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About The Albany register. (Albany, Or.) 1868-18?? | View Entire Issue (Oct. 30, 1874)
, 'jpirUSt-Cf J rtT!I.ISIIKT FTFBV FRII1ATET COLL. VVJV CLKVE. ALBANY, OREGON. SIXTH MILES AN HOUR. Mr. George Bangs, Superintendent of the Railway Postal Service, is making arrangements, so it is said, for the more rapid transportation of the mails. He proposes that mail trains, consisting simply of a locomotive and a mail car, shall be run between the chief cities of the Unien at a rate of speed much above that of ordinary express trains. By this means it is expected that the mails can be carried from New York city to Chicago in twenty-four hours, and that a similar reduction of time can be made by mail trains on other routes. Com menting on this, the New York Graphic says: "There is no doubt that the speed of railway trains in this country can be greatly increased. On tho Hud son River road, within the last two or three years, the fast express which runs between this city and Albany, stopping only at Foughkeepsie, has attained a rate of speed which compares favorably with that of the fastest English ex presses ; while the morning newspa per trains ' between New York and Philadelphia run at the rate of nearly sixty miles an hour." This increased speed has been rendered possible by improvements in the road-bed and rails which have latterly been made. It is as safe to travel fifty miles an hour over steel rails bolted together with " fish plates " as it formerly was to travel at a speed of thirty miles an hour over iron rails loosely connected by cast iron "chairs." Our railroads are suscepti ble of still further improvement, and there is no reason why, when steel rails and iron bridges come into general use and sharp curves and heavy gta'des are modified.we should not be able to travel at nearly -double the speed now prac ticable on most of our great railway lines. The mail trains proposed by Mr. Bangs will materially hasten the day of rapid travel. It will be found that a speed of fifty miles an hour is, with proper precaution, and over a prop erly built road, quite as safe as the ordinary speed of express trains. In a short time the railway companies will find it greatly to their advantage to at tach passenger cars to the mail trains, which will run for hundreds of miles without stopping except for coal and water, and the speed of which will be emulated to some extent by other ex presses. We shall probably be able to ride from New York city to Chicago be fore many years in eighteen or twenty hours. Before this speed can, however, become general, the plan of Mr. Yan derbilt in providing separate tracks for passenger and freight trains will have to be adopted. With passenger trains rufnning at a speed of sixty miles an hour, there would hardly be a possibi lity of carrying on the freight business over the same line of rails with either safety or dispatch. ENGLISH MA TR1MON1AL ST A TISTICS. An English writer commenting on the facts brought out by the last census of Great Britain, says : " The women of Great Britain, as a rule, marry at a far earlier age than common experience would lead one to imagine, there being no less than thirty-four thousand wives under twenty, and some the authori ties, for some reason best known to themselves, do not say how many who are under fifteen are included in this column. The husbands take a differ ent view, for we find only six thousand married men under twenty, or about one-sixth of the number of wives in the same period of age.. But perhaps the most remarkable feature in these matri monial statistics is the extraordinary disparity of ages between husbands and wives. Thus, out of a million husbands whose ages at the census-taking varied from thirty to forty, six hundred and seventy thousand were ten years young er, and fifteen hundred were under twenty. The reverse of the picture is, however, also to be shown ; in eighty thousand of these million couples the wives were ten years older than the hus bands, four thousand were twenty years older, and three hundred were thirty years older, forty-two were forty years older, and will it be believed ? four of these husbands ranging in age from thirty to forty, were living with wives from eighty to ninety, or, as people com monly say, with women old enough to be their mother. " LONDON PROPER. We are apt, says the Chicago Tribune, to boast of the size of our city meas ured in miles. Our square mileage compares meekly with the vast area of the metropolitan district called Lon don, which is 150 square miles. And yet the city proper is confined to a space hardly a mile square. This is the wealthiest spot of ground in the world. Its annual "revenue is 2,500,000. Its municipal government is the oldest, richest, and most renowned in .the world. The head of the municipal gov ernment is, as everybody knows, the Lord Mayor, and the legislative body the Corporation. Their powers, being mainly traditional, are vague but vast, and their capacity for entertaining pub lic visitors enormous. The trifling en tertainment given the Shah of Persia cost 10,900, which, for one meal and "fixings," was a pretty decent amount. The Lord Mayor's salary is 9,642, a sum odd enough in amount and about etjual to half the expenses. This great potentate is elected annually by the Corporation, taking his year of splendor in rotation, and therefore without the aid of caucus or bank account. It is the intention of the present government to extend the city by taking in the I whole vast metropolitan district, give it )a written constitution, with the Lord i Hfo-rnr at its head, and relesratetha elec tive power to the masses. TREASURER SPINNER. A eorrespondent of the Albany Even ing Journal gossips pleasantly about the early life of United States Treas urer Spinner, who has lately been visit ing his old home in Herkimer county, N. Y., and shaking hands with some of the friends of his youth. He writes : " Mr. Spinner was born in the little vil lage of Herkimer about sixty-six years ago. When he was about seventeen years of age he went to Amsterdam to learn the harness-making trade. After working a couple of months for a man whose name we have heard, but do not now recall, he engaged his service to David DeForest, Esq. , who is now one of the oldest residents of that village. At the end of a year Mr. Spinner be came a partner in the business, which he assisted in conducting a year longer. He then sold out his interest and re moved to Herkimer. Mr. DeForest takes great pleasure in talking about J his old friend, and regrets exceedingly that he did not have an opportunity to see him last week. According to all accounts, the present watch dog of the Treasury ' used to be a very studious young man entirely too much so for his friend DeForest, whose fortune it was to share his bed. Mr. Spinner Liked to sit up at night and away into the morning and read by candle light. As may naturally be supposed this course of proceedings seriously disturbed his slumbering companion, and the only way the companion could 'get even with him was to put out the candle by throwing a pillow at it, which he was frequently obliged to do. Whatever Mr. Spinner read he remembered, and in all the discussions which he had with his ' learned friend ' in the old harness shop on Main street, concerning points of history, etc., he invariably came out victorious. ' It's no use talking,' he would say to his opponent, ' I've read it and what I read I remember.' On one occasion it was found to be neces sary to send to a library in Albany to decide a bet, when it was discovered that, as usual, Spinner was right." DENUDING A COUNTRY OF ITS TREES. The Khanate of Bokhara affords a signal illustration of the damage done by denuding a country of its forests. Thirty years ago the Khanate was one of the most fertile provinces of Central Asia, and, well wooded and watered, was regarded as an earthly paradise. Five years thereafter a mania for forest-clearing brokeout among the inhabitants, and ontinued to rage as long as there re mained timber on which to vent itself. What trees were spared by rulers and people were afterward utterly consumed during a civil war. The consequence of this ruthless destruction of the forest-growth is now painfully manifest in immense dry and arid wastes. The water-courses have become empty chan nels, amd the system of canals construct ed for artificial irrigation, and supplied from the living streams, has been ren dered useless. The moving sands of the desert, no longer restrained by forest-barriers, are gradually advancing and drifting over the land. They will continue their noiseless invasion until the whole Khanate will become a dreary desert, as barren as the wilderness sep arating it from Khiva. It is not sup posed that the Khan has sufficient energy or the means at his command to arrest the desolation that threatens to spread over his territories. The exam ple is one to stimulate enlightened gov ernments to avoid a similar catastrophe, by preserving a due proportion of forest lands in their domains, and by restoring those which have been im providently laid bare. A BIG STEAMER. The Pacific Mail Company's steam ship, City of Peking, soon to be put on the line between San Francisco and Yokohama and Hongkong is the largest ron vessel in the world. She is 423 feet long, 48 feet breadth of beam, 38 J feet depth of hold, and has a capacity of 5,000 tons, of which 1,500 tons are for coal to propel her. The Peking carries four mats, all of iron. Her iron plat ing is from ll-16ths to a full inch in thicknesss and the plates are 12 feet in length. Her engines are double com pound engines, with two cylinders of 57 inches each (low pressure), and two of 88 inches each (low pressure), all having 54 inches stroke of piston, and in average weather her speed will run up to 15$ knots per hour. She has four decks, strong and impervious to water. There are ten boats four of them are each 26 feet 7 inches long, 7 feet 6 inches wide, and 3 feet 3 inches deep. The smallest of her boats are 22 feet long, 5 feet 3 inches wide, and 2 feet 2 inches deep. There is a full set of awnings, of material made incombus tible, to cover the vessel from stem to stern. The distilling apparatus will sup ply 4,000 gallons of freth water per day for passenger consumption. The total weight of the iron used in the steamer's construction was 5,400,000 pounds. Her actual freight capacity is probably (ex clusive of coal) 4,000 tons. Two Chickens from Onb Eoo. A hen belonging to Mrs. Dolin, living in the neighborhood of Ringwood Mills, Chester county, Pa., stole a nest and hatched out a dozen chickens. When found she was trying to persuade three more eggs in her nest to produce chick ens. One of these eggs was broken and found to contain two little chickens, one white and one black, separate and well formed, but dead. The egg was probably double-yelked, and the result in this case is opposed to the general opinion that double-yelked eggs always produce twin chickens united together. A DREAM. A contributor who has tested the ef fects of alum water as a bed-bug exter minator sends us the following recital of the results : "I had a dream that was not all a dream. The sun went out in darkness, and the earth swung blind and blacken ing in the moonless air. " It was the midnight hour ' the dead waist and middle of the night, when o'er the one half world nature seems dead " and the predacious bedbug sallies forth on fre quent sorties on the flanks of man. Fret ful I tossed long hours upon my couch, till from my semi-slumber I awoke at sounds like clashing shards of beetles multitudinous ! There by the half spent taper's fitful ray, ye gods bear witness what mine eyes beheld. In columns wild, disordered, yet immense, they came, their brown backs gleaming in the perfumed air ; and as they madly plunged each against other in most reckless haste, a sound went forth like rusting foliage of October's wood when the autumnal zephyr wanders through its aisles. What this might mean I pondered long, unable to divine. Curious I gazed until I saw, upon the upper corner of my couch, an alum crystal glittering in the light, and on its apex as a rostrum stood the Cyclops Polypheme of all the bedbug race, with beak ajar, as 'twere that he would speak. Listening I gathered this : He called the benediction of their patron- saint upon the man who first proclaimed that alum was their bane. " For see," he said, " am I not hale and strong as well befits your chief ? My mandibles acquire a vise-like grip on this most healthful food. But mark you this, from now henceforth, whatever sheets he lies between, our benefactor must remain exempt from any nip of any of our tribe. " With one assent they gave applause, then went their several ways. I turned me o'er to seek a dubious re pose, the poet's lines recurring to my mind : You may twist, yon may turn, or whatever yon will, But the scent of the bedbug will hang round you ML Chicago Ledger. IMPORTANT TO BANK DEPOSITORS. A suit involving qnestions of interest to bankers and their depositors has been decided in the Circuit Court of Maryland. In 1872 the Third National Bank of Baltimore was robbed by bur glars, who rented the next building, opened a commission store, and drilled through into the bank and stole some $80,000, a considerable portion of this being special deposits. William A. Boyd & Co., customers of the bank, had some $20,000 worth of valuable securities in the safe, which were stolen. These were deposited under a special agreement as collateral security for such sums of money as the firm might bor row from the bank from time to time. At the time the bonds were stolen, the firm owed the bank nothing. When de mand was made for the bonds, or their value, the bank refused to pay, on the ground that they were kept in . the safe at the risk of the owners, and subject to their orders. Inasmuch as they were not at that time indebted to the bank, suit was brought in the Supreme Court for the value of the bonds. Two ques tions were argued, namely : were these bonds held by the bank as collateral security, or were they at the time of the robbery merely a deposit at the risk of the owner? If no other obligation rested on the bank than to use reason able diligence in guarding a special de posit, did the manner in which they were kept raise such a presumption of negligence as to make the bank liable ? This last proposition involved most ex haustive inquiry into the mode of con structing vaults, the comparative merits of various burglar-proof safes, the de gree of caution that should be exercised in the employment of night watchmen, compensation that should be paid to watchmen in order torelievethemof the necessity of engaging in other employ ment during the day, and many inci dental matters. The case was tried about a year ago, and the jury failed to agree. The record was then sent to the Circuit Court for Howard county, and a few days ago the jury brought in a verdict for $29,177.83 for plaintiff, the full amount claimed. SONORO US SAND. The Alta California gives a curious account of some sonorous sand recently presented to the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, from Kanal, one of the Hawaiian islands. The sand was sent by W. B. Prink, of Honolulu, who writes concerning it : " The bank which is composed of this sand commences at a perpendicular bluff at the southwest end of the island, and extends one and a half miles almost due south, parallel with the beach, which , is about 100 yards distant from the base of the sand bank. This sand-drift is about 60 feet high, and at the extreme south end the angle preserves it as steep as the nature of the sand will permit. The bank is constantly extending to the south. It is said by the natives that at the bluff and along the middle of the bank the sand is not sonorous. But at the ex treme south end, and for half a mile north, if you slap two handfuls togeth er there is a sound produced like the low hooting of an owl more or lelss sharp, according as the motion is quick or slow. Sit down upon the sand and give one hand a quick circular motion, the sound is like the heavy base of a melodeon. Kneel upon the steep in cline, extend the two hands and clasp as much sand as possible, slide rapidly down, carrying all the sand you can, and the sound accumulates as you de scend until it is like distant thunder. In this experiment the sound was suffi cient to frighton our horses, fastened a short distance from the base of the drift. But the greatest sound we pro duced was by having one native lie upon his belly, and another taking him by the feet and drag him rapidly down the incline, carrying as much sand as possible with them. With this exper iment the sound was terrific ; and could have been heard many hundred yards distant. " ORNITHOLOGIC1SMS. The Great Eyrie Bird The eagle. The Great English Bird The crow. The Great Spreeist's Bird The lark. The Great Sporting Bird The pigeon. The Great Christmas Bird The goose. The Great Toper's Bird The swal low. The Great Swimmer's Bird The duck. The Great Agricultural Bird The hen. The Great Feeding Bird The peli can. The Great Pedestrian Bird The stork. The Great Digesting Bird The os trich. The Great Governor's Bird The snipe. The Great Love Bird The turtle dove. The Great Yankee Bird The early bird. The Great Nocturnalist's Bird The owl. The Great Political Bird The buz zard. The Great Newspaper Bird The ca nard. The Great Thanksgiving Bird The turkey. The Great Cockney's Bird The guinea hen. The Great Boarding-House Bird The old bird. The Great American Bird The bird in the hand. The Great Australian Bird The bird in the bush. The Great Austrian Bird The bird that thinks two heads are better than one. .A FIRE-EATING GENERAL. An amusing anecdote is told of a well-known French General, who played a conspicuous part in a cavalry charge. The gallant warrior had been severely wounded on that occasion, having re ceived a sabre-cut on the head and a bullet in his left thigh. Such an al lowance might have satisfied a man of quiet tastes, but was far from sufficient for the fire-eating General. In relating the charge, which he did at every dinner-party, he was in the habit of throw ing in half-a-dozen bayonet thrusts, and a couple of strap splinters from a shell, and he invariable appealed for corroboration of his narative to an aid ' de-camp who had ridden by his side. On one occasion, having imbibed more than his usual allowance of '47 Chateau Yquem, he drew a more than usually startling picture of his riddled and per forated condition. A cannon-ball had killed his horse, a dozen sabers had de scended at once on his head, a couple of lances had passed through each of his arms, and all the bullets and bayo nets of Germany seemed to have given each other a rendezvous in his body. "You remember it well, don't you ! " he added, turning to his aid-de-camp. The well-trained subaltern had suffered long in silence. The bayonets, bullets, lances, etc., he had got usd to by long practice, but the cannon-ball was the last straw that broke the camel's back. "No, General, I don't remember it; how could you expect me to ? You know as well as I do that the very cannon-ball that killed your horse struck he breast-plate of a cuirassier behind us, and then bounded back and took my head off." ' A TOUCHING STORY. A story reaches us from Detroit of a sad-eyed boy "with dirt on on his chin and a tear on his nose," who went into a Detroit police station, and, having stated that he was a homeless waif, asked humbly to be sent to the State Reform School. Wouldn't he prefer to go the Workhouse ? O no ! he had a brother in the Reform School, and he would like to be with his dear brother. Still, he didn't want to go out and steal something to qualify himself for the school. This touched the heart of a gentleman present, who, after consult ing the Sergeant, said : "I guess we can fix it, my deal boy. I am going to leave my wallet on the desk, and the Sergeant and I will go up stairs. If you take the wallet it will be stealing, and then you can be sent to the Reform School, as you wish." So the wallet was deposited on the desk, the men went up stairs, and when they came down, not only was the property gone, but " the boy, O where was he ?" Alas! he had bettered his instructions and vamosed the ranch of justice, leaving the owner of the pocket-book a wiser man by about $6 worth. Singularly enough, the lad hasn't yet come back to be sen tenced and sent to the school. The Heaviest Warehousing Firm in the Country. The firm of which Moul ton is the most active member are among the largest importers in this country of railroad iron, salt and fish. They are the heaviest warehousing firm in this nation, if not in the world. They own and lease a line of warehouses and docks fronting the upper bay, on the East river side, for at least 1 miles, valued at not less than $50,000,000. These warehouses embrace the Atlantic, Commercial and Erie docks and basin. Moulton is in charge of all freights re ceived from the Mediterranean, South America and those from New England and the British Provinces. In addition to this, he has a large interest in the importations of salt and fish, all of which passes under his direction, ft is claimed that this firm has done a busi ness during five years past of over $250, 000,000. Cincinnati Commercial. TAKING COLD. "Colds "do not spring from the ac tion of cold air upon the body so much as from an impure and weak condition of all the vital processes. In other words, with an average or superior con stitution, and an intelligent observance of all the laws of health, men and women aould not take cold if they wanted to ; they might be exposed to the cold to a degree equal to the beast in the field, and with like impunity. But in the case of persons with feeble constitutions, and who disregard, know ingly or otherwise, the conditions of healthy existence, no degree of care will prevent the taking of cold, as it is termed. Such people, unfortunately, are apt to neglect the study of health while pursuing the study of avoidance of "bad weather." The conclusion from all this is, that neglecting the con ditions upon which strength of consti tution and purity of blood depends, and then striving to avoid in a sedulously careful manner the evil influences of cold upon the body, is like neglecting the substance for the shadow of health; or more properly, it is like one who starves his body, and then strives to keep quiet in order that his strength shall not be exhausted. Let food be taken and the exhaustion from exercise will not ensue ; let all the conditions of health be observed, and then the natura hanges of the weather will fall harm lessly on the healthy functions of the body. NAPOLEON IV. Those interested in the Prince Im perial of France, Napoleon IV., who is now attending school at Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, England, will be pleased to learn that he now stands eleventh in a class of 32 cadets as the result of all the competitive examina tions which he has passed since joining the establishment. In the artillery he is fourth on the whole, having passed as high as second in the last examina tion in that subject. In fortification and geometrical drawing he is eighth. In mathematics and mechanics he is tenth. He stands fourth in military drawing, eleventh in military history, twelfth in landscape drawing, and twenty-first in chemistry and physic?. These results, all favorable as they are, should in fairness be taken in connec tion with the disadvantages under which the Prince has labored. He is the youngest of his class except four ; he has had to follow the course of lec tures and instructions in a foreign language ; he is competing virtually with a much larger number than thirty two, as the class was selected by open competitive examination out of about four times that number ; and, for him, most painful and distracting events have been happening during nearly the whole time he has been at the academy. Those best qualified to judge of his ca pacity and progress, both absolute and relative, are entirely satisfied in every respect. ICELAND WOMEN. In one regard the women of Iceland have obtained completer equality than their sisters in Continental Europe. They receive exactly the same educa tion as the men do. There are no schools in the island, naturally, as fam ilies live almost a dozen miles apart, and instruction is therefore given by the father to his sons and daughters alike and together, the priest where there i3 a priest; sometimes adding a little Latin or Danish. Thus the girl learns all her parents can teach her and is as good an arithmetician, and as familiar with the Sagas as her brothers. Accomplishments, of course, are pretty well out of the question ; painting, not only from the difficulty of procuring materials, but because there is really nothing to paint ; dancing, because you can seldom gather a sufficiently large party, and have no rooms big enough ; instrumental music, on account of the impossibility of transporting a piano over rocks and bogs on the bock of a pony. Nevertheless, we found in a re mote house (a good wood house, by the way) upon the coast, where we were hospitably entertained for a day and a night, not only a piano, but several young ladies who could play excellently on it, and a guitar, accompanying them selves to songs in four or five languages the Swedish, as we thought, the pret tiest of all. Cornhill Magazine. ALASKA AGRICULTURE. A visitor to this far-off region writes "There is a general impression that nothing will grow in Alaska, and that it is a region of hostile winter and savage icebergs, all of which is extravagant nonsense. On open land and along the streams, succulent grasses grow lux uriantly, and sometimes to a height of three and a half feet. Red-top and wild timothy abound on the islands, and in the mainland something very like Kentucky blue-grass grows extensively. Considerable hay has been made this year, the haying season being nearly the same as in Oregon. Heretofore the government has been paying $70 a ton for imported hay, in gold, but this year the natives are cutting and storing na tive hay for about $30 a ton in currency. Barley was raised lastyear, and it yields as well as elsewhere. Potatoes, turnips, onions and the like have all been pro duced on the islands, and generally turn out as in other places." EDUCATION IN JAPAN. Japan," says a traveler, "is divided into seven educational circuits, in each of which is a high school, and each cir cuit is subdivided into thirty-two mid dle school districts; the latter being again sectioned into primary school dis tricts, according to the discretion of the local authorities, to whom also is dele gated the power of appointing school inspectors. These inspectors and school claims are paid out of local funds; the right, however, of appropriating gov ernment funds for that purpose is con ceded, and resorted to in cases of neces sity. All subjects, of whatever rank, who send their children to school, are re quired to report the fact to the local inspector ; and parents of children over six years of age are obliged to send them to school, or give some satisfac tory reason for not doing so." Statisti cal information on this subject shows that one in sixty-eight of the people are obtaining an education a percentage which one would not look for in be nighted Japan. TBE MIXED POETIC STYLE. The first exhibitions of poetic genius are generally rather striking. An editor gives a few specimen verses of a poem which he cruelly rejected : " I bati a dreme ; I thort I was alone, alone ; Oh, it did seme So sad away from home, from home. ' My hed upon my hand I lent, I lent : Mi iee upon the sand I bent, I. bent. " I thort of other days ; And things, and things ; Of happy, childish pla&e, And strings, and strings." This is neither so bold in conception nor so affecting in its conclusion as the following : " Poor Jonathan Snow Away did go All on the ragen mane, With other males All for to ketch wales & nere come back agenl The wind bloo hi, The biilers tost All hands were lost, And he was one, A spritely lad, Nigh 21." A method by which persons with short memories may sing songs which have been partly forgotten, and also supply rhymes, is suggested by the following : " Oh, if I had a lumty turn lumty turn too Iu the land of the olive and tig, I would sing of the lumti turn lurnti to you And play on the thingumy-jig. " And if in the lumty turn battle I fall, A tumti turn's all that I crave ; Oh, bury me deep in the what-you-may-call. And plant thingumbobs over my grave." POSTAL BAGS. If Americans have been during this century the most prolific inventors, it is due to them, also, to acknowledge that tbey have no objection to examin ing and adopting every invention or in strument used by other nations, and worthy of trial here. Not only travel ers, but also and especially public functionaries frem America, keep their eyes and minds wide open when they are in foreign countries, in order to profit as much as possible by improve ments which they see put to use in those countries. The American Regis ter, of Paris, reports that during the examination of the French postal sys tem, Postmaster-General Jewell was struck with the superiority of the bags employed in the conveyance of the mails over those in use in ours. The French bags are made of strong canvas, which does not peel or cut like the leather ones which our postoffice em ploys. Instead of having locks they are simply strapped and sealed, thus combining security with lightness of weight. It is probable that Mr. Jewell will introduce them in our postal ser vice. HYDRAULIC MINING. In the system of hydraulic mining which prevails extensively in Califor nia, there were employed, in 1867, 6,000, miles of artificial water-courses. Prof. Raymond states, in one of his re ports on mines west of the Rocky Mountains, that the flumes of these canals are often of sheet-iron, and in some places are carried considerable distances at a height of 250 feet above the ground. Large volumes of water are conducted in this way, and directed against hills and masses of earth under a hydrostatic pressure that will, if need, cut away solid rock almost as readily as the compact soil. Great damage is done to extensive tracts of country by thus directing streams from their natural channels, and spreading earth, sand, gravel, and pebbles that have been washed down by their cur rents over fertde and cultivated lands. One orchard, valued at $60,000, and another at $200,000, have been so de stroyed. A report from the Agricul tural Bureau at Washington estimates the annual damage done by this mode of mining at $12,000,000. A SAD STORY. The following Bad story of a darkened life is given in the Boston Transcript : In Nashua, N. H. , resides a young whose pitiful lot excites the deepe sympathy. When a child she scalded about the head and fae, an although she survived her injuries the rosy face of childhood was changed to a mask a travesty on the human coun tenance absolutely frightful in its hideousness. In Lowell, Mass., where she once lived, so great was the horror excited by her appearance that she was forbidden by the authorities to show herself on the strees. At Nashua she ventured out the other day and several ladies fainted at sight of her, and a call is now made upon the authorities of that place to forbid her appearance on the streets. What a mournful fate is hers ! To live through the terrible physical suffering only to endure hence forward a keener mental anguish in the knowledge that she is a thing of horror, to be abhorred and shunned by human kind. Ayocno man 17 years old, named Anski, at Lacon, HI., hired out to a man, and was sent every morning after ice. He used to carry it home in a coffee-sack on his back. Its effect was to paralyze the spinal cord, making Him a hopeless invalid. SENATOR MORTON. Of Senator Morton thus writes the Indianapolis Sentinel : " There is cer tainly nothing either effeminate or divine about his appearance, although there are traces of suffering in his face, and he is unable to stand up and speak. His shoulders are broad, his chest deep, ana his voice strong. He seems scarcely to have crossed the meridian line of life, and his thick mustache and long chm whiskers are coal black. The only signs of age about him are that his naturally high forehead is extended by. the wearing away of his dark hair from his temples, and the top of his head is tonsored like that of a medieval monk. Mouth and chin are hidden, but the jaw and nose express force and with out any unkind intentions be it spoken ferocity of character. The latter fea ture is certainly as peculiar as that of Morrissey, the celebrated New York Congressman, running up from the face at a very abrupt angle, and apparently ending, as Heine said all English noses, ended, with a piece chopped off. The face expresses the bull-dog virtues courage, tenacity, endurace, and, if it be said that it expresses the same grade of vices, the phrase is used not to attrib ute traits of character, but to suggest physical peculiarities. The be6t and wisest man that ever lived was as ugly as a satyr, and possessed a countenance upon which was set the seal of every human vice. The contents of the casket, however, were as precious as its outside was foul. To those who have never seen Mr. Morton, it has always been a wonder how he could speak with effect while seated, and it may be said that, artistically considered, he makes his weakness more effective than another could of his strength. Of Chatham it was said that his crutoh became, in his hand, an instrument of oratory. Mor ton uses his infirmity with the same power, and as he sits in his chnir, swing ing it from side to side, and using his arms in strong gesticulation, the mere fact of his attitude lends a sort of dra 'matic authority to what he says. He talks without rising as a king from his throne. Literally and figuratively-hie utterances are cx cathedra. He guides the Republicans of Indiana through this campaign as through all previous ones ; and as the French looked with confi dence on the morning of the eventful day of Fontenoy to the litter on which their commander, Marshal Saxe, was stretched, broken down with disease, so the adherents of the administration turn hopefully to that old armchair." COMETS. Mr. Reeves, the well-known astrono mer, is reported to have recently ad vanced, before one of the English scientific associations, an entirely new theory with regard to comets, and, by the use of diagrams, he showed that the part of the comet termed the tail befng in the direction from the sun and there fore as often in advance as behind the nucleus, is not really a tail. He also argues that as comets are transparent, and all matter is known to be either solid, liquid or gaseous, comets must be the latter, for solids and liquids are opaque. The only known power, he sayf, by which this gaseous matter can be held together is gravity, which must necessarily have a center, and every part of the body being free to move, resolves itself into a sphere, the center of which is in many cases exceedingly dense, gradually attenuating toward the, circumference. This being the case, the rays of the sun are refracted in their passage through the spherical comet, thus illuminating the portion be yond the center or nucleus, which illu mination forms the tail, all this being, according to Mr. Reeves' theory, en tirely in accordance with nature's uni versal laws. ENORMOUS B U SI MESH. One of the surprising things in con nection with the failure of Jy Cooke1 Co. is the magnitude of their business. At the recent trial in Philadelphia, Mr. Morehead, one of the partners of the firm, testified that Cooke & Co. nego tiated for the government $1,930,000, 000 in bonds, and afterwards bought and sold $3,000,000,000 in addition. In ten years that firm transacted a busi ness covering five billions of dollars, a larger amount than was ever handled in the same time by any house in the world. It would seem that a firm hav- i ing the handling of eo much money could have made enough by its enor mous transactions to carry the North ern Pacific through a three-weeks, panic, if not enough to build the road Certainly most bankers would have rubbed tha small amount from the coin as it slipped through their fingers, and either the firm was very honest or did business in a very loose way. Mr. Morehead thinks the house faiied from over-confidence. It had been dazzled by the enormous sums it handled till a paltry $8,000,000 seemed a mere baga telle. It is a remarkable instance of failure from doing a too large and profit able business. What can be sweeter to a teacher of youth than the consciousness that his efforts have been rewarded with glitter ing success, and that he has had a part in ennobling the future society of his country? A' Sunday-school teacher at Alton, ill., can scarcely be said to pos sess that radiant satisfaction. After a very long and beautiful moral lecture it occurred to him furthermore to adorn it by desiring all those scholars to stand up who intended to visit the -wicked, soul-destroying circus. All buta little ame girl bounded to their feet. They have universal suffrage in Italy npon the condition that the voter pays seven dollars and a half for the privi lege. Only one-fifth of the people consider their vote worth the aforesaid sum.