THE COLUMBIAN.
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ST. HELENS, COLUMBIA CO., OIL,
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ST. HELENS, COLUMBIA CO., OIL,
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A
X. G. aTiATra, Editor and Proprietor.
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VOL. IV.
ST. HELENS, COLUMBIA COUNTY, OREGON, APRIL 25, 1884.
NO. 38.
Each subsequent insertion 1 00
THE COLUMBIAN.
BIAN.
THE REVELATION.
Coventry Patmoro.
An idle poet, here and there,
Looks round bim; but, for all the rest;
The world, unfathomably fair,
Is duller than a witling's jest.
Love wakes men, once a lifetime each;
They lift their heavy lids, and look;
And lo, what one sweet page can teach
Thev read with iov. then shut the book.
And some give thanks, and some blaspheme,
And most Forget, but, either way.
That and the Child's unheeded dream
Is all the light of all their day.
RACE ADMIXTURE.
The
True Story of Congressman
Marhey'it aiarrlag;.
Washington Letter.
Judge Mackoy, an uncle of the late
Congressman Mackey, of South Caro
lina, denies the story of the latter's
marriage to an oetoroon. lie 'says:
I he fact3 are tneso: lears ago
young Col. Sumter, of South Carolina,
a scion of the famous revolutionary
family, fell deeply in love with a hand
some woman, whose position socially
was below his own. He was anxious
and willing to make her his wife, but
he knew that his proud old father would
cut him olT with a shilling the moment
such an alliance was known. Accord
ingly, for prudential reasons, the bride
consented, for a time, to keep the mar
riage a secret. The only child born to
them was a girl. The colonel died sua
deniy before the secret had. been re
vealod, and was shortly followed to the
grave by his broken-hearted wife. The
child, a mere infant then, was
confided by the mother to the
care of a faithful old octoroon
nure, who proved to be the tra
ditional southern 'mammy' to her
charge. She lost no time in trying to
carry out the mother s request by prov
ing the property rights of the child.
The marriage certificate had, unfortu
nately, been lost, and nothing remained
but the colonel s letters to his wife
to prove the legal relationship
and the child s v!,itimate title. The
Sumter family were not satisfied with
this, but the grandfather relented far
enough to provide modestly for the
child, taking care, however, to leave her
in charge of the nurse and make no
mention of her in his will. It would
not have mattered much, though, for
the estate was completely wrecked b
the war. lou see, therefore, that the
child passed her infancy and girlhood
among her colored protectors
Naturally, she was supposed to belong
to them. He became interested in
her history, undertook the task of her
education, and when that was over, and
her character had developed into charms
mg womanhood, ho made her hi wife,
There's not a drop of colored blood in
her veins, and it is the refinement of
cruelty to revive that old rumor over
his grave. There is no possible ground
for doubt on the subject when the race
sijrns can be infallibly detected. The
moment I saw her first with her flaxen
hair, deep blue eyes, and clear cut
Caucasian features, I was satisfied of
the purity of her blood, but there will
at times be tne same bauiing race
tokens in octoroons and even secta
roons. One sign, however, never fails.
In the negro, even to the sixteenth ad
mixture, you find a purple instead of a
white crescent at the base of the finger
nails. The crescent was white.
"Through long generations," con
tinued the judge, "thU race admixture
becomes rather perplexing at times.
I remember a curious circumstance that
happened during one of my judgeship
campaigns. I don't believe nmh in
elevating negroes to office Republican
though I am and was alluding, bv way
of pleasantry and without a thought
of any personal application, to the po
litical ambition of men with purple
nails. My antagonist, whose blood I
never dreamed of calling in question,
took this as a personal affront, to my
great surprise. But 1 learned, on con
sulting with an old gojsip, that he was
actually a descendant of the poet Tim
rod, who, although the most gifted
poet our state ever produced, and re
ceived into the first social relations, was
well known to be an octoroon.
Oar Woods and Roads.
Los Angeles (Cal.) Herald.
Herr Lasker, however, found two
things to deprecate in the United
States. In the first place, he depre
cated the prodigal waste of the forests
with which this continent is so prodi
gally endowed. He pointed out the
fact that, while naturally we are so far
superior to Germany in this regard,
the older country was far more en
lightened in its policy as to forests.
There the people and government were"
at the utmost pains to conserve and to
replace the occasionally denuded parks.
While there the grand, primeval trees
were not encountered in anything like
the prodigious stretches characteristic
of the United States, there was the
most persevering replacement of every
tree which was compulsorily sacrified
for fuel or other purposes. He sug
gested that, while necessity would ulti
mately compel us to adopt the Europ
ean plan in this matter, it would be
wise to anticipate the iron exigency of
the future, thus saving us much posi
tive damage and vexation on the prin
ciple, that an ounce of prevention is
worth a pound of cure,
The second regard in which Herr
Lasker found the United States vastly
inferior to Europe was in our roads. In
the Old World, however great the sac
rifice and inconvenience in despotic
forms of government, the people had
splendid highways and byways. The
initiative set by the old Roman repub
lic and the old Roman empire of per
fect roadwayj, culverts and sidewalks
was religiously adhered to by Ger
many and other nations of Europe. He
thought that in this respect, as in the
other, we might well borrow a lesson
from the effete monarchies of the Old
World.
Another Weather KIsn.
New York Tribune
As an aged, white-haired darky
passed a chicken coop in Grand street
yesterday a rooster poked his head
through a crack and crowed lustily.
"Thank de Lord," said the old fellow,
reverently, "dar's gwine ter be er
change en de welder fur sho Dat
sign nebber fail."
Lady's Journal: Occasional praise
is 'wholesome as well as agreeable.
THE TWO MRS. TUCKERS
Rose Terry Cooke.
L
"You can make the fire while I put the boss
out," said Amasa Tucker, as she opened the
back door of a gray hou.e, set on top of
tret-less hill, tracked here and there with paths
the geese bad mode in their daily journeys
to the pond below, and only approached at
the back by a lane to the great red barn and
a rickety board gate set between two posts
of the rail fence.
This was Wealthy Ann Tucker's home-coming.
She had married Amasa that morning
at her father's house In Stanton, a little vil
lage twenty miles away from Feet's Mills,
the town within whose wide limits lay the
Tucker farm ; and had come home with him
this early spring afternoon in the old wagon
behind the bony horse that did the duty for
Amasa's family carriage..
Mrs. Tucker was a tall,' thin young woman.
with a sad reticent face, very silent and
capable. These last traits had been her
chief recommendation to her husband. There
was no sentiment about the matter. Old
Mrs. Tucker had died two weeks before this
marriage, but Amasa was "forehande J," and
knowing his mothor could not live long, had
improved his opportunities, and had boen
"sparkin'" Wealthy Ann Minor all winter in
judicious provision for the coming event of
his solitude.
He had thought the thing all over, and con
cluded that a wife was cheaper than a hired
girl, and more permanent; so, when be found
this alert, firm-jointed, handy girl living at
her uncle s, who was a widower on a great
farm the other side of the village, Amasa
made her acquaintance as soon as possible
and proceeded to further Intimacy. Wealthy
liked better to work for her uncle than for
a father with six secondary children, but
she thought it would be better still to have a
house of her own ; so she agreed to marry
Amasa Tucker, and this was her home
coming.
She opened the door into a dingy room with
an open fireplace at one end, a window on
the north and one on the south side, small,
paned with old, green and imperfect glass,
and letting in but just enough light to work
by. One corner, to the north, was parti
tioned off to make a pantry, and a door by
tbe fireplace led out into the woodshed. The
front of the house contained two rooms. One
opened into the kitchen and was a bed-room,
furnished sparsely enougn ; the other was a
parlor, with high-backed rush-bottomed
chairs against the walls, a round table in the
middle, a fireplace with brass andirons and
firelrons, a family Bible on the table and a
"mourning piece" painted in ground hair on
the mantel. Green paper shades and white
cotton curtains, a rag carpet fresh as it came
from the loom if its dinginess could ever be
called f resh and a straight-backed sofa
covered with green and yellow glazed chintz,
made as dreary an apartment as could well
be imagined. Wealthy shut the door behind
her quickly, and went to the shed for material
to make her fire. It was almost sundown
and she was hungry; but she found only the
scantiest supply of wood and a few dry chips
for kindling. However, she did her best, and
she had brought some provisions from home,
so that she managed to lay out a decent sup
per on the rickety tivbJ lr tii time Amasa
Came stamping in from the barn.
He looked disapprovingly at the pie, the
biscuit, the shaved beef and the jelly set
before bim.
"I hope ye ain't a waster. Wealthy," he
growled.
"There's vittles enough for a township, and
the' ain't but two of us."
"Well, our folks sent 'em over; and you no
need to eat em, she answered, cheerily.
"I a'n't goin' to; don't ye break into that
jell, set it by; sometime or nuther somebody
may be a comin' and you 11 want of it.
Wealthy said no more; they made a supper
of biscuit and beef, for the pie was ordered
"set by."
She was used to economy, but not to
stinginess, and she excused this extreme
thrift of her husband more easily for the
reason that she had been always poor, and
she knew very well that he was not rich to
say the least, but it was only the beginning.
Hard as Wealthy had worked at her
uncle's, here she found harder burdens; she
had to draw and fetch all the water she used
from an old-fashioned well with a heavy
sweep, picturesque to see, but wearisome to
use; wood was scarce, for though enough
grew on the hundred acres that Amasa owned
he grudged its use.
"I sba bt cut down no more than is really
needful," he said when she urged him to
fetch her a load ; "wood's allers a growin'
when ye don't cut it, and a makln' for lum
ber; and lumber's better to sell, a sight, than
cord wood. Ye must git along somehow with
brush; mother used to burn next to nothln'."
She did not remind him that his mother
was bent double with rheumatism, and died
of the fifth attack of pneumonia. Wealthy
never wasted words.
Then there were eight cows to milk, the
milk to strain, set, skim, churn or make into
cheese, and nothing but the simplest utensils
to do with. A cloth held over the edge of
the pail served for a strainer; the pails them
selves were heavy wood, the pans old and
some of them leaky, the holes stopped with
bits of rag, of ten to be renewed; the milk
room was In the shod, built against the
chimney that it might not freeze there in the
winter, and only aired by one small slatted
window; the churn was an old wooden
one with a dasher, and even the "spaddle"
with which she worked her butter was whit
tled out of a maple knot by Amasa himself,
and was heavy and rough.
Then to her belonged the feeding of the
pigs gaunt, lean animals with sharp snouts,
ridgy backs, long legs andthin flanks, deep
set eyes that gleamed with intelligent malice
and never-sated hunger. Wealthy grew
almost afraid of them when they clambered
up on the rails of the pen in their fury for
food and flopped their pointed ears at her,
squealing and fighting for the scant fare that
she brought. For Amasa underfed and over
worked everything that belonged to him.
Then there were hens to look after the old
fashioned barn-door "creepers" that wanted
food, too, and yet catered for themselves in
great measure and made free with barn and
woodshed for want of their own quarters,
and were decimated every season by hawks,
owls, skunks, Weasels and foxes, to say
nothing of tbe little chickens on which crows
and cats worked their will if they dared to
stray beyond the ruinous old coop contrived
for them by Amasa's inventive genius out of
sticks and stones.
Add to thi the cooking, washing, baking
and sewing, the insufficient supply of pork,
potatoes and tough pies, the "biled dinners,"
whose strength lay in the vegetable rather
than in the small square of fat pork cooked
with them, of which Amasa invariably
took the lion's share. These accumulated
and never-ceasing labors all wore day by
day on tbe vitality of Mrs. Tucker, and when
to these were added the annual baby, life
became a terror and burden to the poor
woman.
But what did Amasa care? He, too, worked
"from sun to sun."
He farmed in tbe hard old fashion with
rude instruments and no knowledge but
"My father done it afore me, so I am a
goin' to do it now, no use talkin'." One by
one the walling puny children were laid
way In the little yard on top of a sandhill,
where the old Tuckers and their half-dozen
Infants lay already; rough inclosure, full of
mulleins, burdocks and thistles, overrun with
low blackberry vines and surrounded by
rail fence. It had been much handier for
the Tuckers to have a graveyard close by
than to travel five miles, to. the mills with
every funeral; and they were not driven by
public opinion in regard to monuments; tney
all lay there like the beasts that perish, with
but one slant grey stone to tell where the
first occupant left his tired bones. Two
children of Wealthy's survived, Amasa and
Lurana, the oldest and youngest of seven.
Amasa, a considerate, intelligent boy, who
thought much and said little, and Lurana, or
"Lury," as her name was usually given, a
mischievous, self-willed little imp, the delight
and torment of her little worn-out mother.
Young Amasa was a boy quite beyond his
father's understanding; as soon as he was old
enough, he began to help his mother in every
way he could devise. And when his term at
tbe village school was over, to his father's
great disgust, be trapped squirrels and
gathered nuts enough to earn him money and
subscribe for an agricultural paper, which
he studied every week till its contents were
thoroughly stored in his head. Then began
that "noble discontent" which the philoso
phers praise.
Tbe elder man had no peace in his old
world ways; the sloppy waste of the barn
yard was an eyesore to the "book-learned
feller," as his father derisively called him.
And the ashes of the wood fire were saved
and sheltered like precious dust, instead of
thrown into a big heap to edify the wander
ing hens. That desolate garden was plowed,
fertilized and set in order at last, and the
great ragged orchard manured, the apple
trees thinned and trimmed, and ashes sown
thick over the old massy sod. Now, these
things were not done in a day or a year, but
as the boy grew older and more able to cope
with his father's self conceit more was done
annually, not without much opposition and
many hard words, but stifll done.
Then came a heavy blbw. Lurana, a girl
of 15. fresh and pretty as a wild rose, and
tired of the pinching economy, the monoton
ous work and grinding life of the farm, ran
away with a tin peddler and broke her
mother's heart; not in the physical sense
that hearts are sometimes broken, but the
weary woman's soul was set on her brignt,
winsome child, and her life lost all Its scant
savor when the blooming face and clear
young voice left her forever.
"I don't blame her none,
sobbed out to her boy, now a
22, raging at his sister's folly.
Amasey," she
stout fellow of
"I can't feel to blame her, I know 'tis
more'n a girl can bear to live this way. I've
hed to, but it's been dreadful hard dreadful
hard. I've wished more'n once I could ha1
laid down along with the little babies out
there on the hill, so's to rest a spell ; but there
was you and Lury wanted me, and so my
time hadn't come.
"Amasey you're a man grown now, and if
yon should get marrie.1, and I s'pose you
will, men folks seem to think it's needful
whether or no, do kinder make it eaey for
her, poor creturl Don't grind her down to
skin and bone, like me, dear; ta'nt just right,
I'm ' sure on't, never, to make no more of a
woman than ef she was a horned critter;
don't do it." '
"Mother! I never will," answered the son,
as energetically and solemnly as if he were
taking his oath.
IL
But Wealthy was nearer to her rest than
she knew; the enemy that lurks in dirt, neg
lect, poor food, constant drudgery, and the
want of every wholesome and pleasurable
excitement to mind or body, and, when least
expected, swoops down and does its fatal
errand in the isolated farm-house no less than
in the crowded city slums, the scourge of
riew England, tj'phoid fever, broke out in
the Tucker homestead.
Wealthy turned away from her weekly
baking one Saturday morning just as the
last pie was set on the broad pantry shelf
and fainted on the kitchen floor, where
Amasa the younger found her an hour after,
muttering, delirious and cold.
What he could do then, or the village doc
tor, or an old woman who called herself
nurse, was all useless; but the best skill of
any kind would have been equally futile.
She was never conscious again for a week;
then her eyes seemed to see what was about
her once more. She looked up at her boy,
laid her wan cheek on her hand, smiled and
died.
Hardly had her wasted shape been put
away under the mulleins and hard hack when
her husband came in from the hay field smit
ten with the same plague. He was harder to
conquer. Three weeks of alternate burning,
sinking, raving and chills ended at last in the
gray and grim repose of death for him, and
another Amasa Tucker reigned alone in the
old house on the bill.
It is not to be supposed that in all these
years Amasa the younger had been blind to
the charms of the other sex; he had not
"been with" every girl who went to school
with him, or whom he met at singing
Bchools, or spelling matches, or who smiled
at him from her Sunday bonnets as ho man
fully "held up his end"' in the village choir.
He had been faithful always to the shy,
delicate, dark-eyed little girl who was his
sweetheart, and now it was to Mary Peet he
hasted to ask her to share his life and home.
He had intended to take a farm on shares
the next summer, and work his way slowly
upward to a place of his own; now he had
this hundred-acre farm, and to his great
surprise he found $3,000 laid up in the
bank at Peet's Mills, the slow savings of
bis father's fifty years. He began at once to
set his house in order; he longed to build a
new one, but Mary's advice restrained him,
so he did his best with this; the cellar was
cleared and whitewashed with his own hands,
cleaned its one begrimed window and set
two more, so that it was sweet and light; the
house was scrubbed from one end to tho
other; a bonfire was made of the old, dirty
comfortables and quilts, the kitchen re
painted a soft yellow and new windows with
clear large glass set in place of the dingy old
sashes ; the woodhouse was filled with dry wood
and a good store of pine cones and chopped
brush and kindling. A new milk-room was
buUt a little way from the back door, over a
tiny brook that ran down the hill north of
the house, and under the slatted floor kept
up a good draught of fresh air; a covered
passage connected it with the kitchen, and a
door into the old milk-room made of that a
convenient pantry, while the removal of the
old one from the kitchen corner gave to that
apartment more room, air and light A new
stove, with a set boiler, filled up the hearth
of the old fireplace, but further improvements
Amasa left for Mary.
A different home-coming from his mother's
she had indeed, on just such a spring day as
Wealthy came there. The kitchen shone
clean and bright, a bowl of pink arbutus blos
soms made its atmosphere freshly sweet, and
the fire was laid ready for her to light, the
shining tea-kettle filled, and the pantry held
such stores as Amasa's masculine knowledge
of household wants could suggest; flour,
butter, eggs, sugar, all were in abund
ance, and no feast of royalty ever
gave more pleasure to Its most honored guest
than the hot biscuit Mary made and baked
for their supper, the stewed dried apples, the
rich old cheese and the fragrant tea gave
Amasa this happy evening. Next day they
took their wedding trip to Peet's Mills in the
new and sensible farm wagon Amasa bad
just bought, with a strong, spirited horse to
draw it.
"I want you should look around, Mary," he
had said the night before, "and see what's
needful here. I expect 'most everything is
wanting, and we can t lay out for finery,
But first of all get what'll make your work
easy. Your weddin' present will come along
to-morrow; to-day we'll buy necessities."
Mrs. Peet had not sent her only girl empty
handed to the new bouse. A good mattress,
two pairs of blankets, fresh, light comfort
ables, and some cheap, neat, white rpreads
a set of gay crockery, a clock, and a roll of
brjght ingrain carpeting had all come to the
farm-house soon after the bride's arrival ; her
ample supply of sheets and pillow-cases,
strong towels and a few table-clothes had been
sent the day before, so this sort of thing was
not needed; but there was a new churn
bought, altogether new furnishings for the
dairy, several modern -inventions to make
tbe work of a woman easier, a set of chairs,
a table, and an easy lounge for tbe parlor,
some cretonne covered with apple blossoms
and white thorn clusters, and pails, brooms
and tinware that would have made Wealthy
a happy woman, crowded the over-full
wagon before they turned homeward.
The old house began to smile and blossom
under this new dispensation, and the new
mistress smiled, too.
Amasa milked the cows for her, aud lifted
the heavy pails of milk to strain into the
bright new pans; he filled the woodbox by
the' stove twice a day, put a patent pump
into the old well, and, as it stood above the
house, ran a pipe down into a sink set in the
woodshed, and so put an end to the drawing
and carrying of water.
The fat, round, placid pigs that now en
joyed themselves in the new pen be took care
of himself.
"Ta'nt for women folks," he said.
"You've got enough to do, Mary; there's
the garden you'll have an eye on, and the
chickens, if you're a mind to; I'm going to
build a hen-house and a yard to it right off,
that'll be good enough for you as well as the
chickens; and I want you shall promise if
any time the work gets a might hofty and
worries you, you'll speak right out. I can
afford to have everything else worn out
rather than my wife."
Really, it paid 1 It does pay, my masculine
friends, to give any woman a kindly word
now and then; if you had done It oftener, or
your fathers had in the past, the rights of
women never would have angered or bored
you as they do now; or unsexed and made
strident and clamorous that half of creation
which is and - always was unreasonable
enough to have hungry hearts. Try it and
see!
Amasa was wise above his generation ; a he
had seen his mother suffer, and learned les
son. Mary never pined for kindly apprecia
tion of her work, or help in it. When she
had a door cut through into the parlor, the
stiff chairs and sofa banished, the flowery
curtains hung at either window, the gay
carpet put down and the new furm
ture sot in place, with her wedding
present an easy stuffed rocker drawn
up to the table, she had still
sense enough left to make this hitherto
sacred apartment into a real sitting-room,
where every even?! she and Amasa
rested, read or talked over the day's doings;
and when the first fat rosy baby came, and
Mary was about again, it added another
pleasure to have the old cradle beside them
all evening with its sleeping treasure.
Can I tell in words what a sense of peace
and cheer pervaded this household, in spite
of some failures and troubles? If the rye
did blast one year; the two best cow9 die, an
other; if a weasel once invaded the new and
wonderful hen-house and slaughtered tbe
best dozen of Plymouth Rocks; if sweeping
storms wet the great crop of hay on tho big
meadow, or an ox broke its leg in a post bole
still there was home to come back to, and
a sensible, cheerful woman to look ou the
bright side of things when Amasa was dis
couraged.
But on the whole, things prospered ; and as
Amasa heard the sweet laugh tor of his happy
children, and met the calm smile of his wife,
he could not but look back on his mother's
harrassed and sad experience, and give a
heartfelt s!gh to the difference between the
two Mrs. Tuckers, unaware how much it was
due to his own sense of justice and affection.
There are two morals to this simple sketch,
my friends: One is the great use and neces
sity of being good to your wives.
Accept which you like or need most. In
the language of the ancient Romans: "You
pays your money and you takes your choice.
Preaching; to a Small Con cremation.
Recollections of Bishop Pieroe.
The country congregations of that day
were largely made up of the best people in
Georgia, and compared favorable with con
gregations of the present day. Some, of
course, were uncouth in manner but hearty
in hospitality. The smallest congregation I
addressed during the first year of my ministry
consisted of six persons, three men and three
women. One March day afterward I rode
ten miles through a drenching rain to Flat-
rock Chapel, in Putnam county, only to find
two persons there a man and a boy. 1
was wet to the skin, and benumbed. After
waiting a few minutes, and no additions
coming, I said:
"We might as well leave here as there will
be no congregation."
The man quietly responded: "Through
five miles of pelting raiu I have come to bear
preaching."
I saw at once my duty and replied, " ou
are right; you are entitled to it." For one
hour I addressed my little congregation and
was never listened to with more attention.
Bornslde's Boyhood.
Ben: Perley Poore.
Gen. Burnside and Senator Morton, when
they were boys, were apprentices in the lit
tle villaga of Liberty, Ind. Burnside in a
tailor's shop, and Morton in a hatter's. One
day the Hon. Caleb B. Smith, then the repre
sentative in the federal congress from that
district, was about to start on an election
eering tour when he discovered that there
was a rent in his coat. Stepping into a tailor's
shop to have it mended, be found no one
there but young Burnside, who was stitching
away on a coat while he was attentively
studying a volume of "Cooper's Tactics,"
which he propped up by a "goosn," and kept
open by a pair of shears.
Questioning the young man the congress
man was struck with his self-reliant confi
dence and tbe unflinching look with which
he returned his gaze, and an unknown in
fluence prompted him to say: "You should
be a cadet at West Point'" That remark
changed the young: tailor's destiny. He
sought and obtained an appointment to
West Point, but he never forgot the neat and
trim habits of the tailor's shop.
What It lyteka.
Somerville Journal.
Modern invention has produced a mechan
ical doll that can cry like a baby. But it
can't smile and crow and kick up a pair of
pink heels and say pa, and there's where the
truly-baby has the advantage of it.
Middletown Transcript: Don't kindle the
fire with kerosene unless you are prepared
for a land that is fairer than this.
SLOW TO DIE.
Experience of a KUberman with
Creatures That Hold Fast to Life.
New York Sun.
"Ton will hardly credit it," said a
Staten Island fisherman, whom a ' re
porter talked with the other day, "but
tne bead of a turtle will retain a very
marked interest in existence long aftei
its ooay nas been served up in sonp
and steaks. I believe it is a well
known fact, but I only discovered it
six months ago. I found a friend en
gaged in shelling a small turtle. 'Now,'
he said, putting the head on the dresser
'that will be alive and active to-morrow
morning.' Of course I laughed at him.
bat I ozreed to call next day and test
his prophecy. Next morning my friend
asked me to step into the kitchen. The
head was still on the dresser, and
though it had been separated from the
body for at least Bixteen hours, ' the
eyes were wide open and bright. Take
care,' exclaimed my friend, as I put my
finger near its month.
"Ilia warning came not a second too
soon. The head of that turtle abso
lutely jumped at me. Where its mo
tive power came from I cannot ex
plain, but it moved two inches toward
me, and snapped at my nnger with a
viciousness that could not have been
surpassed by a cornered rat. I think
it had been holding back its life, as
men with strong will power for fixed
purposes have been known to do, until
an opportunity offered to avenge the
destruction of its body, for after it had
made tho effort its eyes grew fixed and
filmy, and in an hour it was dead. .Next
to the turtle in obstinate persistence in
living must come the eel. In recognis
ing the extraordinary length of time
through which an eel clings to its being
under the most unfavorable circum
stances people, I think, overlook the
most unfavorable condition of all the
removal of it from the water, a state of
affairs sufficient in itself to produce
death.
"I do not believe that cutting an eel's
head off or serving his tail the same
way shortens his life much. He dies
because he is out of his element, and
had he been left unmutilated he would
have lived but little longer. Of course,
if you put him in sections on the fry
ing-pan you place upon him a burden
greater than he can bear, and he dies
quickly; but the lesser injuries, affect
ing only the tail, head or skin, seem to
me to make but little impression. The
fact it, an eel can live an extraordinarily
long time out of water. They habitu
ally leave it of their own accord and
wander in the fields that slope down to
a creek not far from here. I have often
met in the early morning eels making
their way down to the creek. They
had spent the night in the meadows in
search of worms and were going back.
"Whether an eel or any other fish is
capable of feeling acute pain I cannot
sav. This I can vouch for : When an
eel ha? been skinned and beheaded, and
seems to be quite dead, a little salt
rubbed on the surface of the body wul
be apt to restore life very quickly. A
snaKe dies quicKiy unaer injuries, xne
average snake will not live three min
utes after his head is crushed with a
stick. The eye of a wild bird remains
bright for some time after you have shot
it, and is likely to cause a tender
hearted sportsman on his first gunning
expedition a good deal of self-reproach.
1 don t know whether clams have af
any time a very self-assertive existence,
but that in captivity the clam is able at
times to make himself excessively dis
agreeable I nave had occasion to know.
Not long ago I brought home a basket
of clams. I placed them in a dish-pail
and left them in the kitchen. In the
middle of the night my wife aroused
me, saying there were robbers in the
house. With a pistol in my hand
wandered from room to room. I could
hear a most extraordinary noise, like
the combination of sawing, filing,
groaning and grunting, with an occa
sional watery gasp, but, for tbe life ol
me, I could not imagine where it came
from.
"At last I went into the kitchen, and
the mystery was solved. Each clam,
with his shell wide open, was making
almost as much noise as a bullfrog in
full vigor. I filled the pan with fresh
water, which, brought either content
ment or death. that is to say, it
quieted them."
Arabl's Lawyer.
Exchange.
Mr. A. M. Broadlev, the legal de
fender of Arabi Pasha, has rooms in
the Temple, London, furnished in
strange contrast to the remainder of
that somber, dingy, and prosaic pre
cinct. Their entrance is a Saracenic
archway, hung with a Tunisian portiere,
and within are bhiraz carpets, divans,
colored lamps, velvet wall-hangings,
blazoned with Koran texts or.co palls
covering the catafalque over the grave
of the Sidi Ben Awib, who wa? buried
in Kairwan nearly 1,200 years ago and
a host of brilliant, quaint, and curious
tokens of North Africa and the Orient.
Kxplained.
Arkansaw Traveler.
"Let me congratulate you upon the
improvement of your vo.ee, said a
gentleman to a popular operatic tenor.
lou must have given, yourself up to
study, for last night you acquitted your
self wonderfully."
"I didn't think so," the s:nger replied,
for I was suffering indescribably from
rheumatism. It is a wonder that I
pleased the audience at all, for several
times during the performance I could
not restrain myself, and cried aloud in
pain.
The improvement was explained..
Hint for the Keely -Mo to r 31 an.
Cincinnati Commorcial Gazette.
If Mr. Keely were to put under the
rear of his motor a contrivance some
thing on the acting principle of the
tail of tho kangaroo, and of proportion
ate power, perhaps the old thing miht
be made to go. Indeed, it looks like
Mr. Keely is only calmly waiting for
his machine to go to pieces by decay.
But if it could be induced to start off
across the countrv at a ranid kangaroo
gait there would be caused a great sen
sation, and Mr. Keely would again
spring into fame.
Lime-Kiln Club : No man kin sit on
de f ence an' plant onions.
A Law for "Wayward" ITounar Hen.
' Springfield Republican.
When a young man steals a sheep or a
pair of boots, which, by the way, have
probably not been placed in his safe
keeping, society has little doubt what
to do with him. It comes to the con
clusion in short order that he is a thief,
and puts him in jail at hard labor or in
state prison. But if he has had a
place of trust in some financial institu
tion, and grossly betrays the confidence
reposed in him, society is somehow
struck all of a heap, and does not know
what to do with him. The crime must
be covered up, the deficiency made up
by friends, there must be no prosecu
tion, no publicity and no penalty what
ever,, and the young man must be sent
off to begin life again.
Now -we belieye this is all a mistaken
policy as regards the young man him
self. We believe it is a terribly mis
taken kindness. Some of our readers
probably know cases in which this
policy has been pursued, and the young
men in whose behalf it has been tried
generally become wanderers on the
face of the earth, pursued by the phan
tom of that old concealed crime left be
hind, and often rushing into new ones.
They were not vicious originally, but
they were weak, flabby morally ; they
had about as much moral backbone as
a jelly fish, or a butterfly, and seeing
older men indulging in expensive luxu
ries and rices they began to ran the
same course until they were caught in
the trap of crime. (
Leniency and sending off; into new
associations are simply wasted on such
men. ' They need "taking down" to the
foundation and a new start a real one,
not one of those new birth conversions
which do not enable a man to confess
his sin till he has been found out. If
conviction, penalty and disgrace are the
fit portion, and the best thing for the
ordinary thief, they certainly are the
best things for the embezzler. Let
him take his punishment, with such
professions of repentance as he feels
justified . in making, and such as courts
are always ready to take into account
in fixing the penalty.
Then let him return to his home,
where we all know him, and his father
before him, and begin again. lie will
be better off than in some distant lo
cality where vague rumors of crime
greater than the fact may at any time
penetrate to damn his peace of mind.
But here at the seat of his crime and
failure, he will always have friends to
welcome and encourage every effort for
a more promising career and who know
the worst as well as the best.
Americanizing London Journal lam.
Cor. Philadelphia Press.
The most prominent of the London
dailies are rapidly becoming American
ized to an extent that is causing the
musty old fogies who believe m every
thing that was and nothing that is, to
hold up their hands in pious horror.
The Pall Mall Gazette has gone boldly
into the interviewing business, and al
most every evening treats its readers
to an interesting chat with some notable
in the worlds of art, science, finance,
tho drama or politics. We have had
within the last few days interviews with
"Lotta, who was further honored with
a life-like pen and ink portrait of her
charming personality; Baron Grant,
who talked glibly and enthusiastically
of the gold fields in the Transvaal he is
anxious to dispo-e of to a confiding
public for the tnero bagatelle of some
12,000,000; Chinese Gordon, who knows
more about the Soudan and its inhabit
ants than any living Englishman, and
other well-known men whose opinions
on current topics of the day cannot but
be of deep interest to the average news
paper reader. ine jjaiiy fiegrapn
prints specials dailv on all sorts of
matters, most of them, I fancy, purely
imaginary and about as truthful as the
famous dog and man fight which
created &uch a stir a few years ago.
The Dispatch, one of the best of the
Sunday papers, has just concluded a
series of sketches, again imaginary, I
should suppose, of life as it may be seen
on the Thames embankment, and The
Echo hasjust published two most inter
esting realistic sketches of London beg
gars and their methods, by Hugh Mc
Lauchlan, a rising journalist, who not
only wields a graceful pen, bnt is evi
dently a keen observer of human nature.
By the bye, this gentleman evidently
did not get his facts second-hand, he
was brought up before a metropolitan
police magistrate on the morning of
Tuesday last, robed in rags and tatters,
charged with loitering. No one who
saw him could blame the policeman
who arrested him, or the inspector who
relegated him for the night to the police
cells.notwithstanding his contention that
he was a reputable journalist and act
ing under his editor's orders in assum
ing the garb of a street mendicant. Of
course the worthy magistrate promptly
discharged Mr. McLauchlan, and both
the lively little Echo and its bright young
reporter have secured an excellent ad
vertisement. Keter Bay a Copy.
l'.uskin.
Never buy a copy of a picture. All
copies are bad, because no painter who
is worth a straw ever will copy. He
will make a Btudy of a picture he likes
for his own use in his own way, but
he won't and can't copy; and when
ever you buy a copy you buy so much
misunderstanding of tne original, and
encouraging a dull person in following
a business he is not fit for, besides in
creasing ultimately chances of mistake
and imposture. You may, in fact, con
sider yourself as having purchased a
quantity of mistakes, and, according to
your power, being engaged in dissem
inating them.
The Blara-eat Blank Book.
Exchange.
The biggest blank book probably
ever used in the country is the ledger
of the assistant United States treasurer
at New York. It cost $40, and weighs
as much as half a dozen babies. It is
19 inches long, 13 inches wide, and con
tains 1,250 pages. It is made of the
best paper, and one is issued every year.
There are some big envelopes here,
yellow manilla fellows, costing $21.20 a
thousand, and being 171 inches long by
14 inches wide.
Lime-Kiln Club: De man in debt
am a swimmer wid his btltea on.
QUEER APPETITE8.
Strange Dishes Served la Different
Countries Snails, Spiders, Battle
snakes. Monkeys and Other Deli
cacies. St Iuis Post-Dispatch.
The old saying that what is one man's
meat is another man's poison is realized
in the ooooaite tastes of teoile.
The Englishman will not eat a squir
rel, but will gloat over a meal of barna
cles and periwinkles, the latter a species
of sea snail that adheres to the rooks.
The New Hollander relishes a feast of
decayed shark, yet looks with horror on
bread and butter. The Japanese have
a prejudice against milk and beef, but
will enjoy stewed or roasted rat. The
Turks shudder at tlje thought of eating
oysters. s
The Digger Indians of.. tho JPacIna
slope rejoiced ' in the great loenst
swarms of 1875 as a gracious dieponsa
tion of the Great Spirit, and laid in '
a store of dried locust powder sufficient
to last for years.
The French will eat frogs, snails and
the diseased liver of geese, but draw
the line at alligators. Buckland de
clares the taste of boa constrictor good
and much like veal.
Sir Robert Schomberg found monkey
very palatable, though he says before
carving it looked disagreeably like
roast child. .
Quass, the fermented cabbage water
of the Russians, is their popular tip
ple. It is described as resembling a
mixture of stale fish and soap-suds in
taste, yet, next . to beer, it has more
votaries than any other fermented
beverage. A tallow candle washed down
with quass forms a meal that it would
be hard to be thankful for.
In Canton and other Chinese cities
rats are sold at the rate of $2 a dozen,
and the hind-quarters of dogs are hung
up in the butcher shops alongside of
mutton and . lambs, but command a
higher price. Tha edible birds'-nests
of the Chinese are worth twice their
weight in silver, the finest variety sell
ing for as high as $50 a pound.
The negroes of the West Indies eat
baked snakes and palm-worms fried in
their own fat, but they cannot be in
duced to eat stewed rabbits. In
Mexico parrots are eaten, but are rather
tough. The Guachos of the Banda
Oriental are in the habit of hunting
skunks for the sake of their flesh.
In Kaskaskia, a town on the banks of
the Mississippi, "Musical Jack," or fried
rattlesnakes, decapitated and skinned,
and showing a meat as white and firm
as a chicken, is a standard dish.
The octopus or devil-fish, when boiled
first and then roasted, is eaten in Corsica
and esteemed a great delicacy. -
In the Pacific islands and West Indies
lizards' eggs are eaten with great gusto.
The natives of the Antilles eat alligator
eggs, and the eggs of the turtle are
popular everywhere, though up to the
commencement of the last century
turtle was only eaten by the poor
of Jamaica. Ants are eaten by
various nations. In Brazil they
are served with a resinous sauce, and in
Africa they are stewed with grease or
butter. The East Indians catch them in
pits, carefully wash them, and eat them
in handfuls like raisins. In Siam a -curry
of ants' egg is a costly luxury.
The Ceylonese eat the bees after rob
bing them of their honey. Caterpillars
and spiders are dainties to the African
bushman. After they have wound tho
silk from the cocoon the Chinese eat
the chrysalis of the silk-worm. Spiders
roasted are a sort of dessert with the
New Caledonians.
The Viennese are the groatest snail
eaters in the world. The town of Ulm,
on the Danube, is the principal place
where snails are fattened for the mar
ket. Those which are fattened! on
strawberries command the highest
prices, while 00,000 pounds are an
nually exported from the Isle of Crete.
The great African snail, that attains a
length of eight inches, is converted into
soup. Cock's combs are considered a
delicacy in the Paris restaurants, while
the Englishman swallows shrimps in
their entirety.
Opera Slng-er Hade to Order.
Pall Mall Gazette.
A very remarkable discovery is re
ported on the authority of aFellow of
the Royal Meteorological society, to
whioh the attention both of the faculty
and of the society cannot be too
speedily directed. Dr. Carter Moffat,
cousin of the late Dr. Robert Moffat, -claims
to have invented, after nine
years' study, an instrument known as
the ammoniaphone, which contains an
absorbent material saturated with per
oxide of hydrogen, combined with con
densed ammonia and other ingredients,
through hich a current of air is drawn
into the lungs.
This is said to be in reality a highly
concentrated artificial Italianized air,
in an extremely portable condition. Dr.
Carter Moffat's voice was originally
very weak, harsh and destitute of into
nation. By the use of the ammonia
phone it has now become a pure tenor
of extraordinary range. lie noticed
that after experimenting on himself for
only fourteen days an expansion of the
chest took place to the extent of over
half an inch, with a feeling of increased
lung space and power of voice, which
has since been maintained. Experi
ments hav been -made upon rhpiis in
Scotland with extraordinary results.
As there are a good many choirs in
England, to say nothing of thft opera
companies, which stand in great need
of improvement, the ammoniaphone is
certain to be in great demand. -
Cotton Building Stsek.
Atlanta Constitution.
Among the new applications of cot
ton is its use, in part, in the construc
tion of houses, the material employed
for this purpose being the refuse,
which, when ground up with about an
equal amount of straw and asbestos, is
converted into a paste, . and this is
formed into large slabs or bricks, which
acquire, :t is said, the hardness of
stone, and furnish a really valuable
building stock.
Georcre Eliot: In vonntr nh'Mioi.
ignorant souls there is constantly this
blind trust in some unshapen chance;
it is as hard to a boy or girl to believe
that a creat wretchedness will Mnali
befall them, aa to believe that they will
aia.