JUfcatiu tpzttt. priu-isirrn fvtrt tiitdat bt COLL. CLEVE. ALBANY, OREGON. SNUFF-DIPPING. The New York Times gives some figures about the increase of the habit of snuff-dipping among women. It ' says : "It has been generally consid- i ered that the practioe belongs alto gether to the extreme Southern and Southwestern States, but it is not so ; it extends to a certain degree throughout the entire length and breadth of the land. Snuff-dipping is so called, per haps, from the reason that it is used in small quantities obtained from the bottle or box, as he case may, by dip ping it out with a stick or small spoon. The practice prevails to a slight extent in the State of New York, and to a much greater extent in the cities than in the country. Two kinds of snuff are used by the dippers, both of which, however, are known as Scotch. The difference between them is that one has a certain amount of common table salt mixed with it, and the other has none. They are known as salt Scotch and fresh Scotch. Fresh Scotch is prepared more in this city than in any other part of the State. The following is the man ner of dipping in New York : The dipper is provided with a small spoon, about half the size of a common teapoon, with which she dip1: a sufficient quantity of snuff from the bottle. Then seizing her lower hp with the thumb and forefinger of her left hand, she draws it weH for ward and fills the cavity with the bonne bouchc contained in the spoon. There Bhe lets it remain until it is gradually diffused through her mouth, expectorat ing the while, in a manner that would do credit to a veteran. Sometimes the delicacy is daintily enveloped in a fine piece of tissue paper and deposited in the same place. In the Eastern States the salt Scotch is preferred, but it is not used the same way as in New York. There the dippers use a small stick of some very fibrous wood, the end of which is chewed until it assumes a mop like appearance, owing to the separa tion of the fibers. This is dipped into the snuff and then rubbed on the gums and teeth. A large quantity of snuff is used by the factory girls in all the East ern States, and it may readily be im agined how easily a habit of that kind may extend among a people. Dipping is apparently very beneficial to the teeth, and it may be that the habit is often acquired from using snuff as a dentrifice. The writer of this article has traveled extensively through the South and Southwest, and his experi ence has been that wherever the prac tice prevailed, the teeth of the women were beautifully white and singularly free from decay. Tobacco possesses high antiseptic and detergent proper ties, and must exercise a beneficial in fluence in purifying the mouth. In order to show to what an extent the habit 'has obtained, it will only be necessary to say that in the year 1873, one New York firm alone, Messrs. P. Loriliard & Co. , sold in round numbers 161,000 pounds of snuff, all of which was of the kind used for dipping, be sides more than 150,000 pounds of the regular mixture for the old-fashioned sniffers. Add to this enormous quan tity the large amounts manufactured in the other cities, and some idea may be formed of the extent to which dipping is carried in the United States." J. X. PECKS UTILES AND REGVLA TIONS. Fob the Cojtvesience of Merchants, Bankers and Others. L Upon entering this office you are particularly requested not to use the door-mat, as we wish to accumulate soil inside for a potato crop. II. Please leave the door wide open, or, should you forget yourself and close it, slam it like thunder. Winter ar rangement. III. If the proprietor is engaged in conversation and it is your turn next, please lean your chair against the wall and whistle " Mulligan Guards ;" if you can't whistle, sing. IV. Never neglect an opportunity to improve your mind ; if we are tempo rarily absent, Bit on the desk, pick your teeth with the gold pen and read the letters. More may be found in the right-hand drawer. V. Smoking is particularly agree able ; if you are out of poor cigars we will lend you a pipe. VL If yon see any spittoons please expectorate on the floor, as the former are only for ornament. VIL Our office hours for listening to solicitors of church subscriptions are from 11 to 1 j for book agents 1 to 3 ; advertising men all day. We attend to our own business at night. VIII. We need about one million dollars more of life insurance. If you are acquainted with any agent, please send him in ; he hasn't been here since yesterday. IX. Don't hesitate to ask for a loan, the larger the better; but talk about something else half an hour before hand time isn't worth a cent a year to us. X. Persons having no especial busi ness with us will please call as often as their health will permit, or send doc tor's certificate in case of absence. XI Parties leaving date calendars will oblige us by placing them for the present in a basket under the desk, or until we can get a room with more com modious walls. XH. Bill collectors will haag state ments on the file and call on Saturday at 4 p. m. XIII. This store closes at 3 p. m. on Saturday. St. Louis Republican, SOME FACTS ABOUT THE EAR. Never pick or scratch the canals of the ear with pins, pencils or scoops. It will eventually cause troublesome inflammation and subsequent deafness. Do not try to wash the canals of the ears with so-called aurilaves or end of the towel, or even with the fingers. Such treatment produces impaction of the wax and is not necessary to cleanli ness. Do not try to remove the wax with the ear-scoop. There is danger of in juring the drumheads or of causing in fiamation. Have some competent per son inspect the parts with the ear mir ror and remove the wax ' with the syr inge charged with warm water. This is the best way to remove any foreign body from the external auditory canal. Only occasionally other means are re quired. The parts are always under inspection. A discharge from the ear is always fraught with danger. It should never be neglected. Occasionally it stops itself, but frequently leads to danger I ous complications, such as inflammation ! of the brain, disease of the surround : ing bone, and may set up inflammation ; in other parts of the body, as the lungs, i bowels, etc. i The middle ear, from which the dis charge generally comes, is small, but : exceedingly vulnerable. It is surround- i ed on all sides by vital organs, the : partition walls being very thin. Syr inging with warm water in such cases is ! absolutely essential and unaccompa nied by any danger whatever. 1 Under proper treatment there is no danger of " driving in " the discharge, which is neither a " healthy sign" nor a " safety-valve." N ever keep the canal blocked up with 1 cotton or anything else while discharge is present. The ear requires fresh air, and is not likely to become more inflamed by its admittance, unless exposed to direct draugut, which should be avoided. Black sheep's wool has no healing virtue. Wetting the hair, especially when it is long, and allowing it to dry sJowly often produces deafness and aggravates it when already present. Medical In iratigator. CREMATION VERSUS BURIAL. We do not hear so much about crema tion as we did. The old Anglo-Saxon feeling in favor of coffins seems to be too strong for the Urn party, if there , ever was one ; and the fixed habit of a I race is not so lightly surrendered. In England the proposed change is unpop ular, as proposed changes usually are. In the town of West Hartlepool there is a Board of Improvement Commission ers. The chairman, Mr. Edward Turn bull, had given notice that he would take the sense of the board upon the question of cremation, it having been proposed to purchase land for the en largement of the present cemetery. Upon this a mob of 200 women, mostly belonging to the working classes, forced their way into the room, and when poor Mr. Turnbull made his appearance they began to shout "Burn him!" "Stick him in a tar barrel !" " Give us Chris tian burial !" Then the leader of the Amazons handed in a petition against cremation, as being "revolting to the ideas of modern civilization. " Tne chairman appeased the crowd by the assurance that the Commissioners " had no power to cremate," and so the intruders withdrew with further cries of " Burn Turnbull ! Put him inafurnace !" This didn't prevent him, when order was restored, from advocating his plan "on sanitary, economical, and senti mental grounds." He mentioned, among other things, that " cremation was being rapidly adopted in the United States," which will be news to most of us. On going out Mr. Turnbull was received with a tremendous uproar by the crowd, which had increased to about 2,000 persons. THE SUN'S CRUST. Prof. Young has put forth a very novel theory as regards the construc tion of the sun. He says there can be but little doubt that Faye, Secchi, and others, who hold that the sun is mainly gaseous, are correct ; while, at the same time, the phenomena of eruption which are always occurring on the sur face, as seen with a telescope, estab lish the idea that there is a crust of some kind which restrains the impris oned ga.-,es. Prof. Young states that this crust may consist of a more or less continuous sheet of descending rain not water, of course, but of the mate rials whose vapors are known to exist in the solar atmosphere. As this tre mendous rain descends, the velocity of all the falling drops would be re tarded by the resistance of the denser gases underneath, and the drops would eventually coalesce until a continuous sheet would result, and several of these sheets uniting, would form a sort of bottomless ocean, resting upon the compressed vapors below, and pierced by innumerable jets and bubbles. " SALT. A well-known physician advances it as his opinion that many patients die from deprivation of common salt dur ing a protracted illness. He says: "It is a common impression that the food for the sick should not be seasoned, and, whatever slop may be given, it is almost innecent of this essential of life. In the milk diet that I recommend in sickness common salt is used freely, the milk being boiled and given hot. And if the patient cannot take the usual quantity in his food, I have it given in his drink. This matter is so important that it cannot be repeated too often. The most marked example of this want of common salt I have ever noticed has been in surgical diseases, especially in open wounds. Without a supply of salt the tongue would become broad, pallid, puffy, with a tenacious, pasty coat, the secretions arrested, the circulation feeble, the fusion at the point of injury serious, with an un pleasant, watery pus, which at laat bo comes a mere sanies or ichor. A few days of free allowance of salt would change all this, and the patient get along well." THE SKOOL BOY. The skool boy iz the viktim of cirkum stansiss. If he lives in the country he haz got to git up early enuff to puntch the chickens off from the roost, then start the fire in the kitchen stove, then put on the tea-kittle, and then go for the cows. After the cows hav been milkt, he hurry s down hiz hash and buckwheat kakes, and thrashes beans two hours with the old man out in the korn krib. Now he walks three miles in a sno path to the distrikt skool-hous and gits thare just in time to help split up sum wood for the day fire. Skool opens and he takes hiz seat on the flat side ov a slab bench, and bends double over a Webster's spelling book, without enny cover. For variety he stands up in a ro, and spells and skratches a greasy slate, with the figgurss in a long sum ov addishun. Noon cums at last, and he eats up in one corner hiz two slices ov rhi bread and hiz piece ov pi krust, and drowns the dri dinner with a pint ov lukewarm water out ov the pine pail behind the stove. The only fun he haz iz to slide down hill on a board, back ov the skool-hous, and git kicked when he goes home if he happens to wear the sole ov hiz boots enny, or tare the base ov hiz britches. NighJ cums, and he haz had a day's skooling, and plods back home to saw wooA enuff to last next day before he eats hiz puddin-and-milk supper and slinks off up into the wood-hous cham ber, to bed, without even the ray ov a tallo handle. This waz skool-boy life in the coun try 40 years ago. If the boys now daze had to skool it in this way, they would sue the old man for damages, and enny kind ov a jury would bring in a verdik. too, in their favour. But Daniel Webster dun it in this way, and bekum the most learned states man we ever raized, and so did Josh Billings, but he didn't never amount to mutch. Josh Billings never could git the rite hang ov a country skool-hous ; Viiy. spelling allwus8 had, and allwuss will hav, an impediment in it. Josh Billings. A NEW SORT OF TRADES- UK I OA'. A number of plasterers in Brooklyn have formed a trades-union on a novel plan. The men are divided by the offi cers they elect into three classes. The basis of division is skill. Each man re ceives a card bearing his name and class. If he is in the first class, he is to get $3.50 a day ; in the second, S3 ; and in the third, $2.50. This standard of wages is to last until Oct. 1, 1875. The classification, if it can be fairly done, and if the men placed in the lower classes do not revolt, will produce good results. An employer can tell by a glance at a man's card what kind of a worker the applicant is. He ban afford to do common jobs more cheaply, be cause he need not pay first-rate wages for third-rate work. The new society pledges itself to give three months' no tice of a demand for increased wages, and to discountenance all strikes, " ex cept where an employer fails to pay his men for lawful time worked, or where the eight-hour law is about to be in fringed upon." T BON NETS TO BE REVIVED. A Paris correspondent writes : " The idea is to have real bonnets once more bonnets with brims, crowns, strings, and perhaps curtains. It sounds strange enough. No woman who had any pre tensions to youth has worn strings for three seasons past, and curtains have been for long consigned to oblivion. Yet we are promised both for next winter. This bonnet, which will be de cidedly large, will, however, not shade the face at all fashion nowadays only goes gradually from one extreme to an other but will be perched up on the back of the head somewhat as the first bonnets were un der the Directoire, before they be came the beauty-concealing cottage bonnets of our grandmothers ; this ex tensive headgear to be attached under the chin by short strings that form bows with cravat-like ends. SPECIE RESUMPTION. Mr. Charles Nordhoff, in the New York Tribune, suggests a plan of re sumption which is new in several of its features, and is at the same time in harmony with the soundest views ex pressed during the currency debate of last winter. Mr. Nordhoffs proposition is that Congress shall order the cancel lation of one-quarter of the greenback circulation every year, substituting na tional bank bills, secured as now by pledge of bonds. These bills should all bear a promise to pay specie at some reasonably remote date say ten years hence. In this way we should easily be rid within four years of the irre deemable part of our currency. Our Hbaith. If we view the human body in regard to its maladies and the season of the year, says an English ob server, we shall find that summer is di vided from winter by a line drawn some where about the third button of the waistcoat. As the mercury in the ther mometer goes up, our ailments go down. In cola weather the respiratory organs, in hot weather the digestive or gans, are severally the places in which we go wrong. MINT STATISTICS. Dr. Linderman, Director of the Mint, has submitted to the Secretary of the Treasury his report of the operations of the mints and assay offices for the fiscal year ending June 30 of the pres ent year, from which it appears that the gold deposits were $68,861,565 ; silver deposits and purchases, $15,122,151. Deducting the re-deposits f bars made and issued by one institution and de posited at another, the deposits were : Gold, $49,142,511; silver, $11,482,678. The amount in bars transmitted from the New York assay office to the mint at Philadelphia for coinage during the fiscal year was : Gold, $18,704,101 ; silver, $2,613,636; total, $21,317,737. Compared with the previous year, there was an increase of $8,924,165 in the amount of gold operated upon ; $2,880, 761 in silver were received a.d oper ated ; $15,193,352 in gold coinage ; $3, 037,085 in silver coinage, and $10,815, 086 in bars prepared at the mints and assay offices. The coinage of trade dollars during the fiscal year amounted to $3,588,900, the greater portion of which were exported to China, where they found a ready market, and con tinue to grow in favor for trade and ex change purposes. Owing to the limited capacity of the mints on the Pacific coast, the Treasury Department has not been able to meet the demand for these coins. The increased capacity of the new mint in San Francisco, to which operations will soon be transferred, and the addition of new machinery and ap pliances at the Carson mint, will enable the Treasury Department to meet the demand for all coin, both gold and sil ver, which may be required on that coast for circulation and export. The total issue of silver dollars from the organization of the mint to the 1st of April, 1873, at which time their coinage under the provisions of the coinage act was discontinued, amounted to a little over $8,000,000. Adding the amount of trade dollars coined during the first quarter of the present fiscal year to the coinage for the year ending June 30, 1874, gives the i.suevOf trade dollars as more than half of the total issue of the old silver dollar during a period of nearly eighty years. A bill authorizing the coinage of a twelve cent silver piece passed the Senate at the last session of Congress. The issue of coin of that denomination will not only be in ac cordance with a decimal system of mon ey, but will remove a difficulty of mak ing change, which now exists upon the Pacific coast and in Texas, where the five cent nickel copper coins do not cir culate, and where it was formerly the practice to apply the term " bit," " two bits " and " four bits," respectively, to the fractions of the Spanish dollar which circulated there. The custom appears to continue, notwithstanding the dis appearance of those coins from circula tion. Accordingly, if a payment of one " bit " is to be made, and a twenty five cent coin be used for the purpose of a ten-cent coin, one bit is returned as the proper change, five cents being lost in the transaction by the purchaser. The issue of a twenty cent coin will, no doubt, remove the difficulty. The Di rector further on in his report speaks of monetary standards, annual assay and test coins, spectroscopic assaying, and other interesting subjects. The amount of specie in this country on the 30th of June last is stated to be $167,000,000. The estimate shows a gain in specie and bullion in the last two years of $38, 500,000. HOW MUCH WE TALK. It is well that all we say is not writ ten down, not only because some of it might be rather against us, but because there would not be room for it. (John xxi. 25.) A curious Frenchman has lately been making a calculation, which is that a man talks on an average three hours a day at the rate of about . twenty-nine octavo pages an hour. This would make eighty-seven pages a day, about six hundred a week, which would amount to fifty-two good-sized volumes every year ! And then, multiplying this by the number of years in a man's life, what a library he would have if it should be all printed ! And, too, how very little of the whole would be worth preserving, and of how much he would be glad if it had been left unsaid ! It seems that M. de Lesseps' scheme for making an inland sea in Algeria is meeting with serious opposition from certain of the French journals. The cause of this appears to be the fear less the evaporation from such a wide ex panse of shallow water should bring about disastrous climatic changes, the influence of which would be felt across the Mediterranean, extending over France itself. One writer ventures to predict a return of the glacial epoch. In spite of these dismal forebodings, M. de Lesseps has entered upon the work in earnest, and with the prestige of his former success as a canal-builder, will doubtless soon settle the question by actual experiment, arguing doubt less that, if the inland sea proves to be a nuisance to France, a dam across the canal will soon restore to Algeria her sandy plains, and to France her vina clad hills. Appletons' Journal. Advantages of Law. A farmer cut down a tree which stood so near the boundary line of his farm that it was doubtful whether it belonged to him or to his neighbor. The neighbor, how ever, claimed the tree, and prosecuted the man who cut it for damages. The case was continued from court to court. Time and money were wasted, temper soured and temper lost, but the case was gained by the prosecutor. The last of the transaction was, the man who gained the cause came to a lawyer to execute a deed of his whole farm, which he had been compelled to sell to pay his costs ! Then, houseless and homeless, he could thrust his hands into his pockets and triumphantly ex claim, " I've beat him ! " MARK TWAIN'S HINTS ABOUT WORK. The days are getting longer, and the sun does not set as soon as it did in January, therefore the farmers have ample opportunity to put in the seed for an early crop of clothes-pins. Turnips should never be pulled it injures them. It is much better to send a boy up, and let him shake the tree. Cows in wet and slushy weather should not be allowed to leave their rooms, otherwise a sudden attack of in fluenza may dry up the milk. Be care ful also not to give them vinegar with their pickles. It is certain to make the milk sour. A simple diet of soup, plain roast beef and potatoes and rice pud ding is the proper thing to make cows thrive. It is evident that we are to have a backward season for grain. Therefore, it will be well for the farmer to begin setting out his cornstalks and planting his buckwheat cake in May instead of August. With hogs this is a laying season, and you should give them plenty of lime and egg-shells mixed in their feed. Broken glass is good for the same pur pose, though it is apt to make the shells brittle. Care is to be taken in picking the hogs before putting them in the oven. The guano is a fine bird, but great care is necessary in raising it. It should not be imported earlier than May nor later than September. In the winter it should be kept in a warm place where it can hatch out its young. Chickens, during the early spring, cannot be expected to catch many worms, since the latter hibernate in the tops of tall trees. Keep your chickens in a warm stable, and see that there is always plenty of hay in their racks. Let their halters be long enough to permit them to lie down comfortably, otherwise you may find them choked to death in the course of the night. The pumpkin is a favorite berry with the natives of the interior of New En gland, who prefer it to the gooseberry for the making of fruit-cake, and who likewise give it the preference over the raspberry for feeding cows, as being more filling and fully as satisfying. The pumpkin is the only esculent of the orange family that will thrive in the North, except the gourd and one or two varieties of the squash. But the custom of planting it in the front yard with the shrubbery is fast going out of vogue, for it is now generally conceded that the pumpkin, as a shade tree, is a failure. MONEY IN IT. It is nothing uncommon for an English beggar to amass property. The police of London arrested lately a man who had been known as a beggar for the last thirty years. Being a blind man, he paid a boy four shillings a week to lead him in the streets. The beggar was shown to be possessed of houses and property ; still the English Judge did not remand him to jail, but discharged him with a caution as to his future behavior. The old man said he would retire from business, as he had enough to live upon. Unfortu nately for the wiseacres who desire to draw a moral from this story, we have similar beggars on this side of the wa ter ; in Detroit, recently, an old man, limping as if very lame, and wearing green glasses, entered a saloon on the river road and asked for money, saying that his wife was very ill and he too old , and lame to work, but his story was so confused that the half-dozen men pres ent determined to see how he was made up. He shouted " police." as they approached him, but the men seized and thrjeW him down. The green glasses covered as good a pair of eyes as were in the room, and no cause for his limping could be found. He had his left hand tied up, but they jerked the rags off and found no hurt or wound. Lastly they fished out of his pockets thirty-eight dollars and forty-five cents in small money, as he had begged it, and discovered that he had a bank book' on a Chicago savings bank with four hundred and eighty dollars and fifty cents credited to him. He claims to have begged most of the money in Toledo. One of the men accompanied the old knave to the Central depot and remained there until he saw him move away on the train. GARIBALDI. Garibaldi still resides on the little island of Caprera, lives in his usual modest, frugal style, and is content with an annual income of six hundred dollars derived from his farm. About ten steamers a month touch at the island and each one bring deputations more or less numerous, of admirers from all civ ilized lands, to pay their respects to. the old soldier and patriot. Since 1871, he has received five thousand formal ad dresses of homage and devotion ; pres ents valued at over three thousand dol lars in agricultural instruments, chiefly from the United States, which he ac cepts ; others, in money and other ob jects of value, worth twenty thousand dollars, which he rejected. Four Nea politan ships bear his name ; he is the possessor of twenty-one swords of honor, eleven of which came from foreign lands ; he is an honorary citi zen of ninety cities, boroughs and vil lages, and honorary president of one hundred and twenty societies. Whether he is happy or no. is not stated. The old lion is caged by sickness and age ; the age of chivalry is passed. Norman Taylor, of Woodstock, Vt., is claimed to be the champion runner of "the State. He makes his mile in 5:22. A WONDERFUL TRICK. An exhibition is now being given in London which will do much to under mine the belief of credulous people in so-called spiritual manifestations. The conductors of the exhibition, Messrs. Maskelyne and Cook, are sending all the clergy cards of admission. ' ' The object of this invitation," says the En glish Churchman, "is declared to be the wish of the performers to make known as widely as possible the facts that they effect all the marvels per formed at a seance of the Spiritualists, and yet assert that all their feats are done by the aid of human apDliances, and have nothing superhuman about them. And most marvelous are those feats ! The attendant asked for the loan of a coat, and within ten seconds it was turned inside out on the back of Maskelyne, who had his arms through the sleeves, although both his hands were fastened to the seats with cords, fastened with a sea, the impression of which had not been broken or defaced. The lender, on this occasion, doubted the truth of his coat having been really put on by Mr. Maskelyne, and asked him to put on a second coat which he knew to be marked with the singularity of having the sleeves lined with scarlet flannel, when to his infinite surprise, within a few seconds, the door of the cupboard was opened, and the operator was discovered with his bands appar ently still tied down as before in the tight grasp of the sealed hempen cord. It is a comfort to be assured by Maske lyne's own authority that he is neither witch, wizard nor necromancer, and has no familiar spirit to aid him in his tricks." STATISTICS OF WATCH MANUFAC TURE. According to the census of 1870, the following numbers of persons were em ployed in the manufacture of watches in the four Cantons where it forms the chief industry ; in Neufchatel, 11,081 men and 5,383 women ; in Berne, 9,392 men, 4,743 women ; in Vaud, 2,439 men, 1,313 women ; and in Geneva, 2,330 men, 1,288 women ; forming a total of 37,968. The Canton of Berne manufactures about 500,000 watches per annum ; but they are almost ex clusively of ordinary quality ; at the average price of 40 francs each, they yield to the Canton about 20 millions of francs annually. In Geneva the num ber is estimated at 150,000 per annum ; but as many of them are of gold, and watches of precision, and are, more over, highly ornamented, their value will probably reach twenty millions of francs. The Canton of Vaud also turns out about 150,000 watches annually, but the greater portion are exported in the form of the interior mechanism only ; at an average value of 35 francs, the sale price will amount to 5,250,000 francs. The Canton of Neufchatel manufactures about 35 per cent, of the whole value of watches fabricated in the confederacy. The following is a comparative table of the extent of man ufacture of watches and chronometers in the four principal watch-making na tions : Switzerland turns out 1,600,000 per annum, of the estimated value of 88 millions of francs ; France, 300,000, valued at 16?r millions ; England, 200, 000, value 16 millions ; and the United States, 100,000, valued at 7i millions of ancs. A FUNERAL EXTRAORDINARY. The rail Mall Gazette says : "A most successful funeral in which woman played an important part took place at Padua in 1518, and, indeed, in some respects, the arrangements of the funeral were in all ways less depressing than the run of ordinary burials. An eminent lawyer, by name Lodovich Cartusius, who died in July of that year, before his death strictly forbade his relations to shed any tears at his funeral, and enforced this order on his heir by a heavy penalty in case of diso bedience. He further directed that fiddlers should take the place of mourn ers on the sad occasion, and that twelve maids in green habits should carry his remains to the Church of St. Sophia, where he was buried, the ceremony to be enlivened by songs from these ladies, who were to be recompensed for the service by a handsome sum of money allotted for their marriage portions. The monks of the convent at Padua, who were invited to the funeral, were on no account to wear black habits, lest they should throw a gloom over the cheerfulness of the procession. If funerals were conducted in this fashion, there would perhaps be a fainter call for cremation, and woman would have no necessity for repressing her natural delight at the obsequies of man." MYSTERY OF THE CANADIAN LAKES. Lake Eiie is only sixty or seventy feet deep, but Lake Ontario, which is 592 feet deep, is 230 feet below the tide level of the ocean, or as low as most parts of the Gulf of St. Lawrence ; and the bottom of Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior, although the surface is so much higher, are all from their vast depth on a level with the bottom of On tario. Now, as the discharge t hroug the River Detroit, after allowing for the probable portion carried off by evapora tion, does not appear by any means equal to the quantity of water which the three upper lakes receive, it has been conjectured that a subterranean river may run from Lake Superior by the Huron to Lake Ontario. This con jecture is not improbable, and accounts for the singular fact that salmon and herring are caught in all the lakes com municating with the St. Lawrence, but in no other. As the Falls of Niagara must have always existed, it would puzzle the naturalist to say how these fish got into the upper lakes without some such subterranean river; more over, any periodical obstruction of the river would furnish a not improbable solution of the mysterious flux and re flux of the lakes. PLANTS. It is well known that plants sleep at night ; but their hours of sleeping are a matter of habit, and may be disturbed artificially, just as a Cock may bewtJke up and crow at untimely hours , by the light of a lantern. De Candolle sub jected a sensitive plant to an exceeding ly trying course of discipline, by com pletely changing its hours ; exposing it to a bright light all night, so as to pre vent sleep, and putting it in a dark room during the day. The plant ap peared to be much puzzled and dis turbed at first ; it opened and closed its leaves irregularly, sometimes uedding in spite of the artificial sun that shed its beams at midnight, and sometimes waking up from the force of habit) to find the chamber dark in spite of the time of day. Such are the trammels of use and wont! But after an obvi ous struggle the plant submitted to the change, and turned day into night with out any apparent ill eflects. WOMEN IX ENGLAND. Kate Field, in her " Republican Notes on England," in the St. Louis Republican, hurts out witli : "Though the highest office in the loud may be held by a woman, every other is closed to her, saving that occasionally women are governors of prisons for women, overseers of the poor, and parish clerks. A woman may be ranger of a park, and it has been held that women are eligible to the offices of High Chamberlain, High Constable, Common Constable, Sexton and Returning Officer at an elec tion to Parliament, but the eligibility is more honored in the breach than in the observance. A woman duly quali fied can vote upon parish questions and for officers, overseers, surveyors, vestry clerks, etc. Does Queen Victoria give aid and comfort to reform ? NS. She has been known to make a gift of 20 to the writer of a pamphlet deuvetmcing any change in the legal and political condition of her sex." GRASSHOPPER RA VAOSS. The St. Paul Press draws the follow ing conclusions with respect to the grasshopper invasion of Minnesota: It is safe to estimate the tilled area in the ravaged district at 275,000 acres, and of the area of wheat in that district at 200,000 acres. Of this area, probably not less than 150,000 acres have been destroyed. This represents not less than 2.500,000 bushels of wheat de voured in the germ by the grasshop pers, or about one-twelfth of the wheat crop of the State. Add to this area 40,000 acres of oats, at 33 bushels per acre, or 1,320,000 bushels in all, or oe-twelfth of the oat crop of the State ; 20,000 e cres of corn, at 32 buBhels per acre, or 340,000 bushels, or one twelfth of the corn crop of the State, and per haps 20,000 acres more in rye, buck wheat, barley, potatoes and other crops and the full extent of the grasshopper havoc can be easily estimated. Foji THE PUBLIC GOOD: It is rather unfortunate for the public generally that many newspapers retail gossip rather than news, and thus throw to the greedy seeker for information crumbs which cannot well be spared from "the master's table." Illustra tive of this reprehensible practice an incident comes under notice. Recently a French newspaper published that a banker's country house had been rob bed in the night ; " but unfortunately the thieves, in their hurry, had failed to open the second drawer on the right hand side of the escretoire, in which was a large sum of money in bank notes." Two or three days latter the editor received the following note : "Mr. Editor: I cannot sufficiently thank you for the information given in your-excellent paper. It was in every respect exact, a I found on going last night, for the Second time, to the honse of Mr. Z . " No signature. You will understand my scruples." OLD TIME BONNETS AGAIN. A correspondent of the Chicago Jour nal says : " A startling announcement from Paris will interest your lady, read ers. The new style of head-gear is to be the old-fashioned bonnet, with brims, crowns, strings, and perhaps, curtains. It appears that the conclusion has been reached that the prevalence of neuralgia and kindred diseases, unknown" com paratively a few years ago, has been due to the fashion of leaving the head,neck, ears, and throat without any protection. The large number of weak eyes is also attributed to the want of shade afforded by the fall or curtain. I am afraid, however, that the argument will not hold good, for neuralgia is almost as common a complaint with men a with women, and we certainly have made no change in the chimney-pot construc tions we call hats." TRUE HOSPITALITY And touching the guiding of thy house, let thy hospitality be moderate, and according to the means of thy es tate, rather plentiful than sparing, but not costly. For I never knew any man grow poor by keeping an orderly table. But some consume themselves through secret vices, and their hospi tality bears the blame. But banish swin ish drunkards out of thine house, which is a vice impairing health, consuming much, and making no show. I never heard praise ascribed to the drunkard, but for the well-bearing of his drink ; which is a better commendation for a brewer's horse or a drayman than for either a gentleman or a serving man. Lord Burleigh. What is the difference between a belle and a burglar ? One wears false locks and the other false keys. It takes 1-150 of a second to photo graph the sun.