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About The Columbian. (St. Helens, Columbia County, Or.) 1880-1886 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 1, 1882)
7. 1 1 A YOL. in. ST. HELENS, COLUMBIA COUNTY, OREGON, SEPTEMBER 1, 1882. NO. 4. XTMBIAN: CilANUIXG HIS MINI). "I am a miserable man said Cyrus Maddox gloomily, " ami it is best tbe world should be rid of my presence. No one cares for me." - ' Oh, don't say that, uncle," said Liz zie Silver beseechingly. Yon are the only friend I have in the world, and if yon were to die, what would become of me?" " I suppose young Guy Cheevers vmil rrnKnl von f-i- rntr lma onM (VT Maddox grimly. "At any rate I don't care. I will end my troubles and sorrows to-inorrow at twelve o'clock." And with these fearfal words he strode out of the room; leaving Lizzie sobbing, with her curly black head rest ing on a dinner plate. " What's the matter now, Bess? Has the milliner disappointed you in the love of a bonnet?" asked a warm, hearty voice, the undoubted property of young " Guy Cheevers," as Sir. Maddox called him as that gentleman strode into the room. "Oh Guy," sobbed Lizzie, "Uncle Cy rus is going to die to-morrow at twelve o'clock!" . "How do vouknow," asked Guv. "He said so." "But how does he know?" "He's going to'kill himself." . "So as to make himself a true proph et, eh?" asked Guy laughing. "Oh, Guy, don t joke! cried Lizzie, tparfnllv. "FT will. I know h will." " T doubt it." said Guv skentieallv. y w . 'But he has tried to commit suicide several times," persisted Lizzie, tearful ly, "Once he tried to smother himself with burning charcoal, but he forgot to stop up the key-hole, and I smelt the smoke and got some neighbors to break open the door and save him. Then he tried to hang himself, but the cord broke, and he fired a pistol at himself, but he forgot .o put a ball in it, so that failed, and then " "Gracious!" cried Guy, as Lizzie stopped for want of breath, "what a de termined man he must be. Such per severance deserves to be rewarded. Have you any idea what plan he will try next?" "I'm sure I don't know," said Lizzie, mournfully. "Something dreadful, J suppose." "But what does he want to make away with himself for?" asked Guy, wonder iagly. "Why, he says he is a miserable man, a burden to every one, and that life has no joys for him, and that he is weary of this world " "And so would like to try the next?" said Guy. "Perhaps he won't find it as pleasant as the one he is quitting. He is rich, talented, healthy and has a very preny metre iiere m ujuiucuii ui abstraction he allowed his arm to wander around Miss Silver's waist "and what more can he want? But some people never are satisfied. It seems he is deter mined to pry into futurity, and it seems tion, but duty to myself compels me to interfere. I dislike scandal or excite . ment. A coroner's jury would cause both, therefDre we must balk his little game." "But how will you do it?" asked Lizzie curiously. "A prudent general," said Guy, haugh tily, "never confides his plans to his army, particularly when that army is of the feminine gender so excuse me; mum's the word; but rest assured, my dear Elizabeth, that unless your worthy uncle shuffles off this mortal coil in a sur reptitious manner before twelve" o'clock to-morrow, he will not do it afteiward of course I mean illegally, farewell till .to-morrow." Having concluded this address, Guy started off in a tragic manner, leaving Lizzie greatly summed, but still quite reassured, for in her opinion what Guy could not do was not worth doing. The next morning Mr. Maddox made his appearance very satnrine and gloomy, and ate his breakfast with a , mournful air that was terribly impres . sive. Having finished eating, he then took leave of his niece in a feeling man ner. "I am about to leave you," he said mournfully. "I am about to put an end to this mis'erable life. I hope that you may ever be happy." "Oh, don't go, ' said Lizzie, tearfully clinging to him and looking up into his face pleadingly. "It's useless," said Mr. Maddox, firmly. "My mind is fixd, and nothing you may say can persuade me to relin quish my purpose. But you, my dear child, shall not be unprovided for. I intend to make my will in the few hours that are left to me, and you will not be forgotten. Good-bye, my dear child farewell !" and then after embracing his - niece fervently, Mr. Maddox rushed from the room frantically, anil securely locked himself in his own room, and be gan to prepare himself for his last jour ney. "Nine o'clock," he said to himself, looking at his watch. "Three hours vet. Enough to do all I have to do. First, to - make my will." The last will and testament of Mr. Cyrus Maddox was evidently not a long one, as it was finished in an hour. "Eleven o'clock," said Mr. Maddox, "and I have finished. How slow the 4;m napsea. to be sure. Now what shall rdo until twelve o'clock, for I am deter mined not to die until noon " A knock at the door. "Go away!" cried Mr. Maddox, an-, grily. "You can't come in." "I am very sorry to disagree with you," eaid a voice outside the door, "but I can come in. I have a duplicate key here and if you don't open the door I ' will." Mr. Maddox rose and unlocked the door savagely and Mr. Guy Cheevers walked into the room, carrying an ob long box under his arm. ) He placed the box on the table and then tok a seat opposite Mr. Maddox and stared blandly at him. i "What do you want?" asked Mr. Mad dox, fiercely. "Don't you see that I am engaged ?" . "Oh, I know," said Guy, "what you are about to do. Don't think that I. am going to interfere; not at all. But be fore you make your quietus, I wish to ask you a few questions- Have you pro vided for your niece's future welfare?" "What's that to yon ?" j ''Considerable. " I am about to marry Miss Silver, and her interests are nat urally mine." I "Then she is provided for amply." "Thank you for your i information. Very glad to hear it. And now, excuse the apparent impertinence of the ques tion, but where is your will ?" "Here." said Mr. Maddox, laying his hand on it. '"Suppose you give it toime to take care of?" "Give it to you ? Why, pray ?" "It might become misplaced," ex aimed Guy. "I'll keep it myself,," said Mr. Mad dox, roughly. "Then just leave a memorandum on the table," said Guy, earnestly, "to tell where it is. It will save trouble, per haps," j "Get out," cried Mr. Maddox, angrily. "Ah, 1 see," said Mr. Cheevers, coolly, "in a hurry to begin. Well, I won't de tain you, but I have a little suggestion to offer. "It is this," said Guy. ."Miss Silver informs me that you have made several previous efforts to cut short your troub les and your breath, and always unsuc cessfully. It seems to me you don't go the right way about it. This box," and here he opened the box alluded, "con tains several little plans that I think might please you. Here's one," and he showed a little steel instrument. "What's that?" asked Mr. Maddox, cu riously. "This," said Guy, "is an aiticle that you can place around your neck like a collar, then, striking your hand on the left side of your neck, a sharp spike is driven right into yonr jugular vein" "But that would kill me," said Mr. Maddox, staring. "Well, ain't that what you want?" de manded Guy, sternly. "Now here's an other," ho went on. "Here's a wheel.you observe. You place this band around your neck, pass it under the wheel and give two or three turns, then let go. Tbe recoil will almost twist yonr head off your shoulders and kill; you to a cer tainty." Mr. Maddox stared at him with un feigned horror. "Then," said Guy, colly, "here's a little package a torpedo.' It contains nitro'-glycerine. You place it in your mouth, snap your teeth' on it, and off goes your nead, smashed into millions of atoms." j "Good heavens," he exclaimed, Mr. Maddox, fearfully. "What a terrible idea!" j "Not at all," said Mr. Guy, sooth ingly. "Beautiful invention I quite p.ide myself on it scientific suicide.you see! Anybody can take poison or blow their brains out, but to do scientifically requires real talent. You have it and I am confident you will reflect credit on my skill. "Now," he continued, confi dently, "if you could use all these inven tions at once cut your jugular, garotte yourself, and blow your brains out, all at oce why, I'd thank you." "What," cried Mr. Maddox, fiercely, "do you think I'm going to use any of your infernal inventions? Get out of this room, you cold-blooded villain, be fore I throw you out of the window." "But I have a good many more to show you," remonstrated Guy, "and yon see I want you to try as many as pos sible. Wellfwell," he added, as Mr. Maddox grasjed the poker threatingly, "I"m going. But I'll leave this box, and before you get rid of yourself just make a memorandum of what you will use.and leave it on the table, because, you know, there will be probably nothing .left of you to draw conclusions from, and so on-" ; Here any further speech was cut short by Mr. Maddox seizing his visitor and hustling him out in the passage. "Well?" said Lizzie to Guy. "I think it's all right," said Guy, grin ning. "Get the lunch ready. Your uncle is all right. "He'll be down." And sure enough he was, and though he spoke not, he ate most voraciously of everything. ! "Lizzie," said he, suddenly, after an hour's pause, "diJI you ever see an in fernal old fool and an idiot?" "Never, that Lknow of,'! said Lizzie. "Why?" i "Because, just look at me, and you'll see one," said Maddox grimly, and he stalked up stairs. i Up to the present time of writing, Mr. Cyrus Maddox is still alive, enjoying good health, and he seems to be on friendly terms with Mr. Cheevers and his wife, Lizzie. He probably forgave that gentleman oh account of a discovery that he made that the nitro-glycerine torpedo contained nothing! more danger ous than salt, and the "infernal inven tions" were infernal in about the same ratio; but Guy still maintains that when a person is weary of life i they should cease their troubles by scientific suicide. The mortality among the bishops of the Methodist Episcopal church has been great durin?" the last few years. Kingsley, Thompson, Baker, Ames, Janes, Gilbert Haven, E. O. Haven and Scott, have all died within a short time. Of the survivors, Fobs, Foster and Bow man have recently been near death. Some Fashionable Beauties. The London Society recently printed the following: The "professional beauty" ia no new feature of the London season jnd al though photography has no doubt done much to give xublioity to the charms of the loveliest women in the ranks of fash ion, yet in the days of our great-grandfathers ard grandmothers, the reigning belles excited just as much vulgar curi osity and gossip as they do now. Take, for "instance, the rGunnings, Maria and Elizabeth, who appeared at the Court of George II., one at the age of eighteen and the other of nineteen, and both without a shilling to their dowry. "They are declared," writes Walpole, "to be the handsomest women alive; they can't walk in the Park or go to Yauxhall, but such crowds follow them that they are generally driven away. One day they went to see Hampton Court; as they were going into the Beauty Room an other party arrived; the housekeeper, in a state of great excitement, said ' to tbe the new-comers, "This way, ladies, here are the famous beauties!" The Misses Gunning thereupon flew into a passion and asked her what she meant; they went to see the palace, and not to be shown as a sight themselves. The youngest of the two sisters beoame the wife of James, Duke of Hamilton; he fell in love with her at a masquerade, and a fortnight laer met her at an as sembly in Lord Chesterfield's gorgeous new bouse in May fair. His Grace was so enamored of the lovely Elizabeth that he left the faro-table, where he had staked a thousand guinea s, and let tne game slide," whilst he paid devoted court to his enchantress. Two nights later, at half an hour past midnight, they were married bv Dr. Keith with the ring of a bedcurtain in May fair Chapel,-one of the most hasty and eccentric marriages on ecord. In less than three weeks Maria Gunning followed her sister's example, and was wedded to Lord Coventry, though not with such indecent haste as in the other case. Tbe two beauties were even greater ob jects of popular curiosity after their marriages than before. When the Duchess of Hamilton was presented, the crowd at the drawing-room was so great that even "noble persons" clambered upon chairs and tables to look at her; whilst mobs gathered round the doors of the two "goddesses to see them get into their sedan-chairs; and such crowds flocked to see the Duchess when she went to her castle that 700 persons sat up all night in a Yorkshire town in order to see her start in her post-chaise the next morning! Lady Coventry was equally run after, at Worcester a shoemaker made two guineas and a half by showing, at a penny a head, the shoe which he was making for the Countess. She had, how ever, little but her beauty to recommend her; it was she who made the singularly maladroit remark to his majesty that the one sight she longed to see was a coronation. Her husband, who was a sensible man in many respects, though somewhat of a bear in manners, objected strongly to her ladyship's excessive use of red and white powders and paints; and once at a large dinner party, sus pecting that she had been "making her self up," he chased his wife around the table till ho caught her, when, before all the company, he scrubbed her face with a napkin. VVhen Lady Coventry vis ited Paris she expected that her beauty would meet with the applause which had followed her and her sister through Englaud ; but she was put to flight by another English lady, still more lovely in the eyes of the Parisians. A certain Mrs. Pitt took a box at tbe opera oppo site the Countess, and was so much handsomer than her ladyship that the "parterre" cried out that this was the real English angel; whereupon Lady Coventry quitted Paris in a huff. Not long afterward she died of consumption, accelerated, it was said, by the red and white paint with which she plastered those luckless charms of hers, Country Air. If you go into the country, leave all your fashionable dresses at borne. If you are more anxious about your.flounces than about your lungs,! and sit in fine harness upon the piazza like a Christmas doll in a case, too elegant to be exposed to the open air, you will return to your home paler, thinner and less comfortable than you left it. If, On the contrary, yon wear shoes you cad walk in, a belt yon can "breath in, and a useful dres that did not co&t you I a fortune; and walk and climb, aud ride and drive if you can ; and bathe, i row and ramble about all day,you will find that country going pays, and that you will look younger and brighter for it all the year. Yon can knit crochet! tidies and em broider handkerchief-bags all winter; you cannot climb the hills, and ramble by the waterside, or go a-berrying or fish ing, or see nature at her sweetest in the city. You know you want to enjoy your self, aud that you would go so often if it were not for your dress. Well, then, leave "dress" behind you; simply clothe yourself; have your big hat, your loose boots, your flannel and calico, and never be afraid of appearances so that what you are doing is respectable and proper. Half a dozen bright young women at a country hotel or farm house may set the fashion if they will, so that all the Nini-eny-pimenies who came down merely to make pictures of themselves in the grounds, will soon be seen climbing the hills to see the views from the summits, or going down into the woods with tin paiis in their hands to gather blackber ries. Philadelphia has discovered that its women folks live the longest. That's because they've nothing else to do. Dan Denjke's Ghost. "Yes," said the professor; "I saw one upon a time as good a ghost as ever has been seen. It is rather an alarming story; but if you'd like to hear it. ladies" He paused. Who ever refused to hear about a ghost? We gathered about the professor's table at once, and he, with serious mien and solemn countenance, began: "I was a hard student at college one of those good young men who improve the shining hour, and use a good deal of candle into the bargain. In my student days gas was not yet in fashion, and our rooms were pretty with grates and wax lights, as they never are in these days of registers and chandeliers. My particu lar room in the college, which I shared with my chum, Dan Denyke, was a very pretty one at any time, for my mother,as well as my sisters and my cousins and my aunts, were always sending me pres ents to beautify it with. I had water color sketches, flower paintings, painted satin pincushions, embroidered hair-receivers, shaving papers in fancy cases, baskets of 'wax fruit, pen wipers, foot stoools, cushions, but as for Dan, he had nothing but his book, fishing lines, and his boxing-gloves and dumb-bells. He hated study, and only crammed about examination time. We were as different as two young fellows could be; but I loved him and he loved me, though we often disapproved of each other, as, for instance when he neglected his work for his boat, or when I turned my back on some 'jolly lark' in order to study. "Often I passed long evenings alone, hard at it over my books, but I never forgot my friendship, and I think I laid better plans by which to get him into college after regulation hours than he could have done for himself. "I never remember being angry with him until that great examination was fast approaching on which our future fate seemed to hang in other words, that at which we should both have graduated with honors. Then seeing him so idle, I reproved him. tie ridiculed me, and we came very near quarreling. "You are going out to-night. Dan?" I said, as I saw him making preparations for a secret departure, one night after hours. Think of what you have before you? Grinding isn't pleasant, but for heaven's sake put yourself at it for once in your life! 'He was near the door as I spoke, and he turned and looked at me. "'Come with me, Ben, he said, 'you'll be all the better for it. We'll have a night for fishing such as hasn't been seen this year, and we're going to cook the fish afterward in the old hut on the river. We've got a frying-pan and wood, and bread and things stored there, all ready for the fun. A barrel of beer will be taken up. Jim, the boatman, will see to that. Come on, old fellow!' "I forgot what I said. I only know I reproached him with idleness, and declared I would not let him in, and that he said he wouldn't ask my help. He went off in a huff, and I stayed at home, righteously indignant, as I believed, and fell to studying with doubie ardour, in a sort of 'thank heaven I am better off than other men' spirit. "Befoie long, however, I really lost myself in my work, and was only aroused from my forgetfulness of all sublimary affairs by a sudden shaking and rattling of the windows such as I had never heard before. "I started to my feet, and lifted my sash. A frightfui storm was raging with out; the wind blew wildly. The light ning flashed, the thunder muttered, and as I gazed I saw a great zig-zag streak dart from the heavens. Then the earth shook again; the lightning had struck somewhere. I thought of the old boat house and shuddered. My watch told me it was nearly one o'clock. "And I was not a nervous man,but the storm was more than I could face. I drew the shutters to, dropped the cur tains and sat down before my desk. But I could not concentrate my thoughts on anything. Dan's face kept rising before me. Dan's voice seemed to call me from afar. We had parted in anger. Perhaps I should never see him again, something seemed to say. 'Am I a fool!' I asked myself. 'Am I turned woman or cow ard?' But the thought would not drive away ; the terrors increased. Two o'clock struck. It was 2:30, nearly three, anc still our preconcerted signal was not given. How gladly would I have heard it! At last, sick at heart, and with an awful foreboding of evil to come I cast myself face downward on the bed, with my hands clasped over my eyes. "How many minutes I lay there I do not know. A strange, rustling sound aroused me. Without uncovering eyes I listened. There was something in the room somothing! But what? "Then slowly and with terrible antici pations I turned over on my side and looked toward the spot whence the sound came. This is no dream story I was not dreaming what I saw with waking eves. I swear this to you. Is the story growing too terrible ladies? No? Well, then I will proceed. "In the chair I had just left sat a figure wrapped from head to foot in white drapery. About his head was a white cloth, but from under the awful headgear tbe dark eyes of poor Dan Denyke looked at me. I aw his fea tures, his straight eyebrows, his large, dimpled chin! He stared at me and never stirred. My fears had proven true, I felt Dan was dead! and it was his ghost that came to bid me farewell. I tried to speak; my voice failed me. Slowly I arose,- Step hy step I crept toward the apparition, with vain efforts to utter liia name. I was not afraid of Dan, living or dead ; it was only an awful grief and horror that possessed me. I stretched my hand toward him, that, if it could, his spirit hand might graspit, and 1 felt something wet and oold. Water dripped from the head of the spectre. Dan had been drowned. "I started at the figure gasping withal. It arose and looked at me, and, as its ghostly, shrouded form attained its full height, I found my voice. " Oh, Denkye, my friend my broth er 1' I cried, 'you have coToe to me from the unknown land! It is to say you for give me? Oh, Denyke, speak to me!' "I paused. It's lips' unclosed; it was about to answer, l awaited the awful utterance. It spoke, and this is what it said: " 'Bottingen. what in thunder is the matter with you?' "I came to my senses on the spot. I had been asleep for an hour, and during my slumbers Denyke hadlrotin somehow. He was soaked to the skin, .and after changing his clothes had wrapped himself in a white counterpane and tied a wet towel over his head, as students often do in preparing for, a nights study, especi ally after a spree All in white, from head to foot, I had taken him for a ghost and made-a fine exhibition of myself. "However, he was good enough to keep the story to himself, and I was the first to tell it, though not until college days were over. By the way, he graduated that year, and I did not. It was hard, sharp .work with him, but he did it. I had an attack of brain fever and came near dying, but, as you see, I lived through it." j HUMOROUS. The printer's devil is certainly imp probable. Many a milkman has become rich from the profits on poor milk. The supplements to Utica's Observer are lawful but very deary reading. A man of quiet tastes is he who tipples on the sly, behind the pantry door. She who wears digitated hose while bathing offers ten points to the lively crab. j Managers of famous actors are already marking out their star-routes for next season. If you can't keep cool, keep cool as you can, is the advice of the fruit jre server to his employes. Of the thousands of men who'd face death for a woman, only one would empty her swill paTl. "Ants, Bees and Wasps," is the title of a new book, and we observe that our literary editors didn't sit upon it. ' It is observable that several church conventions at Saratoga, somehow, hap pen to get there the week of the great races. j A Chicksawj Indian is distributing bibles among j his tribe. When gun wadding is scarce the red man searches tbe scriptures, j A fashion item states that there is a tendency to drop overskirts. If this be true, there will, be a great demand for men's suspenders. "Influential citizen?" said the Dead wood man of his friend, "I should say he is! Why, he's the surest shot with a re volver in town." A dead cat and some broken pieces of old dishes are blooming on the grave of Brigham Yonng. Ah! fickle, fickle wo man! rLou. Courier-Journal. For thirty cents you can have a sixty mile sail on a New York excursion steam boat, probably the cheapest opportunity to defy death on record. Those young doctors who gleefully toss around the remnants of a subject, after dissection, are the end men of the medical profession. They play the bones. ' The life of a journalist is full of unex pected novelties, but they generally turn up in the shape of typographical errors after the entire edition has been printed. j . Miss Lillipach says she uses powder merely to take the shine off her face, but Fogg thinks she uses it to take the shine off the other women's faces. Boston Transcript. j The incredulity of people has reached a point when it is absolutely fatal to the reputation of a minister to have him tell what a big fish he caught during his vacation. ! A hat flirtation is the latest idiocy among the girls. There is no way that a man can wear a hat that doesn't mean something, and the only way you're safe is to go bareheaded. A man may have good intentions and a bad life. His head may be in an inn where a noble! idea enters to stay over night, but packs up and is off again in the morning. Chat by the Wayv A married lady declined to tell a maiden sister any of her troubles, say ing: "When ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise. ",Yes," replied the sister, "and I've come to the conclusion that when singleness is bliss, 'tis folly to be wives." I The STorj (f an Umbre'Ia. I ... During the shower yesterday a citizeu carrying a very wet umbrella entered a hotel to pay a call to some one up stairs'. After placing j his umbrella where it might drain, he wrote upon a piece of paper and pinned it to the sentence: "N. B. This umbrella belongs to a man who strikes a 250-pound blow back in fifteen minutes." He want his way up stairs, and after an absence of fifteen minutes returned to find his umbrella gone, and in its place a note reading: ! "P. S. Umbrella taken by a man who walks ten miles an 'hour won't be back at all!" Detroit Free Presi. AGRICULTURAL. Poorly ventilated stables are hotbeds of disease. Feed the corn crop, and cultivate often and not deeply. Now is the time to watch for vermin in the poultry houses. It is not proper to expose stock be-" cause it is summer. Good shelter is ' necessary at all times. A cultivator is an article that should be allowed no rest by daylight. Keep it moving all the time. Let the hens set if they will, as late -hatched chicks will pay better than to f waste time in breaking the hen from set ting. 1 The grass on lawns should not be cut as close in midsummer, especially in very dry weather, as in the spring and autumn. Crab grass is a persistent grower After cultivating to eradicate it, place the accumulation of grass round tomato vines, strawberries, etc., as it furnishes an excellent mulch. A hog of the propor sort should not only be extremely wide through the shoulders and fore parts, but that great . width should be carried all through the carcass, so that when fat they are just as wide through the hams as at the shoulders, Abroad, well covered loin is also an essential point. An English hop crop is reported to have been visited with an attack of fly ' so virulent and general that there is rea son to fear the destruction of the crop unle&3 the parasites depart soon. Small numbers had been seen before, but a fortnight ago they arrived in legions over the entire hop-growing location. In setting out plants I wet the ground before taking them up, so that some dirt adheres to them ; when I have a panful I sprinkle them thoroughly, so that the dirt is sticky,and I can then transplant them in the middle of the day, in a dry time, without the loss of scarcely one. Cor. Tribune. Cucumbers for pickles should be planted any time after the first of July A-good rich soil is needed for them, and good tillage also. Don't plant them in raised hills. They need all the moisture they can get, and raised hills only make their work in gathering a supply more difficult to accomplish. HOUSEHOLD. Tomato Toast. Run a quart of stewed ripe tomatoes through a colander, place in a porcelain stew-pan, season with but ter, pepper and salt and sugar to taste; cut slices of bread thin, brown on both sides, butter and lay on platter, and just as the bell rings for tea on Sunday, add a pint of good sweet cream to the stewed tomatoes and pour them over the toast. Cleaning Baking Plates. Baking plates and pudding dishes that have been used for a long time need a. thorough cleansing occasionally. To do this put them in a kettle of water in which you have put a spoonful of wood ashes to one quart of water. Let them boil in this for an hour, and if any grease has been absorbed through cracks in the glazing it will be removed, and the piecrust baked in a plate thus cleaned will be sweet and not unwholesome. Damson Jelly. Damson jelly is mad easily by pntting the damsons in a jar and in the oven and letting them heat gradually, and so extracting the juice. To every pint of juice add one pound of sugar. Proceed then as for currant jelly. After the Juice is extracted for the jelly rnb the fruit through a sieve. This of course removes the stones. When rubbed through the sieve weigh the fruit and add its weight in sugar; boil it. until it stiffens, put it in cups to harden, and it can be turned into jelly plates, and it is delicious with cold meats. Pickled Plums. Pickled plums should be prepared with sugar and spices in this proportion: To seven pounds of plums add two pounds and a half of sugar, one ounce of cinnamon, one ounce of cloves and one quart of vinegar. Put the plums in a jar with first a layer of plums, then of sugar and spices, and so on until all are in; heat the vinegar and pour over them. The next day and the day after repeat tbe operation, drawing the same vinegar off, heating it, and pouring it over them again. Let them stand untouched for three days, then put plums and vinegar in a porcelain kettle; let them heat to the boiling point. After that they are ready for use. If canned while hot -hey will keep well all winter. . An Art Customer. "Have you any second-hind ancestors for sale?" asked a gaudily-dressed wo man with a shrill voice, of a well-known art dealer on Woodward avenue. "Ancestors?" echoed the bewildered man, "I don't think I quite understand you." "Don't catch on, hey? You must be as stupid as you look, then, but it's hard to believe. I've got a new house, and it's all fixed up and furnished tip-top, and now I want to buy some ancestors to hang in it." "I'm sorry, ma'am," explained the dealer, civilly, "but all my ancestors are hung; here's a holy family by Murillo I will sell you cheap, if it will suit." "Thank you; I don't want another family by. Manillo or any other man one family in a house is enough. If, you've got an aboriginal chromo I dunno but I might take it, but there's a heap more style in a gallery of ancestors, and I'll look around." The last seen of her she was punching the eye of "A portrait of a lady in oils with her parasol, at another art store, and asking the dazed clerk "what that woman was worth."-Detroit Free Preis. r.