dried apple pies this morning," she thought. "Men are so helpless about housework. I must leave some word of where I'm gone. I guess he has tried, to be good to me, but he has no right to keep me here." She found a sheet of the thin blue- lined paper on which she had so often written to her folks. She sat down on the bed with the ink-bottle on a chair near by. "Dear Rick," she wrote, then has- tily crossed it out and began "Rick." Then she was motionless for a time, her eyes fixed on the celling. At last she wrote "George Gilbert is here and is going to lend me money to go fhome on. I cannot stand it here any longer. I hope you will forgive me, for I know lai have tried to be good to me and She threw down her pen and ran into the kitchen. George stood in the door- way smoking and Jooking down the road. 'Ready? he asked, without turning. "Oh, I can't go!" she cried huskily. "YT can't go! He has done his best. It ponent be wicked when he has worked hard. Poor Rick!" She sat down and covered her face with her hands. "AN plight," George answered. was willlng to take you; but, think you'd better not, that's all right. I don't want to interfere, as I said before." She watched him out of sight. Then she went into the house and laid her clothing back In the trunk. Her let- ter lay on the floor. She picked it up and threw it into the fire as if it had been something unclean. She watched it blaze and turn to a white ghost, which she crumbled with the poker. When the house had taken on its or- dinary look, she put tke teakettle on the stove and set the table for supper. As she cut one of her ples she smiled. She was to eat them, after all. The wind had gone with the sun, and it was dusk when she heard the sound of wheels. She took the lantern from the high shelf, Mt it and set out for the barn. "Is that you, Rick?" she called. Kate held the lantern while her hus- band unhitched and fed his horses. Then they walked together to the house. 'Phrough the open door a block of Hight fell on the ground, and within the red tablecloth and white dishes shone pleasant and cheerful. "I've got some good news, sis," Rick said across the table as he helped him- ! | beauties of the "graphic system" and self to a third cut of pie. "Old man Shutz wants to buy this farm; says he don't like the way my land gouges out | the corner of his section. He will take | up the mortgage and give me six hun- |} dred dollars clear. It ain't much, but we can go back home and begin over | again--begin over again in a country where a man gets a decent living for his sweat and labor. Kate laid her head on the table and ain't you tickled?" he d it because I thought this was no place for yeu." "Iam awful pleased," she answered, . 'but I was so tired I thought mebbe you didn't care," In the night the wind came up and set the cornstalks creaking and rust- ling with a thousand whispers, but they said to Kate, "Years fly, years fly--good-by, good-by." Now the whisper of the wind was sweet to her as she lay listening. "Years fly, years fly--good-by, good-by." -- "Waverley Magazine." ai, "Out of the Mouths of Babes," Etc. "How is*it, my dear,". enquired a wi I sometimes think I 'have many things to learn that have not t tine to understand."--The "Schoolmaster." a 'Let us make the eapital stock one * Dillion dollars," said the first promot." er. "All right," said the second, who 'Was preparing the prospectus on the typewriter. "Will it be hard to in- crease that capital?" asked the first. ene indeed. All I have to do js to hit 0 key a few more times."--Balti- ours "American" \Beating a Gambier at His Own' Game. F every one who-has a system for beating the bank at Monte Carlo attempts to float a public company, as the young Bar! of Rosslyn is doing, to invite the world to share in the pro- fits, there will not be much available capital left for any other enterprises Whatever may be the peculiar merits of the scheme evolved by the English peer, who has recently been selling dog ipiscult, the fact remains that despite the dally attack on the Monte Carlo bank by mathematicians with new sys- tems the Casino continues to pay its large dividends. Not only does the Prince of Monaco welcome the distinguished scientists who come to deprive him of his wealth, but he even goes so far as to pay their railway fare home, when their money is gone, and to provide for them, df desired, one of the most picturesque spots in the world in which to blow their brains out. But pistol practice on the grounds is very distasteful to the prince; hence his readiness to pro- vide funds to place the unlucky system player in some other part of the world, where he may take his life in whatever manner he pleases, without disturbing the other playens at the tables. One of the recreations of a well- known New York banker, who has no need to "break the bank" at Monte Carlo to provide funds for himself, is to play imaginary roulette on a com- plicated system of his own invention. Although a yearly visitor at Monite Carlo, he has never staked a sou on the spin of the ball at the Casino, Back in his college days'he was an 'honor man in mathematics, and he still de- lights in odd computations that have no connection with dividends and mon- ey rates. One day last spring at Monte io he amused himself by making a "graphie chart" of the "rouge et noir' croupier for five hundred consecutive rolls. Governed by the immutable laws of chance, the zigzag line, tracing the variations from one color to the other, appeared to have certain sub- zigzags of similar outHne occurring at Irregular intervals. Taking the daily record sheets of the roulette wheels, the New York banker plotted more charts, all of which showed the same characteristic zigzags, with "high lev- els," "low levels," "criss-crosses," "runs" and "shutes," and other pecu- liarities, for which the mathematical American has an ture. Coming back to New York, he prt. vately engaged, in another part of the office building in which is his banking house, a small room, which he fitted up as a nuniature Monte Carlo. Six young women spent three weeks there epin- ning the roulette wheels and making charts of the fall of the balls. Fie ee charts Pp the of year's play at one of "the tables a Monte Carlo. The banker keeps*them in a safe-deposit box, marked "strictly private;" the wheels he has destroy These charts, too, have the same eas- ily recognized zigzags. From the study of them the New Yorker has evelved a "graphic system" of "beating the bank" which has met with marvelous success, although the major part of the winnings thas been made in imaginary play. At) odd moments he and several club friends played the charts. Start- ing with a capital of $1,000, they won 'a gmall sum every "day," and at the end of the "year" had won $256,000 without plunging. Had they given a larger in- crement to their wagers-they would thhave "broken the bank." They are all satisfied that the chart system is based upon good mathematics and will "'beat the bank." While he was at the Carlton, in Lon- don, the banker met a Dutch diploma- tic officer, on his way to America, to whom he gave the results of his ob- servations at the tables at Monte Car- lo. Fhe nobleman from Amsterdam, who is greatly respected among the baccarat players of Paris, had just had some very costly lessons in American poker from his New York friends. He was delighted with the mathematical offered to furnish a capital of £10,000 if the banker would go with him te Monte Carlo and instruct him how to . The American, of but he gave the Dutch official enough of an outline of the method of play so that when he made a recent visit to America he spent several profitable nights in' a well-known gambling house near Fifth avenue. The first night he won $250, the second $440, the third $1,200, and the fourth $970. The one fault he found with the system was that the winnings were made at the expense of brain tis- sue. He said he would not attempt to follow it longer. Meanwhile the secret of the "graphic system" of "breaking the bank at Monte Carlo" lies in a safe-deposit box in Broad street, and the man who has the key refuses to indulge in public gambling.--'Leslie's Weekly." A Golf Sermon. To illustrate his text, "Thou-art not far from the Kingdom of God," an Ed- inburgh _minister the other day drew, od from the putit. 'Never yp,neverin.' I those of you who are golfers know what that means,andIam_ sure if you have. ever paid any attention to the game you will be struck by the way In which the game of golf seems to reproduce the common scenes of life. Those you who ian t play may know that the great ol is to put the little white" ball into the little hole. So long as you are short of that, if you don't do it-- well, the other. man does it before you. He has won the hole. And in doing this, when you come to what is called the 'putting green,' and you take your putt--it may be a beautiful putt, it may run straight to.the hole, but if it stops short you will say to yourself, and your partner will say to you, 'Never up, neverin. Itisabeauty, but it-wants legs." And that is just exactly the situation here--'not far from the kingdom.' You may be 'lying dead,' as we say. The next shot is sure to do it. 'Never up, never in,'" Casey -- Fifty dollars Callahan has spint tryin' to git his mother-in-law out av purgatory, Daly--Fifty dollars? Casey--Th' same! He siz he wants to git her out before he goes in if it kim be done!--"Puck." er | i Bees and Honey. While a windbreak on the north and east side of the bee-hives enables them to get out a little earlier in the spring, and helps to protect them from extreme cold in the winter, if wintered out of doors, there should always be a protec- tion from the extreme heat of the sum- mer, When the thermometer is ranging at or above 100 degrees, and the full blaze of the noonday sun is pouring on the hive, it is a hot place, especially Sf 'there is a large colony, and the bees arc coming in loaded with honey, and heated by long flights. Under such con- ditions it is not strange that the bees cease work and cluster about the hive, or even in trees and bushes, where they can find shade. We have heard of cases where under such conditions the combs melted down, wasting the honey, and often drowning some of the bees in i downfall. To prevent this there should be shade provided for them, and while some make this of boards s0 placed as to cast a shade during the hottest part of the day, others prefer an awning of canvas. Lither _-- used, and in the fall changed so as to act as a windbreak until spring, 'while the trees and bushes are bare of foli- age.--American Cultivator. A certain small youth from the east end of London has'just been deported into the country for a week's holiday, under the auspices of one of the benevo- lent societies which now exist for that purpose, and on the morning after his arrival he stood in the main street of she rural town watching the local pair- horse *bus as it drove up from the rall- way station. "Hi, sonny," shouted the driver as he brought his team to a standstill, "just catch hold of that horse's head, will you ?" "Which 'orse ?" queried the iad. "The off * un," said the driver. "orphan," said the lad in dis- gust ; "'ow d'ye think Hi knows which ov em's a horphan? Garn, you don't kid me that way," and he walked away, with an air of supreme contemnt: Changed His His Mind, | a young officer at St at San Francisco hed been orderéd to the Philippines. Ac- cording to a Western paper, he re- ceived the fdllowing telegram from the War Department at Washington: "You can go to New York, and sail on transport that goes by Suez." The officer replied: "'Would prefer ta cross Pacific direct." Then the Department telegraphed him again: "Transport will make good time; has sixty women school teachers on board." The young Meutenant "Save ma a barth on | answered3 " Canadian' {Who hsve Egyptian _ Damiana Wine Endorse our claim that it (is the Grandest Tonic Sold on the American continent, and is unequalled as a speedy and pleas- ant Remedy in all cases of Stomach, Liver, Kidney and Bladder Ailments, or as a Restorativey*or use after .a long and painful i: @™%s. It is nor- alcohelic, yet stimulating; contains no drugs, only Nature's rarest boun- ties. We defy competition and guaran- tee its properties. Mailed in Canada, 75 cents large bottle. The Egyptian Damiana Co, 88, 90, 92 Church St. Toronto: Ps Head Office: London, England. Branches all over the werld. The finest Pain Killer on earth for Man.or Beast, Egyptian Embroca- Try. it. Mailed free; 50 cents freight prepaid,