DANGER TO MEN SHUT IN STOKEHOLD OF VESSEL Heat, Fire and Steam All Threat- en the Brave Werkers Dewn Below. Those who win victories at sea really owe them to the arms of the stokers, The stoker is a soldier who fights ores day; he has to be seaselessly watching and on the wlert; he is the only witness of his obscure heroism, says London Bphere. The hardest time for a furnace gang is during a torpedo-destroyer trial a l'outrance. Before a vesse is admitted for service it is forced to submit to @ series of e that are called trials, and that are uy laborious in these trials f "full force," or "to the death," the boilers and engines have a more merciless time than they would undergo in normal service. It is spectacle well worth the trouble to watch a furnace gang during one of these trials. One must descend backward by the nar- row trap which opens on the bridge and go down the quarterdeck lad- der, which penetrates okies! below. hen one is in the stoke Besides the chief. of the siti there are eight men. When everyone is below it seems at first that there is _ RO room to move, so narrow is the space; before and behind the two furnaces limit it; between them are two pumps, the quarterdeck ladder, the ventilator and all the apparatus of pipes, levers, chains and imple- ments. But it is, nevertheless, there that these men SUPPLY A GREAT NEED. All the apparently incongruous apparatus which surrounds them forms a whole so harmonious that no one part can be out of order without upsetting the rest... The pumps, force cold water back into the boilers; this circulates in a cluster of innumerable pipes-- thousands encircle the boiler--lick- ed all over by the fames. All these pipes open into agreat cylindical reservoir, the chest or storehouse for steam. From the reservoir comes the system of pipes which conducts the steam beyond the boil- ers to the engines; in the engines the steam parts with its energy and is transformed anew into water ip the condenser, so that the pumps can take it again, and the again commences without cessation the same cycle. Some cylinders con- taining several tons of water con- stitute o reserve, which is used only to repair the wastage. At the command of the chief the sheet-iron door is closed and the stukehold is henceforth isolated ; it is a prison completely shut in by sheet iron. The ventilator drives' in large waves of air, which it sucks in from without, air which cannot escape until it has passed the grat- ing where the coal is burning. The flames from the furnaces un- expectedly throw out burning splinters, the boilers rumble and vibrate as if possessed with a desire to revolt. Behind their back and closed frosts, at the edges of the doors, at almost imperceptible chinks, the fire shows itself in LINES OF LIGHTNING or in luminous spots; the water and the cinders below resemble a stream of lava variegated by gold. Everywhere there is an opaque ob- curity; it seems as if the shadows alip in without ceasing from the} open doors of the storehouses. The | atmosphere is heavy, thickened with smoke, filled with steam. Above your head. the pipes twist them- selves confusedly. Ve two small and dirty portholes shed | a milky light, which scarcely shows | the last rungs of the quarterdeck; have their threads reversed, the -keyholes are always made upside- emits ; down, 1 ward. . ladder. Everything vibrates, ventilator enorts, the air atrifled groans, the steam whistles. ESTROVER OW FORCED RON ne : i" | | | eriably the fire vaibe out and burns everything. The chief knows what he is sup- posed to do in such cases; he never goes into the stokehold without re- peating to himself his lesson; al- most without any effort of will his brain responds to the emergency and tells him what he must accom- plish. At the pore at which the vessel is going about seven liters of water leave the form every Se About-two min- utes would elapse before the re- serves of vapor and the top of the pipes could be empty. After this there would also another couple of minutes before the pipes would commence to get redhot; thea one of them would burst, and the jet of steam it would produce would drive the flames everywhere. The pipes would burst at the precise moment when the doorf of the furnace was opened, because the fresh air of the ventilator would pass by and strike The chiet immediately orders the men to cease replenishing the fur- nace; he then waits for one of the two precious minutes, and if- no change takes place he orders the fire to be raked out. In front of the wideopen furnace, literally ad- vancing to death if a pipe should crack, a stoker must loosen the hook, rake out some of the glowing coal, strive to reach the bars of the rate, force out some of them, and then by means of the space thus made hastily rake the blazing mass of cinders into the water. If has not the time and the explosion takes place the chief throws ~ the ventilator wide open at the risk of making the splinters fly in order drive back THE FIRE AND STEAM. Then if there is still time he throws himself flat on his stomach like the others, his head under a sack, a handkerchief between his teeth be- cause of the steam that burns the lungs, and then he waits. The danger that they await is of a kind that rarely comes to the lives of most people. Suppose that in the engines the fault had been discovered, the crack riveted, that the last effort had finally suc- ceeded, that the risk alone had been run, first some tiny drops. then the water itself, would reappear at the bottom of the water level. Without a word, with work sus- pended for only five minutes, the men would resume their labor, but with the difference that tools would seem light, the air refreshing and even the regular sound of the pumps would be sweet in their ears. But unhappily too often the end is more tragic. It would take much space to record even recent traged ies. At Cherbourg at the end of a torpedo trial a few years ago an in- take of flames set the boiler alight, terrified the gang of men, and then stopped of itself, and for some seconds the men thought they were let. off with merely a great fright. But soon after there was a fearful ery, the cry of a man mortally in- ured, a cry which was never for- gotton by those who heard it I came from an inspector whose clothes were burning. For asecond he wreithed in the room, then with the movement of one out of his mind he mounted the ladder, open- ed the trap, leaped on the bridge and then threw himself into the sea, where his last cries were stifled. --h_--__-- -- THE HOUSE THAT JAP BUILT. A Japanese house is built quite differently from an American or an English one. The roof, which with us is the last important part of the outward structure to be completed, | is with the Japanese the first thing to be finished. All the tools used by the carpenters and joiners have a reversed action. the gimlets are threaded in the opposite way high up/from our; the saws are made so as to cut on the upward pull, and not on the downward thrust; screws and and the keys turned back- In the house, if the clock It the pumps drive back the wate7} is an old one it will have stationary regularly, if the fresh water re- places exactly and without cessa- tion, the wastage in steam, no part of the sheet iron or the mass of tubes can get redhot, and every one feels secure. But it is necessary that nething gets out of gear in all this complex assembly of boilers, hands, with the face 1 evolving ee ward, and the hands marked 8, 5, 4, 3, and go on, reckoning ee from noon. --~--- AS USUAA. "What's the matter here?" asked -- boiler in wapor|. t supply. FAMOUS REGIMENTS OF ERIN SLAUGHTERED. The Royal Irish Regiment Shed It's Blood Like Water at -- Namur. An exceedingly interesting history o the bravery of the Irish soliders in fighting for the crown of Great Britain has-been written by Lieu- tenant-Colonel G. Le M. Gretton, of which the following is a brief con- densation : The history of the Irish regiments in our army is a very picturesque one, For example, the Fourth Royals Dragoons Guards, formerly the First Irish Horse, fought in the -- with Wellington, in the heavy cavalry charge at Balaclava, and at Tel-el-Kebir. The Fifth Royal Irish Lancers fought as "The Irish Dragoons' with Marlborough at Blenhelm, Ramillies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet, winning on the battlefield, togethér with the Scots Greys, the right to wear the Gren- adier bearskin. Only the Greys now retain it. The Sixth Innis- killing Dragoons (raised at the same time as the Fifth Lancers) fought at Dettingen, took part in the charge of the Union Brigade at Waterloo, and added to its fame in the Heavy Cavalry Brigade charge at Bala- clava..._The--Kighth~Royal Irish Hussars, raised by William III. fought in Spain under, Peter- borough in Queen Anne's War, did splendid work in India against the Hahrattas, and won wider fame still in the Light Brigade charge at Balaclava. Six other Irish cavalry regiments, now disbanded, did good service to the British' flag in various Wars. And of our Irish infantry. the fame of the Inniskilling Fusili- ers (the old Twenty-seventh, dating from 1690) is world-wide. They gave their lives for the a. on half a hundred " 'stricken field among these Waterloo, where 500 men felland every officer but one was knocked over, without the regi- ment moving an' inch or firing shot.' The Royal Irish Rifles had their part in winning no fewer than 10 of Wellington's Peninsular victories; the Royal Trish Fusiliers are the same old Fighty-seventh, "the Faugh-a-Ballagh Boys," who in hand-to-hand fight won the first Napoleonic Eagle taken by the British Army. And the glory can never fade of the Connaught Rang- ers. who shed their blood like water for the honor of the British flag at Badajoz, Fuentes D'Onoro and Wat erloo, Picton's favorite crops when there was in hand 'business with the cold iron."' A PICTURESQUE STORY. The story of the Royal Irish Regi- ment is quite as picturesque as an) that the Irish part of the army can No fewer than fifteen "Battle Honors' grace their colors, recording duty done all the world over; literally so for the Royal a tage of Ireland has fought in Europe, in Asia, in America, in Africa, in Australasia. They won their famous motto, "Virtutis Nam- urcencis Premium," at the outset of their career, two hundred and six- teen years ago, and the man who gave it to them was one of the great leaders in war of European History, King William III. who with his own eyes witnessed their splendid feat. It was on August 20, 1695, at the storming of Namur, the most formidable forte's in Europe at that day, garrisoned by veterans of the Army of the Grand Monarque. breach had been battered in _ the walls, but the first assault failed. Undismayed by the confusion and depression around them, the Irish- men with a yell rushed at the breach. blo over the bodies of those who fell in the first attempt, but halfway up they reached the Grenadier's high- water mark, and thence struggled upwards over ground covered by no corpses but those of the Fighteenth. From the neighboring works they were tormented by cross fire, but yet pushed on, to the admiration of their foes, who through the clouds of smoke watched them gradually winning their way up the breach, the colors high in air, despite the carnage among the officers who carried them. Mad with excitement pipes, engines, condensers and pumps. Unfortunately, water is the caller, noticing the barren ap- capricious, Sometimes, without ap. pearance of the house. "Sent your parent cause, when everything goods away to be stored'"' | seems in order, it slowly lowers be-| "No,"' replied the hostess. 'Not . low the water level. Immediately | at all. My daughter was 7 taken this is observed the.men work the regulating taps. the pumps are riven with more force to try to accelerate the pace, and all the time the fire is devouring tons of coal, and still the water gets steadily lower. Sometimes the cause of the mischief 1s a leakage--a pipe is broken in some innermost recess by the vibrations or a joint is strained bit by bit, and the water leaks out. some minutes the water, the faithful ally against the fire, only roe in the level when the ship ls. Everyone watches it furtive- This is the moment when a PANIC MUST BE AVERTED, for that always means .a spvage tosh fer tho foot of the eddee, ne Rb tier: ta, a oe : is bperet in last week and she has merely taken away the things | that she thought! belonged to her.' o ae. A witty lawyer, whose ability brought him to the front rank ino his profession, ultimately became a member of Parliament. In the course of a debate on one occasion he considerably angered a member of the opposite party. The latter jumped to his feet and exclaimed, angrily: "The honorable member or X----, as everyone knows, has cooms: to let in his upper storey.'"' The lawyer merely smiled as he re- plied: "True, I have rooms to let, but there lies the difference be- tween the honorable member for Z---. and myself. Mine are far-| ;and determined to win at all cost, the regiment by a splendid effort reached the top of the breach, | where the colors were planted to show the King, who from a_ hill behind the Abbey eagerly watched the progress of his British troops, that the Terra Nova was his. But as the men surged forward they found themselves faced by an en- d by the bom- bardment. The officers holding their lives as nothing for the honor of their country and their corps, led rush after rush against the en- trenchment, but in vain. ey could not reach it; guns posted on the flank of the down whole ranks; infantry fired into them at close range. All that men could do the Eighteenth had done, but nothing could withstand such a torrent of lead; the second ed. and the remnants of ackward st FOUGHT FOR CROWN! .| To help to pay At first they had to scram-' breach mowed | FORLORN HOPE ATTACKS. They soon came back, "althou to onlookers it seemed impossib: des troops fresh from the co failure would another breach." Heading yet another forlorn-hope attack, the Royal Irish, with resist- less heroism, captured the position |. with the result that betore evening the fate of Namur was s Marlborough's four triumphs, Blenheim and Ramillies, Qudenarde and Malplaquet, are also on the oe of the Royal Irish and the ur names represent in addition a 'long series of desperate but now forgotten seiges by which fortress after fortress was wrested from the French." They helped to hold Gib- raltar when the Spaniaras tried to recapture the fortress in 1727; fought in the American War of In- dependence; took part in the de- fence of Toulon in the war with the French Revolution; assisted Nelson and Sir John Moore to take Corsica; and fought at Alexandria in the fierce battle in which Sir Ralph Abercrombie met his dea' The past 60 years have seen the Royal Irish at the front in almost every war in which the British army has taken part. The Crimean War and Indian Mutiny; wars in China and Burmah; the New Zea- land War; service in Afwhaniatart: the battle of Tel-el-Kebir; magnifi- cent work in the Nile expedition which Lord Wolesley led in his gal- lant effort to rescue Gordon; the Black Mountain and Tirah camp- aigns on the Indian frontier; the South-African War--such are more recent events in the record of the Royal] Irish. . CHOIR SINGER'S SALARY. Receives $5,000 a Year for Singing Once a Sunday. The highest-priced choir singer in the world is Corinne Rider Kelsey, who receives 85,000 a year from the First Church of Christ (Scientist) in New York for singing once every Sund%y nine months in the year. In her single person she is the whole choir, and the entire appropriation for the vocal music goes to her. In addition, her outside earnings from concerts. it is claimed, bring her total income close to $20,000 a year. For the singer with ambitions the choir has usually been a stepping stone. Girls with more voice than means have been glad to aceept a church position for the chance of being heard, with little more by way of salary than compliments and cabfare. But Mrs. Kelsey chose her field deliberately because of its free- dom from the advantages of being iuseparable from the theatre. She has sung in opera and knows. She was born in Rochester, New York, but early went west and received the grounding of her musical educa- tion in Chicago. Then she went to New York for further instruction. for her lessons she sought a position/in a church choir and finally found one with the First Presbyterian"Church in Brooklyn. Within a year she was a concert star. She resigned her position and, putting her earnings to still further study, went abroad. Merit and hard work won her a debut in Lon- don at Covent Garden in 1898. To most young women it would have seemed that she was on the thres- hold of her career. But Corinne Kelsey sat down to think over the situation. The beginner in opera, she knew, had a long wait for doubtful fame, certain competition with the best voices in the world, life without-a home, and all the whims of managers and ---- of the profession to meet. So sh decided she would go back to the old field she had left--the church-- as @ profession. It was acrowded field, but not with voices of her aaa § The well-to-do congrega- tion of the First Church of Christ (Scientist) gave her the apprecia- tion she craved and had the means to genttiy it. PI PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. Malicious innuendo and ridicule are cowards' weapons. N'ne out of 'ten rich men were poor boys. Poverty is an incentive to push. It is a well-established fact that men are so constituted that they are unable to do their best work except under pressure. It is equally true that the average man finds it extremely difficult to withstand the enervating effect of prosperity. If you make a mistake and offend a friend don't hesitate to apologize. It will make you bigger, broader, happier, and will prove you a man instead of a sham. . When hate strikes a blow, the hater's arm is likely to be fractured by the act. Remember in business that suc- cess depends on the man and not on the plan. An honest man has a chance to succeed, but a dishonest man has no chance whatever. : What a lot of time would be saved if some of the time lost in hurry- ing hadn't been wi > It's a good plan to take: your troubles to a Y hilosophical friend who is big enough to point out the fact that 'you yourselfare to blame for having troubles. A people should be guarded against temptation to unlawful by: f SMT. CITY OF LEARN |THE SCOTTISH CAPITAL 18 A BEAUTIFUL CITY. = It is The Pantheon of Patreitiam and Seal of National Histery. yh ry of modern cities, what wonder that the heart of every true Scotsman pulses at the very mention of the name. To the Scotsman the Mod- ern Athens is what the Old Athens was to the Greek, the pantheon of patriotism, the soul of national history and association, saya the Edinburgh Scotsinan. Surely no city of to-day can move the stranger as Edinburgh, w'th its mixture of romance of the past and of the life to-day in exquistie b'end ing of beauty. He is indeed a clod -who atits sight feels not an estasy amounting almost ta pain, s> lovely is this most lovahie of-capitals. Nature itself has well endowed Edina. In the distance lies the sea. At one side rises the majestic rock crowned by the grim old fortress, while a mile away towers Carlton Hill, and between these extends the finest promenade in Europe with its stately edifices, its gardens, and its monuments, What boots it to say when first Edinburgh arose. Let it suffice' to oes that she received her name from Edwin, King of Northumbria, a territory which in that seventh century embraced all the North- land, from the Trent upwards, in- c g Yorkshire. QUIET AND SEDATE as'is this city of learning to-day, in the past it was ever the focus of tur- bulence, of storm and passion. Men armed to the teeth then flaunted down the narrow streets, which quarrels and bloodshed claimed for their own. "The streets of high Dunedin saw lances gleam and fal- chions redden, and heard the slog- an's deadly yell."' Edinburgh's mob was known throughout Christ- endom as the fiercest of fighters. It was in 1128 that David I. founded the Abbey of Holyrood, since when the city has grown in steady progression, starting with the long straggling High street, connecting the castle and Abbey, which gradually sent off branches of wynds and closes. Then a wall was built about the city, which some four centuries ago was made 7d metropolis of Scotland by James II Man of Peace, granted the citizens important privileges through the Golden Charter, and gave the craftsmen that famous banner, the Blue Blanket, wrought by the queen's own hands. In many a troublous fight has this old banner proudly flown, and unto this day it is jeal- ously treasured by the burghers. The throbbing story of Edin- burgh's greatness is too long to mention here, though it was when Queen Mary ruled that its romance was at the highest. It i is with this time that the name of John Knox is interwoven. One must call to mind how Jenny Geddes. that doughty old kail wife of the Tron, made history by fling- ing her stool at the head of the Dean of St. Giles. Then came THE FRIGHTFUL TIMES when the Covenanters signed the Sol emn League and Covenant with their blood, thus signing the death war- rant of the faithful. Then the old wynds and quaint streets saw terrible scenes; they saw the great Marquis of Montrose hanged and quartered, an e Marquis of Argyl drageed t: execu: tion to em>once "The swectest maiden e'er he kissed"--the heads- man's block. And so until long after the union the troublous tale ran. It was in the days of the Stuarts that parliament began to meet in the great hall of the castle, the place cf meeting being altered later to the City Tolbooth, until the pres- poh pestieonenh house was erected in This king, the 1631 The glory of Edinburgh is its castle, perching on that remarkable crag which Stephenson call Bass Rock on dry land," a rock which in many parts to this day is unscalable. There a fortress has stood since times beyond the memory of man, while time after time the castle has been taken by the English and re-taken. On the crowd of the castle rock is the oldest building in Edinburgh, the little Norman chapel erected by St. Margaret, some eight centuries ago: Margaret was the wife of the famous Malcolm Canmore. Within the castle is the strong room containing the Scottish re- galia. For over a hundred years the regalia was forgotten, but were dis- covered by Sir. Walter Scottin a large oak chest. By the conditions of the union these "honors of 8cot- land must never be worn, but must always be kept in the castle. BEAUTIFUL THOROUGHFARE. The glory of the modern city is Princes street, which Scottish peo- ple claim provides the most mag- hing the means nificent view in Europe. Here stands the femous: Scott monument, ene } proudly term it the Modern blance 'Edina, fairest and ae cemantis| This memorial rises two hur sol above its. foundation of | To-day there are 193 miles | streets in the city, including ma, nificent equares, and boasting sta ly buildings. It is from its learning and re its situation that its' inbabitat @ resem which is heighter by some splendid specimens of ly Grecian architecture. On the heights of Calton stands the National Mounment,! fashioned after the Pantheon «ti Athens, which looks like some of the past, from the fact that has never been completed. It was built to commemorate the gallantry} of Scottish soldiers, but scarcely the funds subscribed were too per the completion of 'the pro- PP iocationally eonadered, there . no doubt that Edinburgh 5p eminent. The roll of its Walter downwards. beauty spots around the capital are so erable, embracing such places Arthur's seat and Blackford Hill, the view from which has recei eceived| immortality in "Marmion."' What wonder that pen fails inde-, scribing this fairest of cities which' has ever fired Scottish thought, this city of such fascinating grandeur that it might well have been brought into being by some power- ful magician desirous of dassling mankin Do . MONARCHS OF THE AIR. Will Man Ever Emulate the Fr gate-Bird or Albatross? Early in the morning the great vulture of North Africa leaves his eyrie in the mountains and soars away into the sky, rising to such a -height that the human eye, strain-; ing against the sun-bathed sky,' fails to perceive him. Al day long, hour after hour, he swings or hovers, never dropping unless his keen eyes perceive car- rion beneath, and not until sunset does he wing his way back, appar-, ently as fresh as when he 'started.! This vulture has been watched by: the hour through powerful tele- scopes, and never once seen to give. so much as a single flap witb his wings. Man has been studying bird- flight for generations past. He has done his best to imitate it, he has gone deep into its problems, and has put forward all kinds of in- genious theories. And at the end of it all, even now that he himself is beginning to master the air by, means of a rigil screw-driven Lelane, he has to confess that the problem of soaring flight is well- night insoluble. For a very long time the common explanation of soaring flight was that soaring birds, like the vulture, took advantage of air currents. It is a fact that some birds, like the albatross, need a breeze to enable them to 'sail through the air; but there are others, such as the fri- gate, or man- -of-war bird, which can, rise in the calm and float all day! without a motion of their broad pinions. ' The -wings of the frigate-bird have an expanse of ten to twelv feet, and it can fly at any paco up to a hundred miles an hour, and can remain for a ge on the win without once perchin Hemisphere has been known to fol- low a sailing ship for a fortnight at a time, apparently never rest- ing. Its wing expanse is greater even than that of the condor, onel bird that was shot off the Cape of Good Hope measuring seventeor! and a half feet from wing-tip to wing-tip. From these figures it might be gathered that the larger the 'wi expanse of any particular bird rr greater its powers of flight. Yet here we strike another snag., The powers , of. flight in various, birds are not 'by any means pro-: portionate to the bearing sur of their wings. The stork, for instance, can fh magnificently. On its annual mt- gration it covers two to three thousand miles, and will cross th Mediterranean with the greatest ease. Now, the stork weighs eared times as much as a vigeon, yet proportion to its weight has only; half as much wing surface. But a bird of prey must be able; to do much more than support ite own weight in the air. It has te lift its kill from the ground and carry it perhaps many miles up inte the mountains. And there are many cases on re- cord of eagles having carried » children weighing, wi clothes, over fourteen pounds. If man could build an acropla to match the eagle, that aerop would only weigh, engine about eighty pounds, ae its could carry it on its back. It wo baye to able to rise with f Ebel to in : remain afloat 'at least tais"howar 8 & ter the credit of the Scottish people, ors gr nen citizens is truly noble, from oe The The albatruss of the Southern | What such a bird is capable off - etree 3. bee relie| by