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*i KATE'S LOVEBS. 1 Is that your last word, Kate?" M last" "You have no love to give me?" "How many times must you ask me?" "But it seems that I have looked into your eyes, and that they have given me a different answer than your tongue. Deny it or not, Kate, your eyes have looked into mine and told me that I had a small place in your heart. I have seen it, say what you may, and though your voice was silent, your eyes, my bonny Kate, have whispered soft promises that caused my temples to throb and the blood to rush to my head, until I seemed half mad with joy." She, a stalwart English lass, brown as a berry, as handsome an example of a workingwoman as ever lived, laughed. It was a musical, bewitching laugh, but it sounded like a deathknell to the man who stood before her, with face aflame with passion. He was a tall specimen of the Anglo-Saxon type of miner, with arms like a blacksmith and the legs and thighs of an athlete. Kate was the daughter of the captain of the mine, and came from the same part of England to America when the mining industry here was almost in its infancy when there was no over pro duction of any ore, and fortunes were more easily made than now. For some time Geoffry had been suitor for her hand, and Kate had played fast and loose until at times the demon of jeal ously raged so furiously that he was almost beside himself. To see his Kate upright as a saplingKate, whose every movement was the majesty of motionwith the figure of a woman and the heart and caprices of a maid with the soft eyes of a deer and the tongue of shrewJto see Kate, the em bodiment of noble physical develop ment, in the arms of another at the dance, with no word for him, was tor ture, keen and exquisite. And then when he approached her, the angry flush upon his face, there was "balm in Gilead" in the soft glance she shot at him and he forgot his resentment in the contemplation of her face. And now at the twilight time they two stood just without the door of her father's cottage. The sun was going down in a haze like that seen on the ocean. It was not a golden sunset, though so near its resting-place, but a sun of sil ver, bright and shining, in harmony with the snow-covered surface of the earth and the grey sky. Above the hills the shaft houses were sharply de fined against the sky, and in the dis tance the foreststhose noble Michigan forestsseemed like a dark fringe around the pallid landscape. The man drew nearer to the woman. "Can you deny, Kate, that your eyes have told me you might care for me?" "Pshaw! A woman's eyes, Geoffry? They may say many things they do not mean." "You mean you have been playing with me?" "Oh, I do not say so." "Kate, take care!" "Of what?" "You are playing with fire, lass. My love must have its wayyou must be anine." "Must? Indeed! You have a pleas ant way of winning a woman. Surely I may love whom I choose." "Yes and you love that Norwegian. [At the dance I saw how you looked at him-^how you encouraged him, while I stood aside with the rage in my heart to kill you both. Before that scoundrel came between us two "You forget yourself to defame a man behind his back. It is cowardly if he were here "You defend him. You love him?" Defiantly: "And if it were true?" He grasped her arm with a cry. "It cannot be, Kate. You must love no one but myself. You belong to me, lass, and I "Let go my arm." "I will not." "Coward!" "Perhaps." "I shall hate you." "It is as well since you do not love ane." "At last I understand you. I despise you now that I know you. Let go of my arm." "No." "It is the part of a man to exert brute strength over a woman. I believe you are coward enough to strike a woman." "What!" He released her arm and stood be fore her, pale as death. One hand he passed nervously through his hair, while his features worked convulsively. She, with figure erect, and blazing eyes, confronted him. "If that is your last word, good-by," he said. "Tell your Norwegian to look out or I will kill him." "Perhaps he is a better man than you." "Don't drive me too hard with your tongue." "Next time you think to win a sweet heart learn how to treat her." "Kate,, something oppresses me. Something is going to happen on the morrow. Should you care if I met my death in the mine?" She laughed heartily. "Not at all." vyithout a word he turned and walked hastily away. Sho watched his figure vanish in the light of the silver moon. "Fool!" she said. "Has he not yet learned that no .man on earth may drive 'me?" Then she went into the louse and stood thoughtfully near the window where were many flowers. She heard a step behind her and began to hum oftly. "Art light-hearted, lass?" said her father's voice, and the next moment she was in his arms. He looked at her proudly, with her noble figure, her strong arms and her broad, handsome facea true woman of the people, a daughter of the mines. "Weel, thou art no feather-weight, lass," he remark ed, and then escaping from him, she went to the kitchen, where he heard her moving about, still humming to her self. There wag a knocking on the window. Turning he saw the Nor wegian and smiled pleasantly. Then be came in and asked permission to sit down and watch her preparations for sapper. This she granted and her eyes brightened as he followed her with, his gaze. The light fell upon her hair and .Jbnrp wa* a strange look upon her face. "Will you not stay to supper?" she asked. He assented eagerly. Half an hour later Geoffry, passing by, saw them all three sitteng together, chatting gayly. With a curse he turned away and for hours tramped over the snow in the darkness. On December 28, the dav following, Geoffry and the Norwegian were work ing on the footwall on the third tier up from the level mining out the fourtli tier underhand. This portion of the mine had caved in the year previous, and the rooms were filled and the posts more or less crushed, so that great care was necessary hi taking out the pil lars, aiiey had worked out one lot of sets on the east side of the pillar, and were engaged on the one next to it. In mining these crushed pillars, sets of smaller dimension are used, in order that very little ground should be open ed'at one time without timber. Here the ground was so soft that laths were driven to support the back until the timber could be put in. This particular set was nearly out, and a prop and head-board had been erected to support the laths, this prop resting on a plank laid across the lagging of the set below. Geoffry and the Norwegian wera work ing silently, but now and then they gazed furtively at each other. The heart of the Englishman was full of insane jealousy, and he was not him self that morning. After his long walk the evening before, he had drunk until daylight, and now, with the liquor working in his brain, mad desires chas ed one another through his mind, and he regarded the Norwegian with the glance of a wild beasta look that impelled the latter to the greatest cau tion. Never once did he turn his back to the Englishman never once was Ms attention detracted from his dan ger. Like two dumb brutes, filled with savage impulse, the primal wish of a man to kill, they worked side by side in the narrow place. The Norwegian moved to the other end where work was necessary, when suddenly he slipped. With a hoarse cry the English man sprang forward with uplifted im plement to brain his fallen antagonist, when suddenly there was a crashing behind them the framework gave way huge masses of ore and rock descended with a rumble like an avalanche. The Englishman stoo'd stock still, thinking his last day had come in a moment he was frozen like a statue. When he recovered his senses he heard the groan of the Norwegian and saw that he was pinned to the earth by masses of ore. Hastening to him, as best he might, he removed the ore from the- crushed body, which he took in his arms and bore to the other end of the chamber, in which they were literally entombed The Norwegian was groaning in the greatest pain, and Geoffry lifted his head and pressed his flask to the lips of the dying man, whose eyes never in his agony left those of the other. While before the picture was that of primal man, born to kill, to slav, to annihilate, now it was a picture of that human brotherhood which lies deep down be neath all evil desires and toward which the young world is struggling and strug gling. Into the eyes of the Norwegian the Er.glishman was gazing. Both were members of the same fraternal working order. The breath of the dying man came in gasps, shorter and shorter the light faded from'those daep-set eyes and the form became stiff. Geof- f'y's rival was dead. The Englishman, shut up in that horrible prison, threw hhrself upon the body and wept How long he remained thus he never knew, for what are periods when anguish an nihilates timewhen the lines of the poet, "out of space, out of time," give a certain divinity to human nature. Geoffry did not suffer from suffocation. Although shut out from the world by what seemed a solid wall a draught of air was apparent and it was evident there were crevices somewhere. Meanwhile the news of the disaster had spread far and wide. The captain was busy over his books in his little office and near him sat bonny Kat. Why did she come? Was it to catch a glimpse of the Norwegian as he emerged from the shaft? Was love, then, so impatient? A man covered with dirt and grime rushed into the office. "An accident, Captain "Where?" "On the third tier. The Norwegian, Bnorgson, and Geoffry were working there." Kate gave a cry. Her face was the color of the palid landscape now, and she sprang up like a deer shot to the heart, while with quivering lips she gazed at the messenger of evil. "Is heare they killed?" she asked, the words falling slowly. "There isn't much chance." Now in the mine the men were work ing with a will clearing away the enor mous masses of ore and rock. Tlie only chance for the men was that they were imprisoned, not crushed, and that was a faint hope at the best. Among the throng of workers was Kate, who her self worked until her strength was ex hausted. Gang relieved gang, and still the great mass seemed to become im pregnable. On the seqond day the men paused, for they thought they heard something. They listened intently. It was a faint rapping on a timber. "They are aliveat least one of them," shouted a miner. "To work with a will, men." Then Kate, aroused from her stupor, took her place among the workers. "Back, lass," said her fatner. "A stronger arm is needed here." "My arm is strong, father," she said. They gazed at her and let her have her way. "Her sweetheart's there," said one of the men. "Yes the Norwegian." On the third day the tapping was fainter and then it ceased. New Year's morning they reached the men. The Englishman was dead, apparently. Both bodies were taken to the surface. At the word "dead," Kate, worn out, had fallen unconscious. Suddenly one of the men who had been bending over the Englishman shouted: "There's life here." The captain knelt by his side and heard the faint beating of his heart. "Carry the lad to my house," he com manded. When Geoffry came to himself he was lying in a small room near the window. Upon, the window-sin were flowers. Bending over him was a wo man. Some one held his band lips were pressed to his forehead kindly, i sympathetic eyes gazed into bis, and their tender light bewildered him. "Kate!" "Geoffry!" "Is that you, sweetheart?" i "It is I, dear." What did this mean? His head was nDW resting on her bosomthe board, womanly bosom of this woman of the people. Her lips, close to his, whis pered: "How do you feel, dearest?" "In heaven, Kate. I have had a bad dream 'Tliish, deir heart. Got well for my sake." "For yours, Kate?" "Yes, yes, for minefor mine." "Then you "Love you? Yes, yes." "My sweet lass! But why "Geoffry, Geoffry, sweetheart, )did you know your Kate so little you thought to drive her? Ycu could not command meyour jealousy could not force me, to be yoursbut you may lead me to the end of the world. There, close your eyes. You are worn and weary.,You have nearly passed from me, and my life would have been misery. Think how I suffered, darling, while you were in that tomb. Then I knew what my love for you was, and I prayed that you might be saved, that I could hold you in my arms and beg you to take me and cherish me. I prayed that you might be saved so that my devotion could undo the harsh words of the past. Do you forgive me, my own, my treasure?" "Lass, lass, pray God I might die again to hear such words." "There, there! Speak no more, Geof* fry. Best, rest The doctor said you must sleep. Close your eyes, for your Kate is watching over you." "As I may some day watch over you, Kate?" "While this life lasts, if you will." "Kiss me, dear." For tthe first time she pressed her lips to his, and then he slept peacefully, with a flush upon his eheek. When her father entered he looked at them in surprise. "Is it so, lass?" "Aye, father." "I thought it were the other." But she only smiled and gazed fondly at the sleeping man. The silver sun went down that night again in a silver haze. Over the hills in solemn procession the miners, with bowed heads, carried the Norwegian to his grave. No funeral hearse no carriages were there. Sadly the sil ver sun sank out of sight More vivid ly the shaft houses were defined, mark ing the places where human beings went down seeking that which is in the earth, where they are born and where they must die. There is no happiness not tinged with sorrow. But in the small room a woman, whose face was touch ed with silver light, bent over the man with the solicitude that a mother dis plays while looking on her slumbering child. Sink, silver sun fade, light, from the hills come, darkness, with ebon shroud murmur, gloomy voices, through the whispering Michigan pines! There is no night when comes the day dawn of the soul!" For mines may give out, external things may change, but there is that which endures forever.Detroit Free Press. KISSING AN UNWILLING WOMAN In Holland it is Considered Merely a "Mark of Sympathy." To the ordinary mind it looks decid edly like assaulting a woman to kiss her against her willa fact which the English law very properly recognizes. The consensus of feminine opinion would be that such an act is far more offensive than a blow, but Dutch* law looks at the matter in an opposite light, According to th London Daily News] the Dutch Court of Appeal has decided) that to kiss a person cannot be an of* fense, as it is in the nature of a warm1 mark of sympathy. So the man who' exhibited this extraordinary "mark of sympathy" to a stranger in the streets of Utrecht has escaped without punish ment When next I go to Holland I shall not want to be sympathized with this manner, but after such a judgment it seems that every woman will have to be prepared to resist unwelcome and unexpected osculatory attacks, says an English writer. What would the grave and reverend signors of Hol land say if a male escort failed to ap preciate such sympathetic attentions, and knocked the offender down? Verily sympathy may take strange guises, and none stranger than this. Preserve me, I pray, from these Dutch sympathiz ers. BALLOTS AND BARE HEADS Jiow That Woma Have the Suffrage Theater Hat Reform is Advocat ed. A journal from New Zealandwhere, as my readers are aware, woman* suf frage has recently been established tells a funny story of an occurence which is said to have recently taken place in a Wellington theatre. It seems that some of the ladies seat ed in the stalls were wearing hats which interefered with the view of those sitting behind them, a circum stance which is, I believe, not altogeth er unknown in the mother country, says the Lady's Pictorial. Suddenly a 'male voice from the pit exclaimed, in a" tone of pathetic remonstrance, "Ladies now you have got the franchise, you might really take your hats off!" Whether the suggestion produced any other result than the inevitable roar of laughter, is not related. But there is something extremely comical in the cu rious idea of "give-and-take" which the appeal conveyed, and in the implied notion that New Zealand ladies had hitherto worn big hats at the thea tres in order to "pay out" the male tyr ants for depriving them of their rights! What if our own emancipators should take the hint and unanimously adopt a similar means of punishing the op ponents of the cause?" Her Only Defect. v*""- McGinnisMrs. Stiggins is certainly a beautiful woman. Gus DeSmithYes I admire her very much. In fact there is only one thine about her that I don't like, what's that? ^M.iJ He7hnsbJi s/* jagfetadj HAWK-EYE JACK. Every one who has crossed what useel to be known as the Great American Desert, embracing the plains that lie between Atchison, Kan., and Denver, Colo, will recall easily the well known ford of the North Platte river, at Hawk-Eye Banch, where, in the early days, wagon trains used to stop to re new their butler's stores, and where lightning whisky was sold by the glass. The ranch was kept by one Jack Reed, a literal type of the adventurous fron tiersman, who bore the name of Hawk Eye, from the wonderful blackness and brightness of those orbs with which na ture had endowed him. Jack Reed, though forty-eight years old at the time of which I write, could see farther over the ^prairies than the best Icout that ever squinted along the barrel of a jrifle. No one knows this man's history pre vious to the spring of 1860, when he arrived and established himself at this ford of the North Platte, which place has since come to be named after him. {Here he erected an adobe house, which (from time to time he strengthened into & miniature fort to protect himself and tfamily against the hostile Indians. Hawk-Eye Jack was a wonderful shot, and especially at long range, his ex cellent sight giving him a peculiar ad vantage. I have never seen but one man his equal as a marksman, and his specialty was the pistol. Sometimes strangers would stop at the ranch and boast of their being good shots, and perhaps challenge Hawk-Eye Jack to a tnal of skill. He let them select their own distance and target then, when they had fired, he would bring his rifle to his eye with a rapid motion and fire instantly. His ball was always found to havn entered the same hole which his opponent's bullet had made! "Your bullet is my mark'" he would say, coolly. "You can't see a bullet hole that dis tance," was frequently the rejoinder. "Fifty dollars against twenty I cover the two balls by another shot!" But the strangers found they had got a man with whom they could only bet to lose, and so they acknowledged "beat" and went on their way. Several years ago I was talcing a large surveying party to Colorado, and we made up our train at Atchison, con sisting of fourteen mule teams, hav ing some heavy machinery to transport in the wagons. It was before the iron horse had crossed that arid route or a rail had been laid west of Kansas. We could not make more than twenty miles a day in the way of progress, corralling our teams at night and mak ing all necessary arrangements against the roving Indians, who were the lit eral banditti of the plains. As we had broken down with one of our teams just about a couple of miles before reaching Hawk-Eye Ford, I ordered a halt for a whole day to repack the wag ons and leave the broken one behind. During the performance of this duty by the men, I mounted my sturdy lit tle white saddle horse and went for waid to visit Jack's establishment. It happened to be a very quiet day, and there was scarcely a soul about the premises save the family itself, The ranch was fully twelve miles from any other, and it was only when the Halliday mail-wagons passed, or an occasional mule-train camped near by, that any one came there at all. Now-, and then buffalo or antelope hunters dropped in, and occasionally some two or three venturesome miners, who, trusting to their Spencer rifles and good horses, crossed the plains without escort As I rode up to the ranch I heard some pistol shots, and loosened my own revolver, thinking I might need it for self-defense. I rode round to the rear of the adobe to see what the shots signified which seemed to be fired there, and beheld a singular sight. A tall, slim, wiry-built man was stading by the side of a young girl, who could not be more than four teen years of age. The child, for she seemed but little more, was firing at a mark some thirty paces distant with a bright-barreled navy revolver, and lis tening to the criticisms and suggestions of the man by her side. He turned to ward me, and I knew in an instant by those large, piercing black eyes, that it was Hawk-Eye Jack, though I had never seen him before. "That'll do, Minette," he said to the child. "You will shoot as well as your father by and by." The girl seemed pleased with the com pliment, and left us as she turned to go into the adobe. She was decidedly pretty, with her father's eyes, and a round, well-developed figure, clothed in a boyish style, yet in no respect im modestly dressed. She wiped the re volver carefully as she walked away, and returned**it to the leather sheath hanging from a belt at her side "You camped just below, last night, stranger," said the man to me, "and I saw you coming up." "Yes, we have laid over for repairs." "Walk in and have something, strang- er?" "Thanks," said I, following him into the dwelling. At my request he prepared a couple of very large mugs of punch, and then accepting one of from the East, we sat and smoked and chatted very sociably together for a long while. He enjoyed the cigar "hugely," as he said, it being of so much finer flavor than the Virginia weed which he used in his pipe. Jack warmed up over the punch and tobacco, and was full of stories of frontier life and adventures. "What family have you here?" I asked. "Only Minette and her old aunt," he said, and looked sharply at me with a sort of mquiring expression. "I should think it would be lonely." "Sometimes, but I have an object," he said, grimly. "To make money, I suppose, like the rest of us." "Money? Well, yes, I do trade a lit tle, but that is not my object," he said, with a stern expression. "What is it?" "Vengeance!" he replied, with a look so savage, and so hoarse a voice, that I was startled. "On whom?" I asked. "The redskins!" We had finished our cigars and punch, and at my suggestion both were renew ed. My host became more and more communicative as the stimulant warm ed his veins and the tobacco ascended to the brain. At last he said, casually: "Never been along the Platte .route before?" y^-.-^ -H !&&&*&&& "I thought"so, else you would know something of me and mj' ranch," he replied, swallowing the smoke and blowing it out of his nostrils. "How long have you been here?" "Well, I settled here in the latter part of some seven years ago, and had a pretty comfortable time of it till the red devils spoilt all." "How was that?" "Well, stranger, to make a long story short, I came here with my wife and three children from. Nevada in that year, and set up a sort of trading post here. Things went on very well for a considerable whilfe business was good with* travelers, miners, and now and then the Indians. Every one who came to the ranch* went away satisfied, and everything went on the square. I didn't know as I had an enemy in. the world, and I'm sure I never injured man, wo man or child till five years ago. One day our little girl Minette had a bad tooth, which set in to ache so bad that I took her with her aunt about twenty miles up the Platte to a government stockade, to get the surgeon to extract the tooth, which he did, and we came back the next day. What do you sup pose we saw when we got here?" "What was it?" "A smoldering ruin! Excuse me, stranger," said the man, covering his face with his hands "I don't tell this story often! Destroyedwife and two children stolen awayall gone!" he sobbed. "What did it Lean?" "The red devils had been here. They kEew I was absent, so they stole what they could carry off, and burned the rest There was nothing lett standing. My first step was to get a half-dozen men I could rely upon and to follow their trail, to get back my wife and children We overtook the devils They would not parley or I should have tried peaceable menas, in order to insure the safety of my wife and wife and children. No they show ed fight at once. And uring the scrim mage brought out my wife and killed and scalped h^r before our very eyes, then dashed out the brains of my two children. That was pronouncing their cwn doom! There were but fiftnen of the gang, and we killel thirteen of them within twenty-four hours, two only es caping after we had pursued them near ly a hundred miles. "We buried the mutilated bodies of my dear wife and children, and came back to this spot The first night I lay on the ground and tried to pray, but it was no use. I couldn't do it. The next morning I swore an oath that I would be fearfully avenged upon the hated race of treacherous devils. I took a solemn oath wherever and whenever 1 saw an Indian I would shoot him like a wild beast: I rebuilt this ranch, pret ty roughly as you see, but securely. I can resist a whole cloud of redskins for twenty-four hours, and pick them off through these loop-holes. I have, as you see, plenty or arms," pointing to a half-dozen Spencer's seven-shoot ers, and as many excellent revolvers hanging in a rack on the wall "and I never go about without a pair of these fellows," pointing to his belt, in which were a couple of Wesson rifled revol vers. "They will pick me off one of these days, but I am making minced meat of them in the meantime, and Minette will sell her life dearly when the time comes. You saw her shoot just now. I have taught her so that she can fire a rifle or a revolver better than most marksmen and last fall, when the red skins made a raid upon us, and I got some fine practice before they beat a retreat, she shot a chief dead in his sad dle out of that loop-hole. In vain were the moral axioms I ad duced, and the arguments tending t~ show that "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord." In vain I pointed out to the man his batter duty to the brave and intellilgent child, whom he was rearing under such terrible auspices. Though I really felt and seriously so, what I said to him, it was worse than useless, seeming only to confirm him in the course he had laid out for his fixed aim in life. His provocation was terrible, but his present career seemed to me to be more so. "The redskins are getting scarce about here. They know that I will shoot them at sight, and that I can kill farther than any man west of tiie Mis souri with my rifle. This was their fa vorite ford, but they abandoned it alto gether some three years since, after losing, at different times, over thirty of their chiefs at the crossing. They have paid dearly, but they haven't half paid yet for the murder of my wife and children." The deep large black eyes of the fron tiersman had been all on fire while he told his tragic story, which is well known to travelers by the North Platte route. His cheeks were sunken and his body extremely thin, but he was all muscle and vigor. "Will you take a little more punch, stranger?" "No, I thank you." "Won't you have some dinner, stran- ger?"^ "Mj people will be expecting me back to camp at noon," I said as I prepared to depart As I went by the small narrow coun ter, which formed the bar of the ranch I observed a long pine stick hung up by a string against the wall, and nicked apparently by a pocket knife. Hawk Eye Jack noticed that I regarded it curiously, and took it down and handed it to .me. After a moment he said: "You observe those notches cut in the stickeach one represents the life of a 'redskin. When I shoot one, I cuT a notch. If you count these notches you will see they are rising seventy in number. I call it my Indian Death Tally." Peter's Mistake. The schoolmistress was showing off her pupils to some visiting friends. She had been over the same ground a day or two before, and thought she could trust them to do credit. "Who knows what useful article is furnished to us by the elephant?" she asked. "Ivory," was the prompt reply of three boys at once. "Very good. And what do we get from the whale?" "Whalebpne." "Right again. And what from the seal?" "Sealing-wax," answered Peter Sand, whose inventiveness was I ter than his memory. MEXICAN CIGAR WRAPPERS a,\ailable Mexica anjthing are called for by the Mexic an trade, one firm of which is saii to be under contract with English men for 500,000 cigars every two weeks. The government statistics also give an important hint in this matter. The total export of filler tobacco frou Mexico for 1893 was only 4S,451 pounds, of a value of $11,456 in 1S94, 44,101 pounds, valued at $11,125, and in 1895, 57,480 pounds, valued at $13,- 507 while the total amount of wrap per tobacco for 1895 was but 1.3 pounds valued at $7. This countiy imported from Cuba in 1893, 21,694.- 891 pounds, valued at $8,940,05S in 1894, some 14,578,000 pounds, valued at $5,828,964, and in 1895 some 20, 147,000 pounds, valued at $7,233,474. The total amount of imported wrap per tobacco from Cuba paying duty into the United States Treasury dur ing 1895 was 28,133 pounds, vafred at $38,320. These are the facts in tha matter, and as soon as Mexican tobac co begins to come in for use on do mestic made clear Havana cigars its arrival will be shown in the weekly tables of imports published in trade and shipping organs. What is very likely is that the consumer of Havana cigars will soon have to face a daikex tobacco on his cigars than he has been wishing for lately.New York Sun. The Economy of Electric Traction, In order to rebut the frequently made claim that a locomotive can make as great a mileage as an electric motor, W. Baxter, Jr, shows what is done in actual practice, and at the same time makes the distinct state ment that such a company as the Pennsylvania railroad could effect a saving of over $6,700,000, or 16.4 pel cent of its operating expenses, by the adoption of electricity. On the rail, road named there are 1103 freight en gines, giving a mileage of 20,400,353 annually. In the passenger service there are 478 locomotives, and the total miles run per year by passengei trains is 14,908,800. Figuring on a basis of 90 per cent of the engines in use, the miles run per year would be 34,670, and on an 80 per cent basis, 39,0C0 miles. Trolley cars making an average speed of less than ten mile* per hour run from 45,000 to 50,00(1 per year At this rate, motor cars drawing freight trains at fifteen milea per hour could easily cover 65,00G to 75,000 miles per year, and those vsod for passenger work, and making, an average speed of thirty miles pel hour, could ran over 100,000 miles pei 5 ear. If so much greater yearly mile a?e could be made by electric motors* it follows that the wages" of motor* men would be very much less tha the wages of enginemen per train mile) the daily compensation not being high er, and the distance covered being fai greater After going fully into every cost of operation and maintenance oi the two S3 stems, Mr. Baxter establish ed the fact of the superior economy of electric propulsion for trunk liues~ A Typewriting and Adding Machine A machine has been invented foi typewriting and adding figures at the same time. The invention is describ ed as being intended to quickly and accuiately add a column or columns of figures and at the same time, and by the same manipulation of the keys to print these figures upon a sheet oi paper or a blank book in the ordei in which they are added, so as to form a prod* sheet, which will verify the correctness of the addition. TUe ma chine, by special adjustment, may be made to print at the end of the column the sum total of the figures, and to do this in a vertically descend ing or vertically ascending or hori zontal progression. Additions can be made either to the right or to the left The printing is in full sight The machine works with the ease of a typewriter, and its speed is only lim ited by the skill of the operator. It subtracts by a reversing arrangement, the registering disk running one way as readily as the other. Its construc tion is simple, considering the variety and extent of work done. It is adapt ed to printing on pass books, which it does as readily as upon ordinarv plat en and sheet. It can be used to add without printing or to print without adding. If mistakes are made, they can be seen at once* "With the Theosophists "Hello, said Mahatma, as he met the. Elemental in the Astral, "what are you up to to-day?" "Oh, just knocking around," replied the Elemental. "How's things in Thibet?" "Well, we're having just the "same kind of a spring we had 5,00v) years aeo. wet and backward. So long."-. Cleveland Plain Dealer. A Sense of Propriety. "But Vhat has become of Jack. yrur|l little white dog?" jgs "This is Jack As I am in dee^ wr- -n-^^S ing, 1 had him colored black. It's/-^ig more in keeping."Le Journal Autus- $ ^fe 0 Yet In* Revolu. Use In T'Lls Country Hot creased by the Cuban tion. There is a growing idea among smokers that, owing to the trouble* in Cuba, there will be a scarcity of Cuban leaf tobacco, which will soon affect both the quality and quantav of domestic clear Havana cigars, 1 a rumor is prevalent that already many of the so-called clear Havana** are covered with Mexican tobacco, and that it can not be detected by experts. The best informed persons in the trade deny this rumor, and state that most of the large American firms have enough Cuban tobacco to last them for a year or more, and that there is little or no tobacco Mexico suitable for the fastidious smoker. They say also that Mexican tobacco is detected easily at sight,, and while it may be possible in future years to produce a tobacco for wrap pers which will compete with the Cu ban article, it will be a long time com* ing, as up to date no effort has been rr-cde by the Mexican growers to cater to this market The Mexican leaf is thicker and dulled in appearanee,with. out the rich gloss of the Cuban vari ety so attractive to American smok ers. What is still more to the point, it rapidly deteriorates in appearance after being worked up into cigars. Still another reasonwrappert Ji is tha alwortethl