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I. C. IRELAXD,
PUBLISHER.
Little Things.
Though little I bring,
Said the tiny spring,
As it burst from the mighty hill,
'TiB pleasant to know,
Wherever I flow,
The pastures grow greener still.
And the drops of rain,
As they fall on the plain,
"When parched by the summer heat,
Refresh the sweet flowers
Which drooped in the bowers,
And hung down their heads at our feet.
Though the drops are small,
Yet, taking them all,
Each one doing all that it can
To fulfill the design
Of its Maker Divine,
What lessons they give unto man !
May we strive to fulfill
All His righteous will.
Who formed the whole earth by His word!
Creator Divine!
We would ever be Thine,
And serve Thee, our God and our Lord.
A Child Queen.
I wonder how many of the little
readers of St. Niclwlas are fond of
girl
his-
tory? If they answer candidly, I do not
doubt that a very large proportion will
declare that they prefer the charming
stories they find in St. Niclwlas to the
dull pages of history, with its countless
battles and murdered sovereigns. But
history is not every bit dull, by any
means, as you will find if your elder sis
ters and friends will select portions for
you to read that arc suitable to your age
and interests. Perhaps you are very im
aginative, and prefer fairy tales to all
others. I am sure, then, that you will
like the story I am about to tell you, of
a little French princess, who was mar
ried and crowned Queen of England
when only eight years old, and who be
came a widow at twelve.
This child-sovereign was born many
hundred years ago in 1387 at the pal
ace of the Louvre in Paris, of whose
noble picture-gallery I am sure you all
have heard if, indeed, many of you
have not seen it yourselves. She was the
daughter of the poor King Charles VI.,
whose misfortunes made him insane, and
for whose amusement playing-cards were
invented, and of his queen, Isabeau of
Bavaria, a beautiful but very wicked
woman. Little Princess Isabella was the
eldest of twelve children. She inherited
her mother's beauty, and was petted by
her parents and the entire court of
Prance.
King Richard II. of England, who was
a widosver about thirty years old, was
ursred to marrv ajjain: and, instead of
selecting a wife near his own age, his
choice fell upon little Princess Isabella.
"She is much too young," he was told.
"Even in five or six years she will not be
old. enough to be married." The king,
however, thought this objection too trill
ing to stand in the way of his marriage,
and saying, "The lady's age is a fault
that every day will remedy," he sent a
magnificent embassy to the court of
Prance, headed by the Archbishop of
Dublin, and consisting of earls, mar
shals, knights, and squires of honor un
counted, with attendants to the number
of five hundred.
When the embassy reached Paris, and
the offer of marriage had been formally
accepted, the archbishop and the earls
asked to see the little princess who was
soon to become their queen. At first the
French Council refused, saying so young
a child was not prepared to appear on
public occasions, and they could not tell
how she might behave. The English
noblemen were so solicitous, however,
that at last she was brought before them.
The earl marshal immediately knelt be
fore her, and said, in the old-fashioned
language of the time: "Madam, if it
please God, you shall be our lady and
queen."
Queen Isabeau stood at a little dis
tance, curious and anxious, no doubt, to
know how her little daughter would an
swer this formal address. To her great
pleasure, and the great surprise of all
present, Princess Isabella replied :
"Sir, if it please God and my father
that I be Queen of England, I shall be
well pleased, for I am told I shall then
be a great lady."
Then, giving the marshal her tiny
hand to kiss, she bade him rise from hiB
knees, and leading him to her mother,
she presented him to her with the grsce
and ease of a mature woman.
According to the fashion of the time,
Princess Isabella was immediately mar
ried by proxy, and received the title of
Queen of England. Froissart, a cele
brated historian living -at that epoch,
says: "It was very pretty to see her,
young as she was, practicing how to act
the queen."
In a few days, King Richard arrived
from England with a gay and numerous
retinue of titled ladies to attend his lit
tle bride. After many graiTd festivities
they were married and were taken in
state to England, where the Baby Queen
was crowned in the famous Westminster
Abbey. Cecilia Clevelandyin St. Nicholas.
"Civilization," said'a father to his in
quiring son, the other day, "differs from
barbarism in tfus: the one "kills its 'ene
mies off at six thousand paces with a
cannon-ball; the other cuts off their
beads with a sabre at close quarter."
-. Progress inTturkey. .
It is thought by many that there has
been no progress in Turkey. Without
expressing any opinion, we can state a
few facts which, being facts,' can not be
contradicted. At the time of Suleiman
the Magnificent, Turkey was, on the
whole, very little, if at all, behind Eu
rope. The horrors of the Inquisition and
of St. Bartholomew, the cruelty of Philip
II. and Jlenry VIII., fully equaled any
thing of the sort in Turkey at the time.
Since that period Christendom has ad
vanced in the arts and sciences beyond
Turkey; while the appalling horrors of
the French Revolution, the Commune,
the Cuban war, American slavery, and
the Russian knout, and many other in
stances too common, too awful, and too
recent to be forgotten, have shown us
there is still too much of the tiger blood
remaining in our natures to enable us to
be too free in condemning Turkish atroc
ities when they are fighting to preserve
their national existence. But granting
that up to the time of the Greek Revolu
tion Europe had completely distanced
Turkey, we find that since that time
there have been really great social
changes and innovations in Turkey, most
of them improvements and reforms. Re
ligious toleration, which, as regards all
sects but the Moslem, existed in Turkey
before it was even dreamed of in Christen-
.dom, has been extended to Mohamme
dans, and a man may now in Turkey ac
cept any faith he chooses, and be actual
ly protected in it. Such absolute toler
ation exists elsewhere only in Great Brit
ain, the United States, and Germany, and
one or two of the minor States of Eu
rope. Numerous periodicals have been
established in Constantinople, Smyrna,
and elsewhere, and the censorship of the
pres is less oppressive than in France.
Numerous $Rorks have been printed,
and scholars like AchmetVefik Pasha
would be creditable to any people. Mil
itary and medical colleges, and numer
ous universities and educational institu
tions, supported by the government or by
private enterprise, have been founded,
while the circulation of the Bible and re
ligious works of every manner of belief
is carried on throughout the empire with
perfect freedom. The army and navy
are organized and armed entirely upon
European models, with the exception of
the irregular soldiery, and many of the
officers and members of the government
have been educated abroad. The slave
trade in women has been practically abol
ished, and there is a strong tendency to
introduce reforms in the garb and regu
lations of the harem itself. And, to
crown all, a legislative body has been or
ganizednd Moslem and Christian have
been placed on an equality. These and
numerqus&ther reforms have all been ac
complished within forty years, and have
naturdirymet with opposition from the
conservatives, while the brevity of the
time thatJhas since elapsed does not allow
us yet fully to judge of the possible re
sults. But it is only fair to the Turks to
allow them credit for the reforms they
have attempted to accomplish, and for
the fact that if some of these reforms had
depended upon the fanaticism of the na
tive Christians, little would have been
done in this direction. S. G. W. Benja
min, ia Harper's Magazine.
A Strange Woman.
It would seem, judging from the hero
ine of the following sketch, that cleanli
ness is not necessary to perfect health. A
wealthy English widow, of the first
George's time, never allowed her room to
be cleansed, and the windows were so in
crusted with dirt as to permit scarcely
any light. She reasoned thus, when
asked for an explanatien: If the room
were wetted she might catch cold; if the
windows were cleaned glass might be
broken and somebody hurt. She never
washed herself for fear of cold ; as a sub
stitute she anointed her face and neck
with a little milk and hog's lard, finished
off with a touch of rose pink on her
I cheeks. She was methodical in her hab
its, eating with one favorite knife, fork
and plate, and drinking out of one cup.
She had excellent health, abhorred physic
and doctors, and cut two new teeth at the
age of eighty-seven. She had no near re
lations, and refused to see those more
distantly related. One pleasant charac
teristic is recorded : she had a large, well
kept garden, in which she passed the
most of her time' reading. Although she
lived entirely through the reign of the
First and Second Georges, and far into
that of the Third, she continued to wear
fashions of the time of George First as be
ing those of her married life. Notwith
standing this, she was everywhere treated
with respect. Perhaps her gold had
something to do with that, however. Her
household consisted of one servant (an
old man), two lap-dogs and a cat; and
these were her only companions. She
survived until extreme old age.
Got Eneugh: Tobacco at Last. On
the 20th of August a curious case of poi
soning by nicotine occurred in Turin.
GioTanni Delogdes, aged 17, visited that
city in compliance with an invitation
from his uncle. After dining he joined
his uncle and several friends in the
room allotted him during his stay in
Turin. There they drank light wine and
smoked continually until the early hours.
When the company separated he did not
cease smoking until nearly overcome by
sleep. His room was completely im
pregnated witk smoke, and the young
man, suffocated by the excessive quantity
of nicotine he had enhaled, never woke
again, although every effort was made"
to revive him. Dr. jTessler, of, Turin,
was ot the opinion thatdeath was. the
ieauit ui puibuuiug uy uiuuuuc. jg
"If you call that coffee," said Squib to
his landlady, "you don't know beans."
Skobeloff Storming a Redoubt.
He had four regiments of the line, and
four battalions of sharpshooters. Still
keeping up his murderous fire, he formed
under its cover two regiments, the Vla
dimiraki and theZoozoski, in the little
hollow at the foot of the low hill on
which was built the redoubt, together
with two battalions of sharpshooters, not
more than twelve .hundred yards from
the scarp. Then placing himself in the
best position for watching the result, he
ceased fire and ordered the advance. He
ordered the assaultiug party not to fire,
and they rushed forward with their guns
on their shoulders, with music playing
and banners flying, and disappeared in
the fog and smoke. Skobeloff is the only
general who places himself near enough
to feel the pulse of a battle. The ad
vancing column was indistinctly seen, a
dark mass in the fog and smoke. Feel
ing, as it were, every throb of the battle,
he saw this line begin to waver and hesi
tate. Upon the instant he hurled for
ward a rival regiment to support, and
again watched the result. This new
force carried the mass further on with
its momentum, but the Turkish redoubt
flamed and smoked, and poured forth
such a torrent of bullets that the line
was again shaken. Skobeloff stood in
the shower of balls unhurt. All his es
cort were killed or wounded, even to the
little Kirghiz, who received a bullet in
the shoulder. Again he saw the line
hesitate and waver, and he flung his
fourth and last regiment, the Libausky,
on the glacis.
Again this new wave car
ried the preceding ones forward, until
they were almost on the scarp; but that
deadly shower of bullets poured upon
them; men dropped by hundreds, and
the result still remained doubtful. The
line ouce more wavered and hesitated.
Not a moment was to be lost, if the re
doubt was to be carried.
Skobeloff had now only two battalions
of sharpshooters left, the bebt in his de
tachment. Putting himself at the head
of these, he dashed forward on horse
back. He picked up the stragglers; he
reached the wavering, fluctuating mass,
and gave it the inspiration of his courage
and instruction. He picked the whole
mass and carried it forward with a rush
and a cheer. The whole redoubt was a
mass of flame and smoke, from which
screams, shouts, and cries of agony and
defiance arose, with the deep-mouth bel
lowing of the cannon, and, above all, the
steady, awful crash of that deadly rifle
fire. SkobelofFs sword was cut in two
in the middle. Then, a moment later,
when just on the point of leaping the
ditch, horse and man rolled together on
the ground, the horse dead or wounded,
the rider untouched. He sprang to his
feet with a shout, then, with a formidable,
savage yell, the whole mass of men
streamed over the ditch, over the scarp
and counterscarp, over the parapet, and
swept into the redoubt like a hurricane.
Their bayonets made short work of the
Turks still remaining. Then a joyous
cheer told that the redoubt was captured,
and that at last one of the defenses ol
Plevna was ia the hands of the Russians.
Having seen as much as I have seen
of the Turkibh infantry fire irom be
hind trenches and walls, I thought it
was beyond flesh and blood to breck it,
a belief which had been strengthened by
KirlofFs repulse, which I had just wit
nessed. Skobeloff proved ihe contrary,
but at what a sacrifice I In that short
rush of a few hundred yards, 3,000 men
had been loft on the hill-side, on the
glacis, the scarp and the ditch one
fourth of his whole force. I believe that
Skobeloff looks upon such attacks upon
such positions as almost criminal, and
disapproved highly the whole plau of at
tack on Plevna; but he believes that if
any attack is to be made it can only be
done in this manner, and that, although
the loss of men may be great, it is better
that the loss should be incurred and the
victory won, than half the loss with the
certainty of defeat. Skobeloff seems to
be the only one among the Kussian gen
erals who have studied the American
war with profit. Iandon News.
A Powerful Stratagem of Rhet
oric. Monsieur Chaix d'Est Ange re
cently died in Paris. He was one of the
greatest lawyers of France, and his great
est triumph at the bar, and one of the
greatest triumphs ever obtained at the
bar, was achieved in the case of a man
called Benoit whom he was prosecuting
for paricide. Benoit had all along per
sisted in declaring he was innocent, and
there was nothing but circumstantial evi
dence against him. M. Chaix d'Est
Ange resolved to employ one of the
most startling and dramatic figures of
rhetoric ever used in a court of law.
Turning to the prisoner he placed the
scene of the murder in vivid and strik
ing language before him:
"There," he cried, "sat your father,
quietly reading the paper, near the win
dow. He could not see who came into
the room. You paused one moment and
then raised the hatchet "
"Yes, yes!" cried Benoit, ''that's it;
that's how I did it 1"
What the repeated interrogatives of
the examining magistrates had failod to
elicit from the murderer was forced from
him by the eloquence of the barrister.
Constantinople has a circumference
of about thirteen miles. Its harbor, the
"Golden Horn," is a long, capacious in
let of the Bosphorus, running along the
northeast side of the city, with sufficient
depth for the largest vessels and capable
of receiving 1,200 sailing vessels at one
time.
k The Greenbackers.of. 2ew York. want
"a law to sustain labor."' What we need
just now is a little more labor to sustain
law. Portland (Me ) Transcript.
By the Late Dr. TV. W. Hall.
POISONS.
Poisons either burn or give other dis
comfort in passing down the throat; these
are organic poisons, and are metallic, de
stroying the delicate lining of the parts
along which they pass and causing in
flammation more or less painful and dan
gerous, including all strong acids. There
are other poisons which may be swal
lowed unawares, as laudanum, paregoric,
morphine and the like.
As the time for saving life in case of
poisoning sometimes passes within five
minutes or less, every head of a family
and every intelligent person should have
some general principles of action, with
coolness of manner, so as to give the
power to act advantageously in any emer
gency. If an alkaloid as opium, or morphia,
or other anodyne has been taken, all of
which produce dullness of every grade to
stupor and iusensibility, the first point is
to get it out of the stomach as instanta
neously as possible; put a heaping tea
spoonful of salt and as much ground
mustard in half a glass of water, stir it
and drink instantly. In a moment of
time violent vomiting takes place, which
should be promoted afterwards by drink
ing warm wTater, which further dilutes
the poison. In a few moments drink
freely of strong coffee; this helps to an
tagonize any of the poison which may re
main. If the patient seems dull or
sleepy, he should be taken under the
arms by two persons and made to walk
actively until he is fully waked up; if
that cannot be done, put him under the
pump and let the water fall on his head
while sitting up, from a distance of two
feet, from a pitcher or bucket until he is
fully awake; for if you do not wake him
he dies. In case of organic or metallic
poisoning, scalding the throat in its pas
sage, the first grea't point is dilution; the
most accessible thing is warm water, but
warm milk is better, and liquid oils or
hog's lard are better still, for they not
only dilute but they soothe and shield
the parts in a very grateful manner;
keep on drinking them until free vomit
ing is induced; then swallow the whites
of several fresh eggs, which combine
with the most acrid poisons and form
chemical compounds, harmless and inert,
of any remnant of poison which may be
left alter the vomiting. But while these
things are doing, send for' a physician,
and when he comes tell him all that has
been done and show him what has been
vomited.
For many poisons there are more
specific antidotes than the above; but
most of them are seldom at hand. The
points instantly to be arrived at are, in
painless poisons, to get them out of the
stomach instantly. If painful, dilute
first, cover the burned parts with some
soothing material, as oils, and then get
them out of the stomach. Strong coffee
and whites of eggs are good for both
kinds of poisons.
Americans in Paris.
Americans make the best Frenchmen
of all the foreigners who flock here. The
Russians, a large colony always, are al
ways Russe,extravagaut, barbaric in splen
dor, and gross to excess in carriages,
women, wine and diamonds. A pet mon
key showering about a casket of the
Esterhazy diamonds is a good illustration
of a rich young Russian ooyard scatter
ing his first crop of wild oats on the fruit
ful soil of Paris. The English are al ways
English wherever you find them, and will
want some little isle of light in the next
world. Egotistical, selfish, economical to
parsimony, faultfinding and supercilious,
they are the betes noir of the continent.
The German rarely travels, wastes no
money, assimilates with nothing but beer.
The American, after a brief residence,
waxes his moustache, wears lacquered
boots, swings a cane as slender and deli
cate as a lace thread, drinks black coffee
in tiny cups on the boulevards, says
"Pardon, Monsieur," twice a minute,and
places his right hand on his heart when
bowing to a lady. TVhat endears him
most to the Parisians' heart is the noble
disregard of cost which characterizes the
American sovereign abroad. If the Duke
of Hamilton has a fine suite of rooms,au
premiere, at the Hotel St. Germaine, the
bonanza king wants the whole of the
first floor. If Prince Paul Demidoff has
a saloon box for his mistress at the Xew
Opera House (which will cost the nation
$20,000,000 when finished), some lucky
Baldwin of the Best and Belcher mine
takes two boxes and fills them with dia
monds and questionable women. That's
the sort of a man the American in Paris
generally is, to the extent of his means.
Paris Gorr. Washington Capital.
Pleasant for Him. xVn honest Eng
lish farmer, while harvesting, kept his
gun near-him to shoot pigpons. Seeing
one, he reached out and took the gun by
the muzzle, but, in-drawing it toward
him, by some means the gun went off,and
the contents passed near his head without
injuring him. iLs soon as he had sura.
ciently recovered irom the shock he has
tened to the house, and informed his wife
of his narrow escape; at which the good
womau, who is noted for her economy,
raised her hands and exclaimed, in a tone
of regret, "Sure, and it's a pity that the
charge was lost."
The discovery of the satellite of Mars
is owing to the fact that this planet is
many millions of miles nearer the earth
at present than for nearly eighty years.
Take a good look at Mars now; you will
not see him so big and bright again for
nearly a century to come and it is a
trifle doubtful if you will then. -,
A lonely Keokuk bachelor wants to
adopt a girl baby, not less than eighteen
years old.
Mars.
When Galileo turned towards Mars the
telescope with which he had discovered the
moons of Jupiter,the crescent form of Ve
nus and many other wondersin the heavens
he was altogether disappointed. His tele
scope was indeed too small to show any
features of interest in Mars, though the
planet of wTar is much nearer to us than.
Jupiter. Mars is but a small world. The
diameter of the planet is about 4,400
miles, that of our earth, being nearly
8,000. Jupiter, though much farther
away, has his immense diameter of more
than 80,000 miles, to make up for the ef
fect of distance. With his noble system
of moons he appears a remarkable ob
ject even with a small telescope, but
Mars shows fewer features of interest
even with telescopes of considerable size.
It was not, then, till very powerful tel
escopes had been constructed that astron
omers learned what we now know about
Mars.
It is found that his surface is divided
into land and water, like the surface or
our own earth. But his sers and oceans
are not nearly so large compared with his
continents and lands. You kuow that
on our own earth the water covers so
much larger a surface than the land that
the great continents are in reality islands.
Europe, Asia and Africa together form one
great island; ITorth and South America
another, not quite so large; then come
Australia, Greenland, Madagascar, and so
forth ; all the lands being islands, larger
or smaller. On the other hand, except
the Caspian Sea and the Sea of Aral, there
are no large seas entirely land-bound. In
the case of Mars a very different state of
things prevails, as you will see from the
three accompanying pictures (bitherto
unpublished), drawn by the famous Eng
lish observer, Dawes (called the Eagle
eyed.) The third and best was drawn
with a telescope constructed by your fa
mous optician, Aivan Clark, of Cam
bridge, Massachusetts. The dark parts
are the seas, the light parts being land, or
in some cases cloud or snow. But in.
tliese pictures most of the lighter portions,
represent land ; for they have been seen,
often so shaped, whereas clouds, of
course, would change in shape.
The planet Mars, like our earth, turns
on its axis, so that it has day and night,
as we have. The length of its day is not
very different from that of our own day.-
Our earth turns once on its axis in
but before reading on, try to complete
this sentence for yourself. Everv one
knows that the earth's turning on its
axis produces day and night, and nine
persons out of ten, if asked how long the
earth takes in turning on its axis, will an
swer, 24 hours; Und if asked how many
times she turns on her axis in a year, will
say 363 times, or if disposed to be very
exact, "about 363 times." But neither
answer is correct. The earth turns on
her axis about 3GC times in each year,
and each turning occupies 23 hours, 56
minutes and 4 seconds and one-tenth of a
second. We, taking tho ordinary day as
the time of a turning or rotation, lose
count of one rotation each year. It is
necessary to mention this, in order that
when I tell you how long the day of Mars
is, you may be able to correctly compare
it with our own day. Stars, then, turns
on his axis in 24 hours 37 minutes 22 sec
onds and 7 tenth-parts of a second. So
that Mars requires 41 minutes 18 seconds
aud six-tenths of a second longer to turn
his small body once round than our eaith
requires to turn round her much larger
body. The common day of Slurs is, how
ever, only about 30 minutes longer than
that of our common day.
Mars has a long year, taking no less
"than 687 of our days to complete his cir
cuit round the sun, so that his year lasts
only about one mouth and a half less
than two of ours.
Like the earth, Mars has seasons for
his polar axis, like that of the earth, is
aslant, and at one part of his year brings,
his northern regions more fully into sun
light, at which time summer prevails
there and winter in his southern regions;.
when at the opposite part of his year his
southern regions are turned more fully
sunward and have their summer, while
winter prevails over his northern regions..
Around his poles, as around the earth's,
there are great masses ot ice, insomuch
that it is very doubtful whether any in
habitants of Mars have been able to pen
etrate to the poles, any more than Kane
or Hayes, or Jtfares or Parry, despite their
courage and endurance, have been able to
reach our northern pole", or Cook or
Wilkes or James Ross our Antarctic pole
In the summer of either hemisphere of
Mars, the north Polar snows become
greatly reduced in extent, as is natural,
while in winter they reach to low lati
tudes, showing that in parts of the planet
corresponding to the United States, or
mid-Europe, as to latitude, bitter cold
must prevail for several weeks in succes
sion. Prof. R. A. Proctor, in St. Nicholas.
Out of the Mouth op a Babe. A
three-year old little girl at Rochester was
taught to close her evening prayer, dur
ing the temporary absence of her father.,
with:
"And please watch over my papa." f-
It sounded very sweet, but the mother's
amazement may be imagined when the
child added :
"And you'd better keep an eye on.
mamma, too."
. Where screws are driven into soft
wood and subjected to considerable strain,,
they are likely to work loose. In such
cases the use of glue is recommended
Prepare the glue thick; immerse a stick
about half the size of the screw and put
it into the hole; then immerse the screw
and turn it home as quickly as possible-
An Ithaca man has inverted an 18-day
watch.
.-
' .