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About Oregon City courier. (Oregon City, Or.) 1896-1898 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 12, 1898)
SKIRH1SH IN CUBA - Chicago Times-Herald. ENLISTED AS A PRIVATE. Louts H. Carpenter Hoa Now Risen to Brigadier General. One of the most striking examples of the democracy of the United States army Is presented by the career of Louis n. Carpenter, who entered the apmy as a private and has risen to be a brigadier general. Carpenter was at the University of Pensylvanla In 1SG1, when lie wa's seized with the war fever and enlisted In the regular cavalry. Within six months his soldierly quali ties won him a commission as second lieutenant In the regular cavalry. Be fore Ute civil war closed lie Was repeat- LOVIS H. CABPEXTE11. edly brevetted for bravery displayed In campaign and on the field of battle to first lieutenant 1803 for "gallant and meritorious services at Gettysburg," captain 1804 for 'gallant and merttorl ouseervlces In the battle of Winchester," then lieutenant colonel United States army and eolonvl of volunteers for "gal lant and meritorious services during the war." He was In nearly oil the cavalry fights of the Army of the rotomac. In the battle of Fairfield, near Gettysburg, he rescued and brought off tlie fMd'the colors of his regiment when the regi ment was surrounded by an over whelming force of the enemy, Ills bravery was so conspicuous that Gen eral Sheridan, one of the greatest cav alry commanders In history, called him to his side as one of the most trusted officers of his staff. After the war of the rebellion he returned to his regi ment and again became conspicuous as an Indian fighter. At the beginning of the present war he was made a briga dier general and put In command of tlie brigade mode by the famous Fifth Maryland Regiment, the crack First Regliiwmt of, the District of Columbia and the celebrated Second New York Regiment of volunteers. How 8late Pencils Are Made. Slate pencils undergo a number of processes before they are ready for use, and In making them nearly all of the manual labor Is done by boys. First broken pieces of slate are put luto a mortar run by stoatu and are crushed to a powder, which Is then bolted In a machine such as Is used In flouring mills. , A fine slate flour results, which Is thoroughly mixed In a large tub with steatite flour and other materials, the whole making a stiff dough. The dough Is kniad('d by being passed between Iron rollers a number, of times, and It Is then taken to a table, where It Is made luto short cylinders four or five lnebes In thickness and containing from eight to ten pounds of material each. ' Four of these cylinders are placed In a strong ' Iron retort which has a changeable nozzle so that the sire of the pencils may be regulated. In the retort the material Is subjected to great hydraulic pressure and Is thus pushed through the nozzle In the shape of a long cord. As the cord comes through the noule Is passes over a knife and Is cut Into the desired lengths. The lengths are laid on boards to dry and are then placed on sheets of corrugated sine, the corrugation preventing the pencils from warplug during the bak ing process. The baking Is done In a kiln which superheated steam Is passed through pipes. The pencils go from the kiln to the finishing and packing room, where the ends are held for an Instant under DRAWN FROM A SKETCH ON THE SPOT. rapidly revolving emery wheel, which neatly points them. Finally they are packed In paste board boxes, 100 pencils in each box, then 100 of the pasteboard boxes are packed In a wooden box, and they are ready for shipment. Philadelphia Times. BEAUTY AND THE BEAU The Bhow of Gallantry Bebuked by Genuine Courtesy. The car was crowded. It happened that only men were standing, with the exception of a colored woman In the middle of the car. But at a corner a woman dressed In the top of the mode got on. She stood next the door, and plainly here was a chance for some masculine person to be gallant An old beuu, who was seated near the cen ter, was obviously fascinated by the appearance of this beauteous female, and bobbed his head to catch her eye. Finally succeeding he arose, beckoned to her, and murmured: "Wou't you take my seat, madam?" The colored woman, standing direct ly In front of him, heard this, and. turning, thanked him gratefully as she made a movement toward the vacant space. With Indignation wrinkling his tinted nose, and spoiling for a moment the gracious air which he had assumed, he pushed her back, with both hands at her elbows, as he exclaimed: "Oh, no; not for you, ma'am!" Ills adjustment of expression, was rapid as he turned once more to her of the handsome face and fashionable clothes and made way. Then, with a smile at his neighbors which plainly said, "Didn't I manage that well?" he leaned comfortably on his stick. The favored one had not noticed the little play which had been enacted for her benefit, but a young girl who sat In the next seat was an observer, and saw the warm red deeply flush under the black sklu of the other woman and the tears come In the dark eyes. She saw the mouth quivering, and her own eyes snapped. With a glance at "His Complacency," unmistakably express ive of her scorn and Indignation, she quickly rose, touched the woman on the arm, and gently said: "Take my seat; I'm getting out at the next corner." Then flashing a look at the man. un der which his expression of self-congratulation rapidly changed to some thing near to sheeplshness, she passed out of the car; and more than one man there would have bet that she had not Intended to get off at that corner. New York Sun. r that of the War. Spain has 50,000 Gypsies. Pnttl made her rebut In Cuba, 'Frisco to Manila (5,000 miles. Cadiz to New York 2.800 miles. Key West to Havana ninety miles. Spain has 28.D22.tJOO inhabitants. Russia's common soldier gets $2.25 a year. . Our dally output of powder is 16,000 tons. Cuba has 10,000,000 acres of virgin forest War has doubled the price of army horses. 'Frisco Chinese are making soldiers' clothes. During our civil war there wore 3,123 battlos. Italy's war department utlllies $45, 000.000 a year. Cuba has 1,031,000 Inhabitants; Phil adelphia 1.330,000. Prior to the war the annual net rev euuo of Cutw was $80,000,000. Every Spaniard Is liable to be called to military service on attaining 20 years of age. Policemen in Boston have been In structed to salute the flag whenever It Is carried past them In a parade. A Culxvn Insurgent In order to get cigarettes, risked death by going Into a town with Spanish soldiers. A Salt-Laker who writes poetry flrst rnte thinks there was a Merry Mac In the White House when the news come that the Sautlago bottle had been corked by that cool ship. Philadelphia Record. No one who Is compelled to buy It, Is wry fond of champagne. THEY WALK ON THE CEILING, Two Heiresses with I n lie H ted Love for Gymnastics. Perhaps the most daring perform ance to be seen in all the many places of entertainment at Coney Island. New York, Is that given by two girls, who seem to be altogether out of harmony with their surroundings. These are the Austin sisters, each of them re fined, well educated and of charming personality in every way. Their home Is a beautiful place at Bath Beach, L. L, where their parents live. The latter are persons of good manners and easy deportment, many years of travel In all parts of the world having given them the Indefinable polish which your stay-at-home can never hope to attain, Mr. and Mrs. Austin were traieze per formers since early ehlldhood. In the course of their professional Journey ings they met and married, traveling and performing together for years. Un like niauy others In the same business, they took care of their earnings, in creasing the same handsomely by sev eral Judicious Investments. When their two daughters were still little girls they retired and purchased their pres ent home at Bath Beach. The two children were sent to a first class school in Brooklyn, . from which they recently graduated with marked credit From their earliest childhood they were carefully trained by Mr. Austin, his object being to develop their frames so as to make them healthy and hearty young women. In this he has been entirely successful, but the training the girls received In the spacious gymnasium at Bath Beach also developed the love for such exer cise, which they Inherited from their parents, and last fall they obtained per mission to prepare themselves for pub lic appearance. Now they show dally In a daring trapeze act and also as ceiling walkers. The latter perform ance Is especially thrilling. The girls make a charming modest picture when seen together dressed for their act Almee, the elder girl, has a great mass of chestnut hair, beautiful blue-gray eyes, and an exceedingly dainty appearance. Marie, the younger, a real beauty, was born In Vienna. Her eyes are dark and she wears her hal pompadoured over her face. The girls are attended by their father at all per formances and are at present attract ing much attention by their topsy turvy feats. Plea, for Ueer on Sundays. An extraordinary argument for Sun day opening was quoted by one of the speakers recently at a temperance con vention. He related that at a public meeting once held In Coventry, En gland, an orator urged that public houses should be opened at noon on Sunday, In order that worklngmen should have an opportunity of discuss ing together the sermons they had beard In the morning. . WALKI!tq OS THE CEILIXO. VULTURES IN WAR. Flock to the Fields of Battle to Prey Upon the Dead and Dying;. The part played by the vulture, or turkey buzzard In the war In Cuba is not so well understood by the soldier boys from the North as It Is by those from the South, said Frank N. Jordan, a Chleagoan, who formerly lived in Charleston, S. C. This thought occurred to me upon reading some of the recent reports of the war correspondents con cerning this bird of evil omea Reports from the battle before Santiago July 1 say that thousands of vultures could be seen soaring in the air above the dead, wounded and dying, in a hurry to get at their prey. The other soldiers did not desert the men whose strength gave out but lay down on the ground and with their revolvers kept the buzzards away from their suffering comrades un til the latter were picked up and hur ried out of reach of the rapacious birds. In the Southern States the people are familiar with these birds and their habits. Turkey buzzards are the scav engers of Southern cities, and are so useful in thlsTfespect that they are pro tected by law.' There is a sharp pen alty attached to the law forbidding the killing or wounding of the buzzards. x The buzzard, has long since been voted a great success as a sanitary in spector. Not only In Southern cities, but in oriental towns and villages, as I have read, sanitary precautions, so far as garbage is concerned, axe wholly Ig nored, for the problem of Its removal and purification has been solved by the vulture. The turkey buzzard, which h the species of the vulture family known to the Southern States and Cen tral America, has prodigious strength of beak and claws and it can tear and strip a carcass, leaving nothing but the ciean-plcked bones, in a phenomenally short time. It seems to have tlie strength and rapacity of the wolf or hyena. I have noticed in the letters telling us of the battles at Santiago and vicinity that In many cases scores of our brave boys were reported missing after on engagement The bodies of many must have become prey to the buzzards. With their telescope-like eyes, these vultures can Bee a fallen soldier, horse or mnle from distances that render themselves Invisible, So Impatient are they with hunger, that they begin their attack even before the man or animal Is quite dead, and so sharp Is their sight that a vulture which first discovers prey Is soon joined by others, until at last PART the carcass Is almost covered with the birds. In civilized warfare the victors al ways search the field of the battle, res cue the wounded and bury the dead, whether they be friends or foes. But many are reported "among the miss ing." There the buzzards find their prey. In savage or partly civilized war fare the dead of the vanquished are Intentionally left by the victors to be devoured by the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air. A curious phenomenon In regard to vultures is that they seem to be able to locate the scene of a battle before the fight takes place. One of the most cu rious examples of their astonishing In stinct was observed In the. Crimean war. In the neighborhood of Sebnsto pol the vulture was a very rare bird, from the same reason which has made It extinct In England, lack of food. Yet the war had hardly begun to assume a serious aspect when the vultures ar rived in largely Increased numbers and fed upon the dead horses. Whence did these vultures come? Many came from Northern Africa, for the Arabs declared that during the war very few vultures were to be found In the places where they usually abounded. Many also ap peared to have come from Asia, as the same phenomenon was observed in sev eral parts of India. Just as sharks follow a slave ship, so do vultures accompany a slave cara van and the legions of battle, knowing that many of the captives and the slain will In some way become their prey. MOUNT ATHOS. A Lovely Spot from Which Women Are Excluded. One of the most romantic spots In Europe, though one of the least known to people generally, Is Mount Athos. This Is the name given to an Immense and magnificent promontory, which runs about forty miles Into the Aegean sea, from that grand peninsula of Mace donia called Chaldlce. For more than 1.000 years Mount Athos has been considered the Holy Land of the great Russo-Greek Church. It Is Impossible to express the venera tion and affection with which millions of people regard this locality. It Is In the power of the Turks. Twenty mag nificent and wealthy convents are scattered over this lovely promontory, which Is a mountain garden In the sea. Some of these establishments contain over 300 monks, and nearly as many, servants. Their riches are mainly de rived from splendid estates in Russia, Roumanla, Bulgaria and Servia. For many hundreds of years no woman has ever been permitted to set foot any where In Athos. The fact Is the more remarkable because extreme honor Is accorded to the Virgin Mary In all these MOCXT ATHOS. monasteries. It is related, and im plicitly believed by the monks, that the Virgin Mary herself originated the ex clusion of her own sex from the sacred soil of the place. Mount Athos proper -'!'? a" beautiful peak of white marble, which soars up at the very end of the promontory far out at sea. It reaches a height of near ly 7,000 feet Running back from this apex ts a range of lovely hills, often thickly wooded, and in some places nearly four miles wide, which diminish in height more and more towards the base of the promontory. In various ro mantle nooks of these hills the twenty ancient monasteries ore scattered. Some are perched on these cliffs, in al most Inaccessible positions, and others nestle in the woods. ABSORBS WATER FROM BELOW. Boll in the Ban Joaquin Valley Moist ened by Subterranean Streams. Investigations made " by Professor Milton Whitney, who Is In charge of the division of soils In the Department of Agriculture, have revealed the curi ous phenomenon that the soils of the San Joaquin valley and of the great Palouse district (comprising the fertile wheat-growing regions) contain a con siderable quantity of moisture In ex cess of the amount received from rain fall or surface irrigation. A similar phenomenon has been observed In the Yellowstone valley vand In parts of the Red River valley, and this would seem to explain the mystery why these re gions, which are semiarkL rarely suf fer from drouth. PLAYED BY VULTURES IN But this explanation solves one mys tery only to present another Which is even more inexplicable. In the Mo Jave desert for Instance, where the an nual average rainfall is only five inch es, the soil beneath the alkaline crust Is always moist In Southern Califor nia, where the summer rainfall Is less than an inch, tobacco and sugar beets, which require much water, grow luxu riantly without Irrigation. This phenomenon has been ascribed tentatively to the peculiar quality of the soil to absorb moisture and retain It, notwithstanding the low humidity of the atmosphere. But whence does ttls excess of moisture come? ' Arte sian wells In all the regions under con sideration show water at depths vary ing between forty and 200 feet and It Is conjectured by the department in vestigators that there may be a slew and continuous upward movement of moisture from subterranean sources. Since water, however, never percolates upward it must be assumed that the soils of a large part of the arid and Bemiarld regions of the country consist of a vast sheet of absorbent material, which draws up moisture from below, like blotting paper, by capillary attrac tion. The Investigations of the divi sion of soils in these arid regions will make one of the most remarkable chap ters In the history of agriculture. Phil adelphia Record. ' SAFE WHEN DONE RIGHTLY. How a Potato May Be (Split Open on the Naked Palm of the Hand. Among the several medium-sized sound potatoes on a tray, according to the Scientific American, the Juggler places two potatoes prepared as fol lows: Insert a needle crosswise of the potato near the bottom. After shoir Ing the sword to be really sharp, by cutting paper and slicing one or two of the potatoes, the performer picks up one of the prepared potatoes and places It on the assistant's band; but apparently It does not lie to suit him, so he slices off one side of It using care to cut away the side just under crrmo ox the hasd. the needle and as close to It as pos sible, then places the potato once again on the assistant's hand. After making a few flourishes with the sword, he cuts through the potato, dividing It In half. In striking the potato with the sword he makes sure that the swovd will come exactly crosswise on the nee dle; consequently, when the sword reaches the needle It can go no farther, and the brittle nature of the potato will cause It to fall apart, the very thin portion below the needle offering no resistance to th separation. DISCOVERIES IN LEAP CASTLE. Eleventh Century Staircase Pound in , an Early . nglish Structure. A Birr correspondent writes that a series of Interesting "finds," Just dis covered in the historic Leap castle, have been shown to a number of visit ors. The first and most important was an eleventh century stone spiral stair case springing from the first floor lavel and terminating at the summit of the great tower, 100 feet high. This relic of a remote past is in a splendid suite of preservation. The finely cut stone steps are laid with mathematical accu racy and are large, like tlie passage it self. The O'Carrolls. princes of Ely, whose chief stronghold this castle was. were all big meo in fact a race of giants as the fey relics of them extant attest Hence the reason why every thing about the castle is large. The second "find" Is an entrance to the guard room cut out of the rock, and which was up to the present believed to be a mass Of solid masonry. Here numerous bones, coins of the reign of Edward the Confessor and other relics were found. Human bones in large quantities, flints and spear heads were also found in the extensive range of dungeons which have been brought to light beneath the castle, these curious prison-houses being rock-hewn, and their existence having been previously unknown to the owner of the castle and lord of the soil, Jonathan C Darby, This gentleman is the descendant of the royal house of O'Carrolls of Ely, whose family have remained in uninter rupted possession of the Leap for many centuries, . The present owner, aided by Mrs. Darby, has put into a complete state of preservation the ancient chapel, an apartment twenty-five feet square and high, which is on top of the tower, and here has been discovered a very large and fine early English window, which WAR. from Its great elevation commnniis view embracing eight counties, A Ut ile ueiow this ts a remarkable room, which none of the servants will enter after nightfall. It was the state bi- rooin of one of the princesses of Ely, who was murdered six centuries ago by her lord, and the solid oak floor r- tains-the bloodstains of the royal vic tim. This part of the building is re puted to be haunted, and Mr. and Mrs. Darby, who do not believe In ghosts, admit that they cannot account for the extraordinary noises that nwaainnniiv come from the death chamber of the ' murdered princess, and which make It nearly Impossible for them their female servants in their employ ment, l ue mnnirestattons are reputed to take the form of shrieks, which re sound and reverberate through the building and set all the dogs In the ken nels whining and barking. Leeds Mer cury. A Home-Thrust. "You women are much like Span lards, after all." "What do you mean?" "Well, when you aim you never hit anything." "Now, boys, I have a few questions In fractions to ask." said a teacher; "sup pose I have a piece of beefsteak and cut it Into sixteen pieces, what would those pieces be called?" "Sixteenths," answered one boy, after meditating a moment. "Very good. And when th sixteenths were cut In half, what would they be?' There was silence In the class; but presently a little boy at the foot put up his hand. "Do you know, Johnny?" "Hashl" answered Johnny!' confidently. Current Literature. "How did this happen?" asked the surgeon, as he dressed the wound in the cheek and applied a soothing poul tice to the damaged eye. "Got hit with a stone," replied the patient. "Who threw it?" "My-my wife," was the reluctant answer. "Hum; It's the first time I knew a woman hit anything she aimed at" muttered the surgeon. "She was throwing at the neighbor's bens,' explained the sufferer. "I was behind her."-T!d-Bits. When a woman can't find any place else to put a thing she holds It In her mouth. A younj man's sweetheart Is now known as his "leech.'