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HOW HE GOT THE BLUES.
A Nowspnper Man's Experience as a
Manufacturer of Indigo.
An Alia reporter was chatting ou the
Oakland boat with a friend, the other
day, when the chattee said to him: ."Did
you ever see a blonde Indian?" The
reporter for once admitted there was
something ho had not seen, lingering
on the admission long enough to give
the angel of record a whack at the in
cident. Pointing across the deck his
friend indicated a close-knit, tall, busi
nesslike man, who, sure enough, in his
features, was a perfect imago of Black
Hawk, chief of the Sacs and Foxes, al
beit ho was blonde, and sandy as thd
typical Scotchman. "Know him?"
said the party of the second part.
"No? Why, that's Jim Woodard, who
did more to givo The Cincinnati En
quirer reputation by his "Jayhawker"
letters than Gath has done by his top
loftical tumblings in the same paper.
Woodard is now the San Francisco
agent of the Wabash road, trying to
recoup himself for losses."
The reporter's fancy was roused by
tho statement that a newspaper man
over had anything to lose, and there
fore drew out this tale, which began on
the boat and was successfully finished in
a California street cigar store while
lighting two of tho "stinkers" of tho
period:
In many respects Woodard is a re
markable genius. He is the product of
Warren county, Indiana, from whence
he went to war in. tho union cause, and
it was during his service in the field
that he developed, in his correspondence
to local papers, those marked character
istics as a newspaper writer which sub
sequently made him a somewhat fa
mous character in the journalistic pro
fession. He somehow got an unde
served reputation for being a studious
and uncompromising liar. Those most
familiar with him are sincere in believ
ing that Woodard was honest and con
scientious in his work, much of which,
however, sensational, was usually found
to be truthful, and was never gossipy
or scandalous. Next to newspaper
work, Woodard had a weakness for
railroading? and for a number of years
past he has had more or less interest in
various enterprises of that kind. After
the close of the war Woodard went to
Tennessee, got into politics, and ulti
mately into the legislature. By one
deal and another he had managed to
save up something like $5,000. About
the time his bank-book showed a balance
represented by those figures a mysteri
ous individual came to Memphis, rent
ed rooms, and with closed doors and
blinded windows he imrsued some sort
of star-chamber investigations and ex
periments, about which the curious
manifested much interest, but could
learn nothing more definite than that
little which they gleaned from the my
sterious stranger s frequent visit to
drug stores and his purchase of divers
compounds.
In the courso of a few weeks Wood
ard was taken into the confidence of
the weird alchemist, who told a fairy
story of what he had finallr accom
plished after years of patient toil and
industry, and at the sacrifico of a for
tune which had been left him by his
father, then deceased. In brief, he had
discovered a process for the manufac
ture of artificial indigo by a combina
tion of chemicals and minerals, by
which the cost of production could be
reduced to a more bagatelle. The
solemn-visaged alchemist was plethoric
of statistics and pregnant with visions
of untold profits. But he was broke
and wanted a partner to help turn the
discovery to profit. The sincerity and
enthusiasm of tho man had turned the
head of the shrewd and worldly jour
nalist, and for tho first and probably
the only time in his life ho was a
chump. He visited tho rooms of the
chemist and inspected tho process of
manufacture. Ho was yet skeptical
jand cynical, but tho man agreed to the
severest tests. Provided with a formu
la, Woodard himsolf went forth to tho
druggists. He spent 50 cents in tho
purchaso of compounds with strange
Latin names With his own eyes he
witnessed the alchemist throw these
into tho hopper of his machine. There
was a rapid turning of a crank, a sound
of crushing rolls and cogs and things,
and a minuto lator a receiving-box at
tho rear of the machino held two pounds
of lump indigo, which had been spott
ed from the bowels of the odd machine.
Woodard was astounded with wonder.
His stranger friend, with a look of
proud satisfaction, appeared wise, but
said not a word, his expression convey
ing more eloquently the famous remark
of Daniel Webster. "There she stands;
look at her." Woodard was half con
verted already. He took the indigo
to a chemist of established repu
tation and had it analyzed. It proved
to be tho genuine article, so ho said.
Tho fiy newspaper man was captured.
The production of tho indigo cost 60
cents a pound. The market price was
$2. Hundreds of thousands of pounds
were consumed annually. It looked
like a sure fortune in sight. He has
tened to close a contract for a half
interest by the payment of $-1,500 to tho
serious and clerical-looking inventor,
who took him in with tho understand
ing that he should share equally in the
profits, but should not possess himself
of the secret of the invention. Two
days were then spent in tho manufac
ture of indigo at the rate of about two
hundred pounds a day a profit of $300
a day, $150 'clean income to each part
ner every twenty-four hours. The im
pecunious journalist was wild with do
light. Then tho senior partner disap
peared; also the money which Wood
ard had put into the firm. He found
that ho couldn't work tho macnine, and
after weeks of patient waiting for his
absent partner he had the machine taken
apart. His hopes were blasted by the
denouement. All the drugs that had
been put in the hopper were skillfully
lacked in a side apartment of the struc
ture; another apartment contained a.
remnant of what had once been four
hundred pounds of pure indigo, which,
by an arrangement of belts and pulleys,
had been systematically given out of the
spout whilo the machine was being fed
at the other end. Then it dawned on
tho junior member that he was the vic
tim of a well-conceived and well-developed
job. Years after he accident
ally met the swindling and fraudulent
chemist in a restaurant in New York.
He beat him nearly to death, but that
was all the satisfaction he ever got out
of an investment of $5,000. San Fran
cisco Alia.
A Heartless Boy.
Boys of a certain age are sometimes
singularly lacking in every sentiment
of tenderness and feeling. When ar
rived at this trying age, boys are a
source of infinite terror and mortifica
to their family and friends.
They have no secrets; they tell every
thing tlrey know and more too.
A lady tells tho following story in
illustration of the lack of feeling mani
fested by a certain hobble-de-hoy boy at
a time of general sorrow among other
members of his family.
"JLhc family was poor and ignorant,
says the lady. "I heard one day that
an oldpr daughter of tho family had
died suddenly and I went over" to tho
house to soeif I could be of any assis
tance. "I found tho entire family, with the
exception of a boy of 10 years, giving
way to the most violent grief. There
was such a hub-bub I could hardly make
nrysolf heard when I spoke.
"After nearly an hour's eflbrt I suc
ceeded in quieting the familvv down,
and was about to' take my departure
when a girl of 15 or 1G suddenly glanc
ed over her shoulder in the direction of
the corpse and screamed out:
" 'Oh, my poor sister Nanny!' Tho
boy referred to scowled" furiously,
clenched his fist, and ilying across tho
room gave tho weeping girl a vigorous
blow, saying as ho did so:
" 'Now, you you want to start maw
up agin', hey?'
"His reproof came too late. 'Maw'
was 'started up agin',' and all my ef
forts to calm her and the rest of the
screaming family were unavailing."
Detroit Free Press.
i
A Good Reason.
"Say, Chum, would you mind lend
ing me your dress suit this evening?
I've an invitation to a wedding."
"What's tho matter with wearing
your own?"
"Well you see, old man, I was out
calling on my girl last night and her
father s dog borrowed the basement of
my pants.' National Weekly.
Mrs. Lew, aged 18 'years, of Columbus, O.,
is the heroine of two marriages. She was first
j married when but 14 years old.
Curious Timepieces.
In the year 1839 a transparent watch
of small size, constructed principally of
rock crystal, was presented to tho
Academy of Sciences in Paris. Tho
works were all visible; tho two-teethed
wheels which carried tho hands were of
rock crystal and tho others woro metal.
All the scrows woro fixed in crystal and
sach axis turned on rubies. Tho es
capement was of sapphire, tho balance
wheel of rock crystal and the spring of
gold. It kept excellent time.
A curiosity in tho way of watches was
shown by tho director of the Watch
makero' School at Gonova before the
horological section of tho Society of
Arts at a meeting last year. This won
der is nothing less than a watch with
one wheel, manufactured at Paris in tho
last century. Tho watch was prcsentod
to tho National Instituto in 1700, being
then in a deplorable state; but the teach
er of. the repairing section at tho school
has, after many hours of labor, succeed
ed in re-ostahlishirig harmony between
the various organs, so that it is now in
going order. It would take a profes
sional watchmaker to describe tho man
ner in which tho one wheel is made to
perform the whole duty of keeping
timo.
A recent number of tho Jewelers Cir
cular describes an ancient musical clock
now In possession of a citizen of Mari
etta, Wis. "It is two hundred and
thirty-five years old and keeps good
time. The movement is made of wood,
lead and iron. Tho weight that runs
the musical part weighs fifty pounds.
It plays a piece every hour, but it is
rather 'hoarse at present from old age.
The dial is largo and has tho paintings
of William Pcnn, describing his history.
At tho top arc live musicians dressed in
uniforms, who raise their instruments
to their lips as they begin to play. Tho
case is made of maple and mahogany.
It was made in the year 1G49, and was
brought to this country in 1817 by a
party of immigrants, being the only
timepieco brought with them."
A paragraph went the rounds of tho
newspapers some time ago, describing
the novel invention of a Salt Lake jew
eler. It is a timepieco in tho shape of
a steel wire stretched across a show
window, on which a stuffed canary hops
from left to right, indicating as it goes
the hours of the day by pointing with
his beak at a dial stretched beneath the
wire and having the figures from ono
to twenty-four. When it reaches the
latter figure it glides across the wire to
one again. There is no mechanism
whatever that can bo seen, it all being
inside the bird. The investor says ho
was three years in studying it out.
A novel form of clock lias recently
been designed by an English artisan.
The face has the form of a tambourine
decorated with a wreath of twelve
llowcrs at equal distances apart. These
mark tho hours, and over them glido
two gaily painted butterflies, one larger
than the other. These are the hands,
the larger indicating the minutes, tho
smaller the hours. The works are con
cealed behind the tambourine, and tho
motions of the butterilies, which are
made of magnetic metal, are produced
by magnets carried on tho arms form
ing the real hands of the clock. An
other clock worthy of mention is exhib
ited in a well-known clock makers' s
window in London. It is a framed and
colored photograph of the houses of
Parliament, Westminster, with a real
dial lot into tho tower to represent
"Big lien." The dial is very small to
match the photograph; nevertheless it
is said to keep good time. JSTeio York
Observer.
- ! .
Fortune's .Joys.
Alas! the joys that fortune brings
Are trill luff, and decay,
And those who prize trilling things
More trilling still than they.
Goldsmith. '
Ma Takes it All.
School Teacher Now, Master Thomp
son, tell mo the denominations into
which the money of tho United States
is coined?
Master Thompson Don't know.
School Teacher Don't you know
how the money your father brings homo
every Saturday night is divided?
Mastor Thompson 'Tain' t dividod.
Ma takes it all. Boston Beacon.
HERE AND THER
A Utlca, N. Y., citizen went into- a butcbe?
Ehop recently, and delivered an ortfirXttr "two
pounds of weal culvers." -wu ..
. Manitoba has a Scandinavian popula
tion of six hundred.
Rentable houses aro very scarco in
Choyonnc, Wyoming.
Protestantism is making rapid head
way in Tabasco, Mexico.
Mrs. Sudden Rich is tho namo of a
lady who resides in Boston.
A children's homo costing $2,000 will
soon be erected at Coney island.
Three thousand teachers of elocution
ply thoir vocation in the United States.
A factory in Madison, Miss., turns
out 110 barrels of cotton-scod oil every
week.
lluaehuca will be the headquartors of
Gen." Miles during tho Apache cam
paign. Tho stages between Greenville and
Kineo, Mo., still cross tho Kennebec
river on the ico.
It costs New York city $50000 to
support tho children committed by tho
police magistrates.
It is said that two hundred varieties
of wild flowers grow in Los Angeles
county, California.
A Canadian prophot predicts that tho
month of May will terminate in furious
ly hot weather.
Two English sparrows have built a
nest in tho hood of an electric-light
lamp in Portland, Mo.
The Norfolk, Va., crop of strawber
ries is larger this year than any grown
since its trucking career began.
A roller-skating r.ink, which has out
lived its usefulness, will be converted,
into an armory at Springfield, Mass.
Tho publishers of The 6anduskj (O.)
Jtegislcr attempted to adopt tho eight
hour law, and the employes struck to a
man.
Tho health board of Brooklyn has
found traces of copperas in tho green
peas imported from Prance to this
country.
Hunters in southern Oregon aro
wantonly slaughtering tho deer for thoir
skins. Their carcasses aro thrown in
to the rivers.
A rabbit hunt on a large scale ro
cently carao oil in Tulare county, Cali
fornia. Eight thousand of tho bobtails
were slaughtered.
Bears arc unusually bold this year in
Maine. Sheep folds are frequently raid
ed, and tho farmers aro organizing for
tho extermination of the marauders.
The Rhode Island liquor-dealers ob
ject to prohibition on the ground that
under its operation men svill drink more
liquor than they do under a license act,
Minnie Schaefer, a notorious witness
in the Lavcrty impeachment trial, has
made an engagement with a showman
to exhibit herself and her illegitimate
infant.
An electric clock that runs without
winding, that is not affected by the at
mosphere, and that can be sold for one
half the cost of a common clock is said
to bo a recent invention.
The park commissioners of Allegheny
City, Pa., have acceptod a gift of $25,-
000 from Henry Phipps, who wants
them to build greenhouses which will
bo open to the public on Sunday.
A Calf Butcher's association of New
York has sent out a delegation to mako
a tour of the state for the purpose of
making arrangements with the farmer
in order to do away with the middh
men.
A donso fog, only a few yards in
breadth, settled down upon one of tho
wharves of New Haven at noon ono
day lately, and remained in that isolat
ed position for two hours or more, while
tho sun shone brilliantly elsewhere jn
tho vicinity.
it is proposed to cut a canal through
Canonicut island, apposite Newport, so
that a steamer can run straight across
from Newport to Narragansett Pier,
and there connect with the Shore-Line
railway, thus shortening the timo to
New York by at least an hour.
It is believed in Portsmouth, N. H.
that the government is abandoning tho
navy yard there, Everything about it,
they say, is going to pieces, and tho
navy department has ordered to bo sont
to Washington everything not too rot-
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