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About The Corvallis gazette. (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 2, 1885)
FARM, FIELD AXD FIRESIDE. Latest Cooking Recipes. Cocoandt Puffs. Powered sugar one cup, two cups dessieated cocoanut, beaten whites of two eggs, two table spoonfuls of flour or cornstarch. Drop on buttered paper on tins. Bake quick ly. Molasses Candy. This is simply made with a cup of molasses, and one of sugar, half a cup of vinegar, and a little butter. Some people prefer the juice of a lemon to vinegar in this re cipe. Our little ones are very fond of butternuts mixed in the half cooked candy, and prefer this to any store con fections that can be bought. Angel Food. Whites of 20 eggs, beaten stiffly, two tea cupfuls of flour with two teaspoonfuls of cream-of-tar-tar. Sift flour and cream-of -tartar five times, three cups, of granulated sugar, cups not quite full. Sift the sugar in to the well beaten whites of eggs, mov ing it in the sieve with a fork that it may pass through evenly and gradually Bake on unbuttered pans one hour or one hour and a quarter in a well-heated, but not scorching, oven. Cut out of pans when cool. One-half this quanti ty may be made, but I succeed best when I prepare the whole. Chocolate Caramels. A pound of sugar, half a cup of chocolate grated fine, a large teaspoonf ul of butter, and a tablespoonful of cream. Boil all the ingredients without the chocolate, add ing that when the rest is partly cooked. Boil till brittle, pour into buttered pans and when nearly cold, cut into sqaures. Onion and Sage Fritters. Twelve ounces of onions, six of bread crumbs, a teaspoon ful of dried sage, and four eggs. Peel and slice the onions, put them in a deep dish, pour boiling water over them, and let them remain a few minutes ; then pour off the water and fry the onions, or put them in the oven with a little butter, pepper and salt, and when nicely browned, mix the sage with them. Put about four ounces of the onion to the bread crumbs, add the eggs, well beaten, season with pepper and salt and fry in fritters ; put the remainder of the onions on the dish round the fritters, and serve with brown sauce and apple sauce. If fresh sags is used, it should be boiled a little and chopped. Farming- Notes. Make up your minds that you will farm a little better this year than ever before, and begin now. You who do not need these hints may not think they mean you, bat there are enough who do need them. Get your early potatoes up where they will warm and get ready to sprout when planting time comes. A Minnesota farmer raises sunflow ers for chicken feed and fuel. An acre of the plants produces seed enough to pay the cost of production as food for his chickens, while the stalks and seed less heads make abundant fuel for six months' use. The state of California has about 170, -000 acres in vineyard. The total wine product is now about 14,000,000 of gal lons for the state. This will increase with the age of vinevards lately planted in two years to 50,000,000. The soil and climate are peculiarly adapted to grape growing and the finer flavored varieties are hardy. Forty thousand people find employment and the state received last year for the crop sold near ly $5,000,000. March is one of the most important months of the year for stock farmers. The effects of the long winter will show on the weaker animals by this time. Lice will breed on cattle and ticks on sheep very fast these warm days, and must be killed. Lose no time about this. It costs too much to feed such pests, beside the suffering of the animals. Remember that these little jobs are often neglected because they "can be 3one any time," and these same things 'make the difference between profit and toss. The Business Gait. A good walking gait for a horse is best. Few farmers think of this; most of them want the colt to be a trotter. The trotter craze has been an awful curse to the country. It makes me sick to think of it. How many young men have gone to the bad on account of it ; and what good does it all do? The horses of to-day are not the equals in sudurance of those of the fathers. The horses of earlier days did more and harder work, lived longer and kept sounder than ours. They trot faster now, but what of that? It is a virtue, if it is, which makes vice. Teach the colt to walk, to start on a walk, and to keep on walking till it is bidden to go faster ; such a colt will make a pleasant driver and last longer, and will be worth a great deal more to a sensible man. Break the colt before it is harnessed to any vehicle. It will make a safer and more easily managed animal. I have such a horse, and the other day he saved the team because he would not run away with his mate. He walked, and turned in at home all right, with a big load of coal. The driver carelessly left them without tying, and it was cold. A fast-walking horse will go further and faster than one broken to go by spurts, and do it easier, and last longer. When a working horse is pushed to a trot it will walk every chance it gets and walks slow to get its breath and rest. A driving horse with a light draft can trot with more ease, but a good walker on a long heat will make the time much sooner than one could suppose. Franklin D. Curtis, . Kirkby Homestead, N. Y. Country Roads, Sample Cases. An instance of the bad way in which country roads are managed was cited at a recent meeting of Wisconsin farmer?. The soft ground just below a steep hill was annually ploughed and piled up in the center of the track. And lest drivers might choose to pass on the smooth sod by the roadside, that was ploughed too. Just above, on the hill, was plenty of hard earth and gravel which could have been placed below by a few rods haul ing, greatly to the benefit of both parts of the road, but it was never thought of. Another instance shows the disregard of distance and grade. A much used road near Madison, travelled from the earliest settlement of the county, over forty years, ran diagonally to the sec tion lines forming the hypothenuse of a triangle. The owner of the farm through which it passed requested the board to change it so as to combine a little poor land into one piece, and they did so. relaying the road over the sec tion line, and over a high hill, at great expense to the town. So now, all teams no matter how heavily loaded, are cruelly compelled to climb that bill taking the two sides of the triangle in stead of the old easy level and short cut. Eg-gs Under a Ken. Tho number of eggs that should go under a hen depends upon the season. Those set in January or February should not have more than seven, while in May the number for the same hens might be increased to thirteen, or for a Cochin, even to fifteen, if the eggs be of the same breed. Wo have to con sider not only how many . chickens the hen can hatch, but also how many she can well protect after they have reached a size twice as large as the size of the eggs. Many early chickens are lost every year be cause of insufficient protection from the mother during the first few months. Such as are not fairly cover?d in cold weather, even if they do not die, will in most cases be puny little things that will never add profits to the grower's purse. Batter hatch and raise but five or six early chicks to a hen, and have them healthy and strong, than twice as many poor little things. In April eleven eggs to a hen will answer very well, provided she be well feathered. Some Questions In Everyday Life. From the Ladies' Home J ournal. What is one's social duty? Often we hear one friend ask this question of an other. Is one's social done by accept ing and giving invitations. What do we bind ourselves to in accepting the hospitality of a friend or ac quaintance? Is our duty by her done when we have entered the portal of our hostess and have given her greet ing? Do we owe anything to her guests? If we are a man, do wo do our duty when we neglect speaking to the la dies whom weknow? If we see a chance when we can be of service to our hos tess in making things pleasant and agreeable for her, is not that our duty to be ready and happy to do her bid ding or even to anticipate it ? If we are a woman our power to do more than to make ourselves as agreeable as we may is limited. We can then only be kind, generous and considerate of other wo men as it comes in our way. We can not seek the opportunities of being polite and making the happiness of those about us as men can. Selfishness, alas that we see so much of it where there is the least excuse for it. How French Women Dress. The chief point to note about the dress of a Parisian woman, observes the fashionable Philadelphia Telegraph, no matter what her station in life may be, is its appropriateness. She does not wear as costly garments usually as the American of the same social class, but they are always thoroughly suitable to her position and to the occasion on which they are to be worn. A French elegante, for instance, will neither go shopping in a velvet costumo nor to a wedding or official reception in a cloth jacket and cashmere gown. She never goes out on foot in superb and showy apparel, or appears at a ball in a dark silk made high in the neck and with long sleeves. Etiquette forbids her re ceiving even the most intimate of her gentlemen friends in her morning dress though this rule has been relaxed of late in favor of the very suberb morn ing toilets of brocade and satin and lace which have been concocted for morning wear by the leading Parisian dressmakers. These, however, are simply reception toilets for morning in stead of for afternoon wear. If she desires to go out on foot she dons the simplest cf costumes in dark cloth or cashmere. Her visiting costume may be as magnificent as her purse or her desires may make it, and the same may be said of the dress m which she re ceives callers on her "at home" day. Her theater bonnet is much more showy and dressy than her visiting one. For street wear she dons a bonnet in very dark velvet or felt. In the matter of gloves and cbassure she is always irreproachable. For evening dress the satin slippers and silk stock ings precisely match the toilet with which they are to be worn. There was an attempt made at one time to intro duce the wearing of scarlet hose and black slippers with white evening dresses, but it proved a total failure. Neither were black slippers and stock ings ever worn in Paris with white or pale tinted ball dresses. That fashion was not French, it was possibly Eng lish, and unfortunately it was American. A Perfect Marriage. Theodore Parker writes : Young peo ple marry their opposites in tempera ment and character, and such marriages are generally good ones. They do it in -stinctively. The young man does not say, "My black eyes require to be wed with blue, and my over-vehemence re quires to be a little modified with some what of dullness and reserve." When these opposites come together to be wed they do not know it, but each thinks the other just like himself. Old people never marry their opposites, they marry their similars, and from calcula tion. Each of these two arrangements is very proper. In their long journeys these opposites will fall: out by the way a great many times, and eharm the oth er back again, and by-and-by they will be agreed as to the place they will go to, and the road they will go- by, and both become reconciled; The- man will be nobler and larger for being associated with so much humanity unbke himself, and she will be a nobler woman for hav ing manhood beside her thai seeks to correct her deficiences and supply her with what she lacks, if the diversity be not too great, and if there be real gener osity and love in their hearts to begin with. The old bridegroom, having a much shorter journey to make, must as sociate himself with one like himself. A perfect and eomplate marriage is, per haps, as rare as personal beauty. Men and women are married fractionally, now a small fraction then a large frac tion. Very few are married totally, and then only, I think, after some forty or fifty years of gradual approach and experiment. Such a large and sweet fruit is a complete marriage that it needs a very long summer to ripen it and then a long winter to. mellow and season. But a real, happy marriage of love and judgment between a noble man and woman is one of the things so very handsome that if the sun were, as the Greek poets fabled, a god, he might stop the world in order to feast his eyes with such a spectacle. Ammonia for Plants. Last year I was- induced to try an ex periment in chrysanthemum growing, and for this purpose purchased one pound of sulphate of ammonia, which I bottled and corked, as ammonia evapo rates very rapidly. I then selected four plants from my collection, putting them by themselves, gave them a tea spoonful of ammonia in a gallon of wa ter twice a week. In a fortnight's time the result was most striking; for though I watered the others with liquid cow manure, they looked lean when com pared with the ammonia watered plants whose leaves turned to a very dark green, which they carried to the edge of the dots until the flowers were cut. As a matter of course the flowers were splendid. The ammonia used is rather expensive as I bought it from a chemist's shop. This year I intend get ting agricultural ammonia, which is much cheaper. I have also tried it on strawberries, with the same satisfactory result, the crop being nearly double that of the others. It is very powerful and requires to be used with caution. London Garden. Butter-Making a Wasteful Business. Next to milk butter is by far the largest product of the dairy, and the costliest and most wasteful of intrinsic value in its production. Twenty-five pounds of milk the average weight ac quired for making a pound of butter would sustain a man's life well nigh half a month, while the butter wauld supply bodily waste for hardly half a day. The life-sustaining matter in the form of caseine and albumen in the milk for a pound of butter, would be just about equal to ten pounds of meat, all of which is sacrificed as a direct human food, and is only indirectly util ized as a by-product, to be fed to animals and after sacrificing nine-tenths of its life-supporting abil ity, will return one-tenth in a new form fit for human use all for one pound of butttr which is little else than a luxury, and not an indispensable one. It is but a pound of hydrocarbon, an effective equivalent for which science at a profit can replace for ten cents. When thousands of the laboring poor in our towns and cities, in whose veins a kindred blood is flowing, are pinched and suffering for the want of just such food, to keep soul and body together, is it a Christian work to occasion so large a sacrifice of useful food for a little luxury ? No one will say nay, fcr we "all dd it!" .Professor L. B. Arnold Dairying vs. Wheat Growing. The farmers of Iowa were among the first to break away from the one-crop system, and to diversify their grain growing with dairying. There are now 400 creameries or cheese factories in that State, and their patrons find the indus try much more profitable than raising wheat at 60 to 70 cents a bushel on land that is worth from $15 to $100 per acre. The St. Louis Republican reports that the farmers in northern Missou ri have begun to turn their atten tion in the same direction, and says that if one-half the money and labor expended last year in raising Mis souri crop or 35,000,000 bushels of wheat had been given to dairying, the net result would have been double. It argues that "the markets of the world are glutted with wheat, but the more butter and cheese produced, the more there is consumed the demand keep ing pace with and even outstripping the supply." There is commonly a market for good dairy products at re munerative prices, but it is doubtful if the average profits have been greater than hose gained from wheat, taking a period of ten years together. The pro duction of good butter is not altogeth er a matter of disposition. Much de pends upon the pasturage, the water, and climatic conditions. The dairying belt is as restricted as the wheat belt, taking the whole country togeth er. The sections adapted to it can make the industry profitable. It is doubtful if the other sections can do so. The older settled pertions of the West are experiencing from the cheap and virgin fields in the Northwest the stress of tha competition by whieh they forced the farmers of the Eastern and Middle States to abandon grain growing as a reliance, and diversify their produc tions. History is repeating itself in compelling them to adopt a similar policy. Boston Herald. The Object of Eating. We eat for warmth and strength; hence almost all articles of food have both these elements; have carbon to warm, and nitrogen to strengthen, to give power to work. Butter, sugar and oils are almost all carbon. All breads and grams- are mair-Ty carbon. Meats, flesh of all kinds, abound in nitrogen. Food which has most nitrogen is most "nutritious." Butter has eighty-three per cent, of carbon and no nitrogen ; an egg has no carbon and twenty per cent, oi' nitrogen. Milk contains two parts warmth and one of strength,. Bread contains one part of nitrogen and eight of carbon. It is thus seen that in reference to eat ing, carbon which is charcoal fuel and warmth are one and the same thing ; while nitrogen which is in effect salt petregives flesh or muscle, which are one and the same thing in substance with strength. It is also seen that most articles of food have more carbon or warmth than nitrogen or strength, showing -that it takes more to keep us warm than to keep us strong. A seden tary persoo requires, in round numbers, J about oae pound of food a day, while a hard-working mas requires two pounds ; this two-pounds of food gives out power enough as steam in an engine gives out power to raise a man of average weight eleven miles high. But calling the two. pounds 5,000 grains, only 300 grains of it? are nitrrgen, the remainder that is, six teen, times more of warmth is require -i". than, of strength-producing food. One practical result is, that as the world becomes- more thickly populated, tbe necessity increases of economizing food; of adapting it to the various needs oi the system as modified by age, sex, oc cupation and season. Persons living in doors should not eat more than half as much as those who work hard. Less warming food should be eaten in hot weather than in cold. If we eat an ex eess of warming food in hot weather-we have to work it out of the system at a great expenditure of strength ; and until it is worked off we feel full and feverish and oppressed ; on the other hand;, in winter we require an additional quantity of warming food, hence our instincts lead to eat heartily of pork, and buck wheat cakes, and butter, and molasses, which are almost purely carbon. In warm weather we need cooling food, and Providence sends us in profusion the fruits, and the berries, and the green i things, which have no carbon at all ; and wliilo nnr armotit.o fnr t.lmm is rftvftnnnfl tne very iaea oi iatty iooq is nauseating. Hall's journal of Health. MARRIED TO A "SPIRIT. Spring Salts. A New Story of Gen. Grant. The Cleveland Leader prints the fol lowing extract from the manuscript notes of Col. A. H. Markland, who was at the head of the army postal service during the war : "The first time that General Grant left Cutpepper Court-house, w'rt o bis headquarters then wore, for Washing ton city tbe quartermaster made up a special train to accommodate the sick and such as might have leave of ab sence, the road being taxed to its ut most capacicy to bring forward supplies, One passenger car in the train was re served for General Grant and such of ficers as might accompany him. Only two or three officers were with him, and they did not attract any special atten tion as they passed into the car. The General was always the plainest and least ostentatious man in the army. All the cars of the train except the one reserved for General Grant were soon crowded, and many soldiers were stand ing on the platform of the station. Gen eral Grant was sitting alone on the side of the car next to the platform and near the door, when a soldier came to the door, and was told by tbe guard that he could not come into that car. Gen eral Grant asked the guard what the man wanted, and was told that he want ed to go to Washington. The General then asked why he was not permitted to come into the car and was answered that 'this car is a special car for Gen eral Grant and his staff.' The General quickly replied, 'Let him come in. I only occupy one seat in this car.' This was the first intimation the guaTd had that General Grant and his staff were in the car. The General then asked what the other men were doing who were standing on the platform, and be ing told that they wanted to go to Washington, he said, 'Let all who can crowd in get in.' The car was soon filled, one private soldier taking a seat beside the General and engaging him in conversation nearly all the way to Alexandria, not knowing with whom he was talking." Harper's Bazar says : The general designs for spring suits is that of short basques, with long drapery and plain lower skirts, and this suggestion is giv en alike in dresses of one fabric or foi combinations of two materials. The upper part of the dress will be of plain goods, with figured stuffs for the trimming and for the lower skirt. The ! short plain basque of bison, serge, oi of camel's hair, will be inlaid with vel vet in front and back alike ; sometimes the velvet forms a short curved oi pointed plastron, while in other dresses it extends to the waist line like a ves1 in front, and this is repeated in the middle forms of the back. Severs oi bretelles of the wool goods edge the inlaid velvet, and these revers are some- i times covered with braid. Polka basques for the house are very similar in shape to the jackets used over them for the street; they ex tend plainly over the hips, but are quite short, reaching only three or four in ches below the waist line in the back, where they are shortest, lying smoothly on the tjurnure without pleats. Very narrow vests are preferred when velvet is used, especially if it is of a contrast ing color. The deep pointed aprons are now made of a separate breadth of cloth and disappear entirely on the sides next the belt, leaving in view all the underskirt, which may be of a velvet or of the plain cloth stitched in clusters, or tucked, or else braided. The straight full back drapery may hang plain its entire length, or is may be laid in large pleats, or, if it must be more bouffant, it is pleated in a single puff, and these pleats are cleary defined, both in the puff and in the cloth which falls below to the foot. TUB' Strange Story Told by Widow to a Georgia Justice. "You are an attorney as well as a magistrate?" said a lady yesterday morning in Justice W. A. Poe's office, as she glanced nervously around the room. 'Yes, madam ; how can I serve you?" said tbe justice. "Do you keep a record of the mar riage Ceremonies Von nerfnrm?" aha inquired, after some hesitation. Her manner was excited, and her fingers Miaycu rapiuiy witn a Handkerchief that she held. "Only a partial oner, it is not very "Get the book and 2ok at this date two years ago," she demanded. Til I . . . j.ne oraer was ooeyed, and the fol lowing entry read from the record: "Married, 23d Marca, 1883, Fannie Howard and James F.' Sterling." "Yes, yes," said fie, "I am now convinced. The mas, sir, to whom you married me was my dead hus band. You may not believe it. but so sure as I am a livingrwoman the cere monv von nerfnrmdl hnum! in wH. lock a live woman and a man who had been dead for three years. Here, swear me to speak, the truth," she said, grasping "a bible lying on the table. With an expression that spoke nluinlv Ills nalnniahmonh Tii.Jwq P , X J l.j . . , v nnv xvo took the holy book: and administered the oath. It was a most nfimiliar nrn. ceeding. and one- that the reporter watched with awe and trembling. "You hare swosn me to speak the truin, ana nothing out the truth, and 1 will, soheln me fJhd T.iatan to no-hat-. T say. You married-me to a materialized spirit. I see yoo do not believe in spiritualism. 1 do, and on oath I de clare tnat in this room, on the twenty third day of Msaeh, 1883, you married me, Fannie Howard, to James Frank lin Howard, and not to J. F. Sterling; that there is Wit: nnr nevp- nras a. -I F. Sterling whe married me in this 1 1 ' -w 1 . iuuiu uu iuo sou. oi marcn, two years aero. "Eleven, years ago, in the countv of Al. - ii; i i t . .I i..ouioe, la wis state, a, r annie west brook, married James Franklin How ard, my husband. We lived together twelve months, when he was taken sick and died. Shortly afterward I went north. In my distress I visited the celebrated Mr. Foster, of New York. There I saw my husband, a materialized spirit. I talked with him, and enioved the harminess his nna. j , - - i i r- eiHH? gave me. I left the medium room wun new me anu nope, ana in a short time returned home. "The quiet neighborhood of a coun try home is seldom broken by the ap pearance oi a visitor, vjne u.av, how ever, there came to our house a stran ger. He had been in the neighborhood several aays, ana his striking resem blance to my husband had been noted by many of my friends who had seen him. He came to our home at the in vitation of my father, who had re quested him to dine with us. I did not enter the dining-room until all had taken seats around the table. My eyes rested upon the stranger, and in a moment I saw before me my dead husoana as aistmctiy, sir as 1 see you. I do not know what passed afterward; memory deserted me. I seemed to be under the influence of some spiritual power. "Mr. Sterling came to our house often afterward. I was nevor so im pressed in my life as I was at our first meeting. His resemblance to my dead husband was startling. In time he ad dressed me, and I accepted his offer, against my father's wishes. We came to this city, and in an hour after we arrived you married us. We left your office foi the hotel. My husband left me at the room door. I partially clos ed the door and instantly opened it. He was not in the hall, as he was a moment before. Nowhere could he be seen. He had not entered the office, and no one saw him leave the hotel. It was a mystery. He never returned. I was advised by the proprietor to consult the police. I did so, but never afterward heard of him." "You were cruelly deserted, madam, by a cowardly villian," suggested the justice. "Deserted!" she repeated with an incredulous smile. "No; let me tell you, a man of flesh and blood could not cover two hundred feet of a hall way in the short space of five seconds. No one saw him pass. Besides, is it likely the police force could have failed to find him if he had bees in the city? ' : "From the facts, sir, I have stated to you, I firmly believe that I married the materialized spirit of my husband, that his spirit came back to earth, and assumed a form like that he wore on earth, and that for a season he made me happy, and that forgetting his spiritualized life, he over-stepped the bounds of that existence and was recalled peremptorily to the spirit land." The strange visitor glided out of the door as if she herself "might have been a materialized spirit. Macon ((?a.) Telegraph. Suffering Camels. A correspondent of The London Standard writing from Gak.iul says: The marches of Stewart and the going to and fro of convoys, during which many of the Camels were occasionally four and six days without water and food, except the dry, reed-like sabas grass growing upon the desert, told fatally upon hundreds of the poor brutes. The stamina was gone out of the survivors, and protracted rest was necessary, with good feeding for all of them. " The situation admitted of neither, and with huge gapping wounds and terrible sores from packs and girths, the wretched animals eon tinned to be driven out. An awful effluvia, noxious as a pest-house, ex haled from the wounds of the misera ble animals, and has latterly filled the air whenever a camel convoy marches. 1 say nothing of the stench from the countless dead vietims which line the route from Abu Kru to Korti. Even as I write the odor from hun dreds of these lying outside the en trance to Gakdul makes the approach to this place a sort of running the gauntlet of smells insufferable. V- Ranfffn nf T'n.vAl As a boy is pleased with a whistle or knife, and in youth finds delight with either a horse or a bicycle, so in man-, hood come the ehanges of taste and ambition. The pleasures of twenty are out-lived at thirty, and at f arty we aire looking through the tunnel to the light at the other end, and net until "Tery much older, I believe, do we long for the lost days of boyhood. The years that seemed slow in passing- at twenty go by like fast coaches before forty, and startle us like a night express at fifty. The longing to keep young is an average deMre m so- many, that one who could tell of a land where youth is renewed, would be hailed as a lead-, er with a spendid following. . An yet, taone inured to bleak and inclement climates, a simple change to the mild- -er weather of Southern Missouri, Kan sas, New Mexico or California, will work wonders in the renewing of . youth. A air bath by travel and a new sur rounding, provided one is employed and contented, is one of the surest means of reviving lost energv and in- -creasing vitality. The wine-like winds of travel for nothing is so much like it, in stimulating vigor, as the swift draughts of air one inhales by contrast of climates is of all things intoxica ting to the senses. We feel the world . is-larger, we know the earth is beautiful,- and of all things to the debilitated, I travel is the key to happiness. ; Travel breaks up our narrowness, enlarges our love of enjoyment, in creases our belief in improvements, revives our recollections, and enlarges our view of others. It does more.- It adds a new life to the old one and brings to the newer the right to live over the other, and fulfills the -longing to be a boy again, for travel in a strange and romantic country . is to be gin life anew; and settling foe a sea son in some fair valley ("where the smile of the Creator has eaystalized on the landscape"), or in some city of refinement, is a world that before was undiscovered. As an aid to conversation and a theme of general use in business, or : pleasure, it is broad and instructive; as a means of learning history it is be yond all books, maps and teachers; for acquiring knowledge it is a rare experience. "He is a wise man who has known many men, seen many cities." The influence of travel' on reading, love of learning, and general advant age over information gained in books, need not be urged to enforce its mean ing. We all know that the. more one learns tho more he will learn, and a fact once outlined of fields well known will outlast all descriptions. From the chances of trade and the changes of business, we often meet men and women who have seen better days, whose ample fortune once af forded the luxury of ease and comfort. Notably is this true of the once, wealthy planters at the South, who have lost in the vortex of commerce, and the tide of affairs, the means that had furnished many a feast of enjoy ment, whose present chief solace is in the fond recollection of what was theirs so long in reality and is now only cherished in memory. From these we may learn that next to our' nearest friendships will ever be the, gain and pro lit of strange lands vis-, ited, fortunes enjoyed, and fond scenes, remembered. And what, after all, is life but a lit tle journey in a strange land, with a few companions, less friends, a flying train, a halt at the little stations, a rest and a recollection of what we have seen, known and enjoyed most as we traveled, even though they may be unpossessed of like impressions, and surroundings. The chief gain of travel is that means of making one at home with the many classes of associates who read from the start that one of easy manneis has at least some superior knowledge of the world. Then, too, the pleasures of contemplation must ever be a source of companionship, and one that has traveled many miles with attention will have a mind well Stored with natural paintings and pleasant places, to recall at leisure and enjoy when alone, The enlargement of the mind on seeing the growth of great cities, the progress of vast improvements in mechanism and arts, with the still greater wonder at the works of nature as seen in rivers and mountains, val leys like Harper's Ferry and the Yo semite, falls like Niagara, the grander sights of the Yellowstone, are all themes to contemplate, enlighten and inspire. Books and paintings can never wholly define them, J. W. Don ovan, in The Current. London Stenographers. A knowledge of shorthand is fast be coming an essential in the mercantile service of London. Without it a young man, however capable in other re spects, stands at a serious disad vantage; with it he commands an ampler salary, and occupies an im mensely superior position in the great race. It is astonishing, nevertheless, that of the many thousand who make the art an object of study, so few are really competent and trustworthy writers. opeea is oeyona an cavil the- sole and guiding disideratum of the art; but where we have ono man qual ified to follow every syllable artic ulated by such a notoriously, "easy"' speaker as the premier, there are- crowds who, tnougn approaching tne task with "every confidence," would discover that they had net enough of that wholesome commodity, backed up by a modicum of ability, to carry them through. If, as is insisted, the average rate of public speaking is 120 words per minute ana tnis is unaer the mark)., two thirds of that figure about represent the reeord of the fourth estate. Verbatim reporting is manifestly on the decline, chiefly by reason of its not being required ex cept for private and official purposes, and to some extent on account oi forsenic incapacity. It is allowed that shorthand, whatever its perfection as an art, has not kept in the front in the matter of speed. All the Year Round. Jackson Hart, a full-blooded negro In Chat tanooga, is rapidly turning white.