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About The Corvallis gazette. (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899 | View Entire Issue (July 10, 1885)
Corvallis Weekly Gazette. GAZETTE PUBLISHING HOUSE, Pubs. CORVALLIS, OREGON. The Riel rebellion has turned many people into Minnesota and Dakota, who had intended settling in Manitoba At Topeka, Kansas, twenty-seven saloons -were shut up in eight weeks, but they were replaced by thirty-one licensed drug stores, which sold more whisky than the saloons. The Ohio state board of agriculture, from official and private dispatches which have been received from the principal wheat states, estimates a probable shortage of 180,000,000 bushels as compared with the five years' average. Miss Cleveland's letter in reply to Dr. Crossby, through a conspiracy between the New York Sun and the Associated Press, was sent out as a document em anating from the White House, when really, it was written and published two or three years ago. The genius who devised the scheme of bringing English sparrows to this coun try will be consigned to everlasting in famy. There is no end to the rascali ties of these feathered villains, and there is equally no end to their multi plication. The latest of their reported mischief, is destruction of orange blos soms. The New Orleans Times-Democrat reported the case of a tree which has for many years bornefrom 200 to 400 oranges, but now has less than a dozen of the fruit on its boughs be cause the abominable sparrows de voured the flowers. About 11,000 applicants for places in the civil service of the government have been examined by the civil ser vice commission since it commenced its labors over two years ago. More than fifty per cent, of the number suc ceeded in obtaining the requisite cer tificate of having passed an examina tion fulfilling the requirements of the commission. Of the number who thus passed one-half have secured govern ment positions paying from $720 to to $1,800 a year, only the few having the good fortune to reach the latter figure. There was but one woman in every twenty of the applicants who obtained positions. The Boston Commercial Bulletin publishes a list of fourteen articles of prime commercial importance, show ing the comparative values of such ar cles in 1825, 1845, 1S55, 1875 and 1885. In order to arrive at a general average, the writer takes the value of a ton of pig iron, in 1825, $55 per ton, as a unit, assuming such quantities of the other articles as, at the prices of 1825, would amount to aton of pig iron. The result is to indicate that $1 will buy as large a quantity of such ar ticles as $1.35 in 1875, $1.32 in 1855, 91 cents in 1845 and $1.19 in 1825. Iron is lower than at any previous date of the comparison, corn is lower, and so are coal, salt, pork and cheese. In reading a paper before the Char ity Conference in Washington the oth er day Charles Dudley Warner re marked that the average penitentiary is very much like a modern hotel, where persons are lodged and fed for a time, with the exception that there is no bill to pay at the end of the term. Under the sway of the sentimentalists prisons have lost nearly all the feat ures of a place of punishment. Yet the cost of sustaining convicts in this way reaches enormous figures, and is estimated as equal to the interest on the public debt at its highest point. Putting these two facts together, it is apparent that prison reform of some kind must soon become a pressing question. . Current $"otes. The well on Maa Francis farm, just west of East Aurora, has struck a bed of solid salt 65 feet thick. This "find" knocks in the head the theories of the scientists regarding the salt beds in western New York. Down to the depth o 1,350 feet the geological formations are reported to be almost identical with those of the oil regions in Penn sylvania. At this depth a belt of solid salt was struck, which further drilling proved to be 65 feet in thickness. The brine stands in the well several hundred feet deep, and is rich in salt. Fifteen pounds of brine taken from the well were carefully evaporated and showed about 50 per cent. salt. There seems to be no limit to the quantity of brine. Some years ago a law was enacted fix ing a license tax upon ail foreign cor porations doing business in Pennsvlva nia. The object aimed at was to'collect revenue from parties in competition with local manufactories, which are heavily taxed. "The intention," says the Philadelphia Press, "was good, but as a matter of fact a number of foreign corporations maintained offices in this state, chiefly for the purpose of pur chasing supplies of articles manufac tured here, and the effect of the law has been to drive them away and take the trade, amounting to over $1,000,000 an nually, to other localities. Among the ships lying in "rotton row" at the New York Navy Yard is the dismantled frigate Colorado. When she was built she was considered the finest piece of naval architecture and the most formidable man-of-war afloat. She was sent out to the China station j with a picked crew and a set of officers ' selected for their wealth and good : breeding. She was the pride of the ! American squadron in the China seas ; and filled the fleets of other nations there with pride and envy. From ! Corea to Singapore she was known as i the "la belle frigate. " But that was years and years ago. Now her glory is departed; she is a ruined hulk, and the ! Government can't even sell her for old timber. Georgetown, O., presents the strang est divorce case yet a courtship, mar riage and divorce without a quarrel. : Judge Clinton A. White became a wid i ower and his wife's sister became a wid ow about the same time. After wait ing a decent period, the widower and : widow agreed to get married, and they did. The new Mrs. White is a very re ligious woman, and at the marriage al- tar she felt a conviction that she was doing wrongto marry her brother-in-, law. After the ceremony she went to j her home and he went to his, and the i relation of the two was that of brother ! and sister. The pair kept their own i counsel, but the people began to talk I and make it unpleasant for them. He ! visited her once a week, and at one of these interviews they agreed it would be better for them to get divorced. The judge made the simple charge of neglect of duty against his wife and the divorce was granted. Now they ire simply brother and sister again. Judge White has represented his dis trict in congress and is a prominent man in the state. Lieut. Gen. Sheridan appears to have is little regard for the hard-working re porter as his prodecessor in command ot the army. His office is well guarded by messengers, and it is seldom that a newspaper man prevails upon them to allow him to enter the portals and stand in the awful presence. A reporter, by the exercise of some strategy, work ed his way into Sheridan's room a few days ago. Approaching the head of the army, who was busily engaged indis posing of military matters, he asked him a question. The general turned round in his chair, and looking the re porter in the face, said : "You see that room right through here. Well, in it is a little man who is said to look like me, and who is blessed with the euphon ious Irish name of Mike. Now you go in there and worry out of him, but don't bother me with any ques tions. " 'The statue of Gen. Custer which was erected at West Point a year or two ago' has been taken down and consign ed to a rubbish heap. This action has been brought about by the solicitation of Mrs. Custer, who was disgusted from the first with the statue, consideringit an outrage on her husband's memory. The artist had envoi . ed both the like ness and the dress and arms of the gen eral mainly from his inner conscious ness. The statue represented Gen. Custer in a long-ta:led coat and troop er's boots, with a saber in o;ie hand and a horse-pistol in the other, with the attitude and air of a dime-novel hero engaged in the impossible feat of exterminating, single-handed, a whole tribe of savages, while all the real char acteristics oi the general had been ig nored or missed. Notwithstanding Mrs. Custer had furnished the artist photographs of the general, together with the uniform and arms worn by him in the West, with various informa tion as to the general's appearance, habits, etc., such as would aid the ar tist in his work. He will probably never again be seen by the public. Soothing Syrups and Popular Rem edies. From the National Review. Opium forms the basis of innumerable remedies, and very effective remsdies, sold under titles altogether reassuring and misleading. Nearly all soothing syrups and powders, for example "mothers' blessings" and infants' curses are really opiates. These are known or suspected by most well-informed peo ple. What is less generally known is that nine in ten of the popular remedies for catarrh, bronchitis, cough, cold and asthma are also opiates. So powerful indeed is the effect of opium npon the lining membrane of the lungs and air passages, so difficult is it to find an ef fective substitute, that the efficacy, at least the certain and rapid efficacy, of any specific remedy for cold whose ex act nature is not known affords strong ground for suspecting the presence of opium. Many chemists are culpably, almost criminally, reckless, and not a few culpably ignorant in this matter. A.n experienced man brought from a fashionable West End shop a box of cough lozenges, pleasant to the taste and relieving a severe cough with won derful rapidity. Familiar with the in fluence of opium on the stomach and spirits, he was sure before he had suck ed half a dozen of the lozenges that he had taken a dose powerful enough to af fect his accustomed system, and strong snougk to poison a child, and do serious harm to a sensitive adult. Yet the loz enges were sold without warning or in dication of their character ; few people would hav taken any special precaution to keep them out of the way of children, ind the box, falling into the hands of a heedless or disobedient child, might have poisoned a whole nursery. Gen. Valentine Baker has been fol lowed unmercifully by Nemesis until he is now indeed an object of pity. His wife and one daughter recently died of Egyptian fever, and his one remaining child is a physical wreck by the action of the same disease. f Personal Gossip. A rural gentleman, standing over a register in a city store, attracted some attention to himself by observing to his wife : "Mariar, I guess I'm gom to have a fever; I feel such hot airs a-runnin' up my legs." Exchange. Judge Phelps of Vermont, father of the new minister to England, was a descendant of the first of that name who landed at Nantasket in 1630, some of whom afterward settled in Vermont, and of John Phelps, assistant clerk of the court which condemned Charles L to death. There is a five-year-old girl near Weedsport, N. Y., who is addicted to the use of tobacco. When between two and three years of age tobacco smoke was blown into milk and given her as a remedy for colic. It proved effective, but created an uncontrollable desire for tobacco, and by various subterfuges the child has ever since found means to gratify her craving for the weed. "There are ladies in this city," says a New York floor-walker, "who move in the best society and possess all the money necessary to meet their demands, but they can hardly enter a dry goods store without appropriating some arti cle, and, strange as it may seem, they very seldom take anything of material value ; they don't seem to choose any thing because of its worth, but me chanically pick up the first article they can appropriate when they think no one is looking. We have to watch them from the moment they enter the store until they leave." Miss Clara Spain was orderd out of a school room in Troy, New York recently because she wore a green bow in honor of St. Patrick's Day. The school authorities have called Mrs. Davis, the teacher, to account for it. Miss Fanny Lawrence, daughter of Francis Lawrence, of New York, who will be one of the greatest heiresses of this country, is engaged to Lord Will iam Venables-Vernon, an English Lord with a large rent roll. Her mother, Mrs. Francis Lawrence, was a Garner, and is the owner of several millions in her own right. It is said that Miss Lawrence will have a marriege portion of $500,000 given to her by her parents on her wedding day. A Mexican had become jealous of his mistress, a young Mexican girl about eighteen. Going to her room in day Ught, he locked the door, divested her of all her clothing, securely tied her to the wall with heavy ropes, then delib erately proceedad to cut strips of flesh from various parts of her body and un der the threat of cutting out her heart he compelled his victom to eat her own flesh. Her frantic screams finally brought assistance just as the inhuman fiend had finished cutting off the end of her tongue. The brute was arrested and jailed. His victim is dying. Mr. Beecher, who is engaged in a lecture tour in the South, says that he cannot mix society with lecturing. "When on a tour," he says, "I never go to a private house, except against my will. The worst hotel is better than the best private house, especially if it be at the house cf a friend. Carl Schurz has had a funny experience on his lec ture tour down there. They got up a 'grand reception' for him, and they re ceived him with speeches, victuals and crowds, calliopes and a brass band. But when evening came he found only twenty or thirty people to hear his lec ture on Franklin ! So his agent tele graphed aliead, 'No more receptions! no more nonsense !' Then he got down to work and fared better. That's the universal expedience qf the garrulous biped called lecturer." Samuel D. Delph, a prominent busi ness man of Norristown, Pa., recently deceased, is reported to have been an embezzler to the extent of 28,000 from the funds of the William Peun Saving Fund and Loan Association, of which he was secretary. Most of the members of the association are women. Three members of the Sanborn fam ily, a brother and two sisters, all of whom are over four score years of age and now residing at Haverhill, N. H., were never married, never rode in a railroad car, and have never had a stove in their house. The old fashioned tin baker, fire crane aud hooks have always been in use by them. SORDID MATCHES. ; (tar Toxins' Folks the Freest and Happiest ol the World's Touth. : Robert Laird Collier in Chicago Tribune. However much is believed and pub 1 lished damaging to our reputation for social decency and high morality, I have a most fixed and unchanging con j viction that we are the cleanest, sweet- est, and holiest people socially on the i face of the earth. It would be no more ; than truth to say that this social purity is one of the results of our social cus toms. Our young people are the freest and happiest of the world's youth. 1 Our boys and girls are thrown together more in school, in society, and in pub lic places than the youth of any other country, and the matter of sex is less considered in the amusements and rec reations. Growing out of the free life of our young people is the immensely improtant fact that marriage in Ameri ce, especially among the middle classes, has a holier basis and motive than is certainly the case in any country of Europe. The lowest classes of Germany marry very generally and with but little regard to the advantages and outcome of wed lock, but simplv because it is the cus tom and because it is convenient and desirable to have their own homes. The French are a thrifty people, and thrift is an element entering into all they do. They seldom leap into matrimony. In deed, among all classes even to some extent among the peasantry marriage is a matter of arrangement. The par ents for the most part making the matches. Society in England is one of castes and classes. What applies to one caste or class does not apply to the other castes or classes. For instance, the lower and artisan classes are the most improvident of all working people of which I know anything. When in Eng land no aspect of its social life is so ever present to me as the unthriftiness of the working people. They marry and are given in marriage as though it were only of a day's lark. They have children born to them without the least regard to number or provision for them. They stick relig iously to the creed that God makes the children, and that he will not send a mouth without food to fill it. The poor est couples seem to take pride in multi plying their offspring and in replenish ing the earth. The average family of a workingman, I should say, would be about eight children. I speak from ob servation and not as giving statistics. These children are usually as well tak en care of as the means of the parents will justify. They begin to work in their tender years and become bread winners and are out in the world on their own account, while yet the chil dren of all American working people are in scnool. The great body of this class of English children are very indepen dent, and early form their own associa tions and rush into matrimonial engage ments and alliances with but little con cern as to the future or the fitness of things. The middle classes of England do not quite go to the opposite extreme, but considerations enter into the matter of marriage that we in this country would, at least affect to, deem most unworthy and mischievous. Whatever else we may consider in forming matrimonial relations we always put forth but one supreme motive. We hold it to be the only true and enduring law marriage that no other element should largely enter into the motive on either side. If we think otherwise than this we never give articulation to our thought. But this does not hold true in Eng land. Love may be taken for granted. Perhaps it usuailv is. But it is not a matter that is discussed either between the contracting parties themselves or their friends. Much is said, and open ly said, about the families and the re lations, the capacities of the man for getting on in the world, and the ami able and housewifely qualities of the woman. It may be a matter of love, and I should say that it is universally held that it ought to be a matter of love, but, all the same, marriage with the middle and upper classes of England is also a matter of business. HOUSEHOLU HINTS. Real Bravery. I have among my acquaintances some very fierce young men. They have the soul of a desperado, though forced to toil af the ledger or the newspaper desk for the vulgar and prosaic necessi ties of existence. While not doubting their courage, I am often skeptical about their thirst for danger. One of them, a commercial traveler, was at last gratified with an .adventure. He was riding on the top of an Oregon, stage. This is the story : "Well, sir, when we came to the top of the hill we saw two highwaymen go ing through the pockets of some poor devil they had captured on the road." "How many of you were there?" "Six outside and four inside, and all armed to the teeth. 'Now for it, boys !' said the stage driver, whipping up his horses, and I tell you we dashed down on that gang in fine style, every man keeping his hand on his pistol." "And of course you captured the highwaymen ?" "No, siree; we drove by them like a flash. Why, man, we were down to and by them before they knew what was coming. Now, that "is what I call real presence of mind." "How? In rescuing the man from the robbers?' ' 'Rescue be hanged ; that was none of our business. No, siree ; in saving the stage." San Francisco Post. Canadian Mirage. A few days ago that form of mirage known as "looming up" was visible in Toronto. "The whole breadth of Lake Ontario,"' says The Toronto Globe, 'was visible, and an ice phenomenon, unprecedented, probably, in the mem ary of man, greeted the sight. The lake, which even in the severe winter Df 1883-'84. was free from ice, except in the off-lying bays, was almost entirely ;overed. Three narrow streaks of blue, the first apparently about fifteen miles DUt from snore, and the last about ten miles down the lake, showed belts of water each apparently a few miles wide. A. larger open piece of blue also reached out from Humber Bay for some listance. Elsewhere all was hummocky white, and close to the south shore stood up a huge cake glinting in the sunshine. Several houses on the water front of Niagara and the American Fort across the river were visible. On the Sunday previous the air was clear and the spray of Niagara Falls was also seen." Fire at Martin's Ferry, Ohio, destroyed the Commercial block, the principal block in the :ity. Loss, $45,000; insurance, 30,000. A Hew Letter of Lincoln's. From the Mechanical Engineer. We are enabled, by the courtesy of a friend, to. publish a letter of Abraham Lincoln's to a railway superintendent, on the subject of renewing a railroad pass. The letter was found during the war in the litter of an office, and eager lv secured by a person. The present owner of the letter forwarded $50 to the said persan, and obtained possession of it. It now hangs prominently, hand somely framed, in the parlor of a resi Jence. This is the verbatim : Copy SPKiNOPmLD, Fob'y 13, 165U B. B. Blank, Esq. Deab Sib: Says Tom to John, "Here's your Did rotten wheelbarrow." "I've broke it usen M it" "I wish you would mend it, easel shall (rant to borrow it this arternoon." Acting on this as a precedent, I say, "Here's ronr old chalked hat.' I wish yon would take ;t and send me a new one, case I shall want it 10 use the first of March." Yours trulv. A. Lnrcoi - Whiting and benzine mixed to a paste will remove grease spots Iron: marble. Salt will remove the stains caused by eggs from silver. It must be ap plied dry. A pretty bangle-board is made in the sliape of a crescent. It is covered with pale blue satin and has a design of daisies planted on it. An effective "chair back" is of pale yellow pongee with a design of spider webs and conventionalized with roses. The webs are worked in white silk and the roses in pale pink with golden stamens. A handsome splasher has the cen ter of linen or a scrim, with a design of grasses in outline stitch. The bor der is made of squares of antique lace. It is placed over a background of colored cotton cloth. Coffee dregs and tea leaves are good fertilizers and may be worked lightly in the soil about your roses or other plants that require gross feeding. Plants need nourishment in the same degree as animals, so as not to starve them. Rats are said to abhor chloride of lime and will leave any place where it is. As it is harmless, housekeepers may place it in the haunts of these abominations without fear of the pet dog or cat suffering from "cold pizen." A good salad is made of asparagus. Boil some asparagus in well salted water; drain and cut in pieces, and when thoroughly cold pour over it a dressing made of oil and vinegar (twice as much oil as vinegar), sea soned with pepper and salt. A delicate potato cream soup is made as follows: Make a puree of potatoes, thin it with boiling water and pass it through a sieve; add the yolks of six eggs; mix well and add a little finely minced parsley and chervil. Serve with crontons. Very good little cakes are made by this recipe: Mix thoroughly a quarter of a pound of pounded almonds, a quarter of a pound of powdered sugar, two ounces of butter, a little grated lemon peel and one egg. Add just Hour enough to roll and cut out small cakes with the paste cutter: glaze with egg and bake a delicate brown. Save up vour tea-grounds for a few days before house-cleaning time, then steep half an hour in a tin basin, strain, and use this tea for cleaning varnished woodwork and pictures and looking-glass frames. F r cleaning white paint, take a small quantity of whiting on a damp ilannel cioth, and rub lightly over the surface, rinsing with clear water and wiping dry. To clean papered walls, tie a soft, dry cloth about a broom, and go over the paper, brushing and rubbing lightly on every part. To paper walls that have been whitewashed, wet the wall thoroughly with strong: vinegar or alum water, and when dry, brush it all over hard with a stiff broom. Use a paste made of starch, moderate ly thick, and apply to the paper cold. A dainty cream is made of apricots. Stew twelve apricots with half a pound of sugar, strain through a sieve and let them cool. Mix them with half a glass of white wine. Pass this mixture again through the sieve and add sugar if it is not sweet enough: pour" it into a mold and heat it by placing it in a pn filled with boiling water. Serve in custard cups. An excellent polish for hard-wood furniture and floors, and one which requires very little rubbing, is said to be found in a simple mixture of sweet oil and vinegar, using twice as much vinegar as oil. If the wood looks very dull and dry, it will be well to rub once with linseed oil and beeswax boiled together, but the sweet oil and vinegar for constant use is provee' Eood by experience. Apply a heavy coat of paint on kitchen or pantry floors; this saves the housekeeper a great deal of hare' scrubbing. Renew' woodwork fre quently with fresh paint and varnish. These are great beautifiers, and will save in labor and time fully as much as they cost. A few shillings1 worth applied to window and door-screens, before they are adjusted for the sea son, will add greatly to their appear ance as well as to their durability. This dish is delicious: Fricassee a chicken; peel several cucumbers, put them into boiling water and cook for ten minutes. Make a white sauce with stock or milk, according to taste; add a spoonful of flour, the yolk of an egg, and season with pepper, salt and nutmeg. Arrange the pieces of cu cumber and chicken symmetrically in a round dish; srarnished with triangu lar pieces of fried bread; sprinkle some minced parsley over all and pour on the sauce. Serve hot. Rhubarb cut up and boiled in milk is said to be very good. The trouble with this plant is that it is usually cooked with sugar, in too much water and boiled too long. This is sure to make the pieces stringy. The best va rieties of rhubarb are those with a reddish tint to skin and stalk. Wash it carefully, but do not peel. Cut in inch and a half pieces, and add a tea cut) of water; cover the stewpan tightly, and let steam until tender; do not stir, turn into a glass bowl and serve with powdered sugar when cool. This sauce is excellent for breakfast this time of year. Very Respectable People. "You lived with the Huppersets a while, didn't you, Sarah?" "Oh, yes, mum; I was with 'em about a year." "They are quite a respectable fam ily, I've heard." ""'Deed they was, mum. They're dreadful respectable; they are so. 'Deed mum, they was the most re spectable set I ever lived with, and it kep me on the go constant." "You don't say?" "'Deed 1 do. You see, mum, they Vas too respectable to do a hand's turn, and took an awful sight of wait ing on." Chicago Ledqer. "What is the matter with the baby?" asked a lady of a little girl whose baby brother she had understood to b ailing. "Ob, notUln' much," was tbe answer. "He's only hauhin teeth." Harper's Bazar. , PASSING EVENTS. A large acreage of potatoes will be planted this spring by New York farm ers. Chinese failures at Portland, Ore gon, of late, have been frequent and settlements small. Two vessels are on the way from Hong Kong with seven hundred coolies for Victoria, B. C. Every county in Indiana except two is represented by democratic office seekers in Washington. Experiments show that the heating value of wet coal is 25 per cent Jess than of that which is dry. It is calculated that the Mazatlan, Mexico, custom-house will this year collect $3,000,000 in revenue. Byron's original MS. of his poem, "Fare thee well, and if forever," was lately sold in London for about $88. Only three hundred copies of the re port of Guiteau's trial were printed by the government, and most of these are in the hands of speculators. The United States steamer Chicago, the last and largest of the new steel cruisers built at Roach's ship-yard, Chester, will be launched June 22. Hon. Daniel Agnew, ex-chief justice of the supreme court of Pennsylvania, has been chosen to address the alumni of Western university. He is one of the oldest graduates. The Yuma Indians, who numbered three thousand fifteen years ago, are now reduced to fifteen hundred. Their chief, Pasqual, is supposed to have long since passed iiis centennial year. "Banish the devil of moderu arith metic from our public schools," said Hon. Henry C. Robinson in a speech on public education in Hartford the other day. "It assaults the brain and imperils the life. It develops pre cocity, and precocity is unnature, and unnature is a monster." The four-story brown stone resi dence, No. 2,009 Chestnut street, which was presented to Gen. Grant by a committee of Philadelphia citizens immediately after the close of the civil war, will be sold at auction on June 12. The committee paid $33,000 for the house in 1SG5, and furnished it. Parlor-cars are now constructed with bay windows. Some on the line between New York aud Baltimore are fitted with a series of live such win dows, each about seven feet wide and a trifle higher than usual. They com promise a central light about three feet wide, from which two smaller lights dellect in contrary directions. There is no projection beyond the outer line of the car, the deflection of the winsrs being inward, and there is no exten sion beyond the limit of safety. The late Franz Abt, the song-writer, was a surprising gourmand. A "goose," he used to say, "is a very pretty bird, but it has one great fault; it is a little too much for one and much too little for two." Coming out of a restaurant the other day, looking su premely happy, "Herr Kappehheis ter," said a friend to him, "you seem to have dined well." "Yes, I had a fair dinner; it was a turkey." "And was there a good company around the board!" "Yes, good but small; just two, indeed, the turkey and myself." An intelligent physician has dis covered that color blindness is very rare aruoDg girls, though it is common among boys. From this fact he draws the conclusion that in most cases color blindness is due to a want of early ed ucation in discriminating between col ors. Girls are taught to become familiar with even7 shade of color, while boys receive no instruction what ever in colors. Hence, boys frequent ly show an ignorance of colors which is confounded with true color blind ness, but which girls rarely show. The "professional amnser" has be come an institution of New York so- I ciety. At dinners, concerts, cluo ban I quets, and parties they are in con I tinual demand, and a popular artist in this line is ncrpetuailv on the go. The stupid half hour after the coffee is served, which usually falls on a party of dinners, and which was formerly filled with tedious'or tiresome speech-. es, is now admirably utilized by the professional amuser. He goes in as one of the guests, dines, is profession ally jolly for an hoar after the dinner is over, pockets a fee of SoO. and dis appears. The stor- goes that a democratic congressman from Pennsylvania com plained because a republican postmas ter in his district, whom he accused of being an "offensive partisan," was not turned out. The postmaster had de clared publicly that should Cleveland be elected no man of character and no woman of self-resnect could enter the white house. He was asked how it was he could cousent to hold office under a man whom he despised so much. "I'll tell you," said the post master. "If Cleveland hasn't sot spunk enough to turn me out I'm just mean enough to hold the office." The people of Atlanta, Ga., are much pleased by the visit of Gen. Hancock to their city for the purpose of pur chasing land for United States bar racks there. Congress appropriated 615,000for the purchase of a tract of land, and 8100,000 for buildings and improvements. It is said that a tract of sixty to one hundred acres, well watered and well wooded and conven iently located, ought to be obtained for the money, while the remainder of the appropriation would provide line buildings aud improvements. It is understood that a regiment of soldiers will be stationed there permanently. The following complaint emanates from The Boston Journal: It is a pe culiar police regulation which forbids forcible entrance upon unoccupied premises for the purpose of extinguish ing fire. In the case of the fire at No. 13 Water street, a day or two ago. the flames were discovered in an incipient stage by Journal emploves who would have forced an entrance and .perhaps have succeeded in extinguishing the fire with hand grenades had they not been prevented by a policeman. The officer would allow no one to touch the door until the fireman arrived five minutes later. At that time the flames were bursting from front and rear and damage to the amount of several thousand dollars was done before thej were extinguished.