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r 1"-V ; EARLY ARMORCLADS. gf ^ if In ^ 7> 4 BY MAJOR C. FIELD, CLENMORE, ENGLAND. LTHOUGH armorclad ships j| _ are generally considered O Z1 O to date only from the midX K die of the last century, according to a high authority, armor, in the general extended use of the word, has been used for the protection of ships for hundreds, nay thousands, of years. Not. of course, nickel-steel or even iron armor, but a protective covering of various materials; for as the warriors of the past wore steel, iron, brass, leather, ami even quilted cotton armor, so have ships been protected by a variety of different substances. The modern word "cuirass." which we apply solely to body armor as worn by the Life Guards, and which is of French derivation, is used also in France for the armor of a battleship and reminds one at ouce that armor was originally made of leather or "cuir." As with men so with ships. The ships of the ancient Greeks and Romans were often fortified with a thick rence or niaes, wuicu serveu irpci the missiles of their enemies and afford protection to their own crews. Hides, possibly brass and iron, and . certainly thick timber, entered into the construction of the turrets and towers with which the fighting ships of ancient and medieval times were fitted, especially when used for harbor defense, as in tue Venetian turret ship of the ninth century here illustrated. Felt made an early appearance as a defensive armor ou shipboard, as we find that in a sea fight off Palermo in 1071 between the Normans and Saracens, the former hung their galleys With this material by way of a defensive cuirass. The Norman knights had probably adopted this device from their enemies, for felt had been used for some time for this purpose on board the huge "dromons" of the Saracens. These, the "battleships" of those days ia the Mediterranean, usually rowed fifly oars a side, each oar being manned by two men. so that here we have a couple of hundred seamen accounted for at once. When the soldiers. Bail trimmers, and artificers who . worked the war engines and siphons for Greek fire are added, it is evident that the crew must have been very Jarge, and have required a ship of considerable dimensions. These great rwarships were armored with woolen cloth soaked in vinegar to render it fireproof, and hung with mantlets of red and yellow felt. ?o that their cuirass was not only useful, but ornamental as well. At this period, and for many hundreds of years later, additional protection was afforded to those ou deck by the ranging of the bucklers aud shields of the warriors on board alons the gunwales. Later, m tue nrteenth and sixteenth centuries, special "pavesades." or bulwarks, were provided in lieu, composed of large oblong shields supplied for the purpose. la addition to felt. tbe time-honored leather armor also entered into the defensive panoply of the "dromons." j and in the war of the Sicilian Vespers. Pedro III. of Aragon. who commenced THE FIB8X IRON CLAI>, "FINIS BELLI." bis reign in 1276. covered two of the largest ships of his deet with leather before sending it against Charles of 'Anjou. These, by th* tray, were uot the first *leatherclads." Wo have already seen that leather, probably in the fonu of rawhides, formed a portion of the armor of the Saracen dromons, while Conrad of Montferrat. at the siege of Tyre, in 1187. either invented or at all events caused a special class of leatli lu'vurcuru ?r^?cia i?/ ui- uuui, v> uau twere called "barbotes" or "duckbacks." They would now probably be called "turtlebacks." They would appear to have been small craft covered with a ' strong leather protected domed roof, through portholes or openings in which the arch?rs and cros^bowmen could fire without exposing themselves. They proved very effective against the Saracens, and in 1218 the entrance of the Nile was forced by seventy of these little araiorclads. But in the meantime the Saracens t l f ,1 ? -i ': '!% FULTON'S "DKMULO'iOS." OF 1S15. Beera to have '"gone one better" in the 1 evolution of arruor protection, for it j is said that ti;-? "(Jr?at Dromon"?! iwhose capture by Richara Lion-IIeart j Is still commemorated by tli? stars and j crescent in the arms of our greatest naval port?was equipped with leaden armor. This was in 1191. and probab^ !1rr nanrl fnr nrn I,Y itruu uixa.-jiuimnj ?.v.. tective purposes throughout the next two or three centuries, although there is no record of any ship so protected until 1530. In this year the Knights of St. John, those sworn opponents of the Turk, built one or perhaps two 4,leadclads." At any rate, one accouut says that they built such a ship in this year at Malta, while another describes a ship of this kiud called th<? "Santa Anna." | THE SPANISH FLOATING BAT 1 launched at NJce in the same year. The Santa Anna's leaden armor plates were attached to her sides by bolts of brass, and it was claimed for her that she could "resist the artillery of a whole army." and at the same time could sail or row as fast as auy of her unarmored contemporaries. She was a big ship, with six decks, a receptiou saloon, a chapel, a specially constructed powder magazine; and a bakery. She was present at the taking of Tunis in 1335. and played au important part in its capture. Lead, it may be reinaruea in passing, was not infrequently used at this period for sheathing ships under water, in the same way that copper is still found so useful. Thus, the French ship Grande-Francoise, launched in 1527, one of the largest and most famous ships of her day. was sheathed with lead from her keel to the first wale above her waterline. According to a short paragraph in Hayden's Dictionary of Dates, "chain netting of iron was suspended to the sides of men-of-war. which were also strengthened by plates in the time of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth." No authority is quoted, nor is the material of the "plates" specified. The Spaniards attempted to protect an. riTiyffgry.Mrv *>?<?>.? <? 'tvy?<<WM01<1M<W> ? WJm Wv i 1 |t| * | ; J AN' ENGLISH GALLEY OF THE TIME OF HENRY VIII. their galloons of the Invincible Armada by building their sides four or five feet thick, but the heavy English guns "lashed them through and through." But now at last we arrive at a real ar mored ship in the present day acceptance of the word. Not only an armorclad, but a real ironclad. This was constructed in Antwerp in 1383, with a view of breaking through the lines of the Spanish army under Alexander of Parma, which was at that time closely investing the city. It was a large tiat-bottomed craft, with a central casemate or battery built of thick balks of timber and plated with iron. It was intended to be, and very likely was. impenetrable to any artillery that the Spaniards could bring against it: and ia hopeful anticipation that their ironclad ship would raise the siege and put an end to hostilities, the men of Antwerp christened her the Finis Belli. In addition to a heavy battery of guns, the Finis Belli carried a large body of musketeers, some of whom were stationed aloft in her four fighting tops, while the rest were well protected by the loopholed bulwarks on the upper deck. Unluckily for the besieged Dutchmen, she ran azround be fore she had effected anything at all, and fell into the hands of the Spaniards, who nicknamed her the C:iranjamula, or as we would say, '"Bogey." They contrived to keep her afloat and brought her down to the camp of Alexander of Parma. where she became a great attraction*to the sightseers of the period. As for the Dutchmen in the doomed city, they henceforward only referred to (heir fruitless experiment as the "Perditae Expeosae." or ' Wasted Money." Ten years previous to this, others of the Dutch patriots had built a somewhat similar contrivance. which very possibly was also armored. This was the "Ark of Delft," a twin vessel supporting a floating fortress, which was propelled by three I ' ' ' ' k**;' * i Vv1'.* bkCbiiMiiiSlhMaMi^MMMna THE EIItST STEAM WAR VESSEL. band-worked paddle wheels pisiced between the two hulls. it is a curious uui we;i ?nown i;ici that if we go to the far East, we can hud a parallel to almost any western invention. It is therefore not astonishing to find that the Japanese possessed a paddle propelled armorelad in the year 11500. This quaint craft, like the old leatherclad "barbotes" of the twelfth ceutury. was turtle baelied. witu ports ior arms iruui. oue was covered with iron and capper plates fitted together like the cells of a honeycomb, mounted ten guns, and like the Ark of Delft, was moved by a central paddlewheel. Though there is no record of any more ironclad ships before the nineteenth century, our own navy, at auy rate, used various de :eries before Gibraltar. vices to protect its ships in the eighteenth. According to n French writer, the sailors of his country were astonished at the perfection to which the English had attained in this direction. "Old cables," he writes, "held in place bv nieces of iron, barricaded the whole length of the bulwarks; mantlets of old rope hung over the ship's sides to diminish the shock of our cannon balls, and beneath a thick rope netting, stretched from poop to bowsprit, the English fou?ht under shelter, maneuvring without ceasing out of musket range, so as to riddle our detachments of fusileers with their cauuou shot? So V. f -ts - xi TURRET SHIP USED IV THE DEFENCE OF VENICE. NINTH CENTURY. we lost 200 men for er-ery thirty of the English put out of action." This system of armoring was. however, soon adopted by the French, as in Lescallier's "Vocabulaire des Termes de Marine Anglois et Francois," published in 1777. we liud the following: " 'Blinder un vaisseau,' to cover the ship's side with fenders of old cablea to preserve her from an enemy's shot, when employed to defend a harbor, etc." The Spaniards endeavored to Improve on this, and in 17S2 hoped great things from the celebrated floating batteries emplo/ed at the great siege of Gibraltar by the Duke de Crillon. The fate of these experimental armorciads offered no inducement to the naval constructors of the day to make further researches in the direction of protection, so that till comparatively recent times we fiinl our sailors depending only ou their "wooden walls" to resist the projectiles of the enemy. In the tight between the Glatton, fifty-six-gun ship, and four French frigates, a brig, and a cuttc*. mounting 220 guns between them, their twelve and twenty-four pounders failed to penetrate her sides, and she beat them all off with great loss at the cost o? one officer and one man wounded. But the Americans, from the very commencement of their existence as a nation, set themselves to make improvements in naval warfare. David Bushnel! constructed a practical submarine boat in 1773. Torpedoes were used by him and others in the war with this country, and for the purpose of towing these contrivances alongside our ships, they invented and built, in 1814, a paddie-propolled turtle-backed boat lying low in the water and covered with "half-inch iron plates, not to be injured by shot." About the sauie period the celebrated inventor, Robert Fulton, who had already constructed one or two submar \ " """ ' A SEVENTEENTH CKMUi'.Y JABANi.SE AUMOKCJjAD. ine boats and various classes of tor pecloes, built :i steam irignie wiih-u u<_called the Deraologos," or "Voice of the People." but which is sometimes known as the Fulton I. This, the first steam warship ever constructed, had her sides no less than thirteen feet thick of alternate layers of oak and ash wood, a thickness absolutely impenetrable by any gun then afiojit. In 1821) this vessel was blown up by accident, and was succeeded in tha American Navy by the Fulton II. a ship which appears to have been protected by some kind of iron armor. Various proposals were made to use iron plating to protect the sides of ships of war from this time forward, but. until the French constructed a nuui * ? i ? ? i uer oi armor-piaieu uauenes iui no-; In the Crimean War, nothing practical came of the suggestions of inventors. Their success at the bombardment of Kinburn demonstrated the value of armor plating. England at once followed suit with others of the same kind, some of which are still doing duty as hulks. Then came the French La Gloire, the British Warrior, the ironclads and monitors of the American war. and henceforward the steady evolution of the armored fighting ship, which has provided us with the ma* jectic battleships of the present day.? , Scientific Am erica u. y STATIONARY GARBAGE PAIL Cannot Be Stolen, and Always "Out" For the Collector. Women have made comparatively j few mechanical inventions, most of f their inventive efforts being confined ' to wearing apparel, articles pertaining to domestic economy, personal orna[ rnent or convenience. A St. Louis wo man has been studying the possibilities ] of improvement in garbage pails with j considerable advantage to the community. A recent patent discloses the result of her investigation, which is both novel and practical. She proposes a stationary garbage box. permanently attached to the fence, whether this be of the continuous wooden or iron railing type. By this construction it is hoped to avoid the annoyance incident to the stealing or straying of the usual portable pails. As shown in the illustration, the bucket, or box, proposed protrudes through the fence, with an opening on the inner side for depositing slop and an opening on the other | side of the fence for the removal of i slop by the garbage collector. The i box is given a slant sufficient to perI mit the liquids present to be retained, instead of leaking out through the I s STATIONARY GARBAGE PAIL. ! openings, as would be the case were ! the box level. The garbage collector removes the accumulations of refuse I by means of a shovel. The greatest I drawback to the device is that it does I not possess accessibility for sterilizing j from time to time, as is necessary for its maintenance in an unoffending eonI dition. j TENACIOUS HAIRPIN. j Simple Expedient of Adding Extra Leg Prevents Fa ling Out. j A hairpin that will be cheap to manj ufacture and which will possess some j of the characteristics of the "hump" I hook-and-eye has been the aspiration j of many inventors. One of the latest ! attempts to solve this knotty probj lem is illustrated herewith. It consists | of a single piece of wire, bent to form ! three legs, instead of the customary I two. The central leg is shorter than . the other two. and has a corrugated ! and plain section, the latter near the ! extremity, and haviug a slight bow or ( hump. This construction gives a smooth entry into the hair, as the hairpin is pushed in, and the hairpin I ' . *!*4 ! I L? " * HAIP.P1X IMPROVEMENT, ! does not become locked, in place until the liair strikes the corrugated or twisted portion. A secondary advantage of the design is that the hair, being held securely?practically locked in position?the hairpins can be made of much lighter material, a great desideratum from the wearer's point of view. The inventor lays considerable stress on'the fact that the pin can be used just like the ordinary hairpin, being pressed into and withdrawn from the hair in the usual way. The ' elasticity in the shorter central leg | adds very much to its effectiveness. Marriage Service Blundem. i A Hampshire clergyman relates some ! of the blunders he had heard made in j the marriage services by persons of ; the class who have to pick up the I words as best they can from hearing j them repeated by others. He said that * ti'fl c? milfa f)ia ' III 111* UWU JJUiiOU n nan ijunu i.u%. J fashion for the mail when giving the j ring to say to the woman, "With my j body I thee wash up, and with all my | hurdle goods I, thee, and thou." He ' said the women were generally better i up in this part of the service than the j men. One day, however, a bride star! tied him by promising, in what she sup! posed to be the language of the prayer | book, to take her husband "to 'ave and I to 'old from this day fortni't forbetterj er horse, for richerer power, in sig! gerness health, to love cherries, and I to bay." What meaning this extraorI dinary vow conveyed to tho woman's | own mind, the incumbent said, it buf: fled him to conjecture. j Grizzly DoeKu't Care For Human Flerth. In the old days, before the deadly ! magazine rifle was invented, bunting the grizzly was a very different affair, and .no animal on the American continent was more dreaded, bis fierceness and vital force when wounded filling the most reckless hunters with a 1 wholesome dread. It wat not at ail I unusual for a grizzly with a bullet | through bis heart to pursue and tear to I pieces the hunter, whose long single! barrelled muzzle-loading rifle, with its one round lead bullet, was altogether j inadequate for such a contest. It is a j strange thing, too, that while the griz IZiy UCUi IS nil UlUliM UlUU^ ICCUCl, 1! > ILig on anything froiu roots and nuts to steer and buffalo meat, he has never been known to devour humau tlesb.St. Nicholas. Less thin seven per cent, of the power used in manufacturing plants in the United States is iectric. " SlINOB EVENTSOFTHE1VEEK WASHINGTON ITEMS. The Chinese Exclusion treaty expires I this year, and the Government of Chimi I i :i- 4-^ Kq I u;i? given uuLiire IUUL IL ID uwt iu i renewed. Minister Chentung is enI gaged with Secretary Hay in the preparation of a new treaty, which will he on more liberal terms than the old. Representative Dayton, of West Virginia, introduced a bill allowing two mouths' extra pay to enlisted men of the Navy who served" outside tlie j United States during the war with ! Spain, and one month extra to those who served withiu the United States during that time. The condition of Mrs. Nelson A. ' Miles, who was dangerously ill, is con- j siderably improved. The President has granted pardons to two Filipinos, Arturo Echelar and 1 Elias Mendoza, who were convicted before a military commission of the murder of a native corporal of police. I W. T, Nichols has been promoted by the President to be Secretary'of Ari- 1 j zona to succeed Isaac T. Stoddard. I Mr. Nichols is Chairman of the Terri! torial Republican organization of Arl- 1 ! zona. ; The Senate in executive session con firmed the nomination of Charles H. Robb, to be Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice. OUR ADOPTED ISLANDS. The datto Hansen, who wounded Major H. L. Scott during an engagement in Sulu in November last, has been killed by pursuing troops. All I the other dattos aided the troops in j locating Hassen. The second biennial Legislative AsI sembly of Puerto Rico closed a somewhat uneventful sixty days' session three days ago. The budget will stand for 1904-1903 about the same as for the present fiscal year, $1,200,000. Ladrones attacked a surveying party ten miles north of Calamba, iu the I Philippines. A. S. Perkins, who was I in charge of the surveying party, was I wounded, and one private of the constabulary was killed and one wounded. The Philippine Government has attached the funds and revenue license of the Uuion Surety and Guarantee Company, of Philadelphia, at Manila, owing to its failure to pay the bond of . former Treasurer Bartlett Sinclair, of Rizal Province, whose accounts were short. General Leonard Wood reports from Mindanao that he captured without loss the extensive works and fifty-one cannon of Datto Ali, who was defying the slavery law in the Cotabato district. Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, sailed, from San Juan, Porto Rico, on the Coamo. DOMESTIC. Mayor Rose, of Milwaukee. Wis., for a fourth time, was nominated by the Democrats to head the city ticket. The warehouse of the Deeriug Harvesting Machine , Company, at St Louis, Mo., stored with farm machinery and twine, was destroyed by tire, with a loss of $130,000. Seven persons crossing the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad near Wilsonburg, W. Va.. were run down and three of | them were killed, one other being ; fatally hurt. After trying for several days to get ail audience with Governor Peabody. the miners expelled from Telluride have abandoned their appeal to him and will return home under armed escort. William E. Chandler, a barber, en tered the telephone exchange whe his wife was employed at Temple, | Texa3, and shot ner to death. He then i ! shot and killed William McLaughlin, j manager of the exchange. After twenty years of vain searching i for gold, from British Columbia to Mexico, and just shortly after he had 1 discovered a mine which was sold for I $000,000, Edward M. Sturgeon died j suddenly at El Paso, Texas. fire at San Angelo, Texas, destroyed business property valued at $200,000. The hotel was fiiled with guests, but all escaped safely. Two earthquake shocks were felt at Seattle, Wash., the first of five seconds and the second of fifteen seconds' dura- ! Hnn TMift rlhraHnn rntMpH (listing :ind ' moved chairs. In a furious storm enough sr.ow fell to make the total for the winter break all previous records in Chicago. The season several weeks ago was officially j declared the coldest ever known there, j Emil Waltz, who has oeen on trial for six weeks on the charge of murdering four-year-old Alphonse Weirns, was found guilty at Detroit, Mich. The police claim that Waltz was connected with a similar murder of a boy in Rockford, 111. A Vermont jury awarded Claude R. j George, a student at Montpelier Sem- [ inary, $1000 for physical discomfort j and injury, which he received with a j coat of tar and feathers. He was the I victim of hazing in 1903. FOREIGN. The bubonic plague has been dis- j covered in the Indian coolie section at | Johannesburg. South Africa. Thirty j deaths have occurred since Thursday, j It was at first supposed the outbreak , was one of pneumonia, but the nature ' of the disease is now officially ad- ' mitted. . | A dynamite infernal machine was ex- | ploded outside the house of the Com- | niissioner of Police, at Liege, Belgium. . S^vt'ri men were injured, four of them I seriously. Astronomer Wolff of the Koenigsstuhl Observatory, near Heidelberg. ! Germany, has discovered by means of ! photography two new small planets, which belong respectively to the twelve .and twelve ami a half orders I of brilliancy. Lord Curzon of Kedleston. the Vice- j roy of India, will sail from Bombay j homeward bound on a holiday trip, | April 3. Mine. Therese Humbert has notified the French I'arliamontary Investigating Committee that she prefers to maintain silence regarding her vague threats to expose many high officials. The Kaiser arrived at Gibraltar and received General Sir George White, t tne coininauuuiu. xut\v uau luucucoii together. The House of I,onls and the House of Commons debated motions censuring the Government for admitting Chinese into South Africa. In the House of Lords the division stood for the ; motion and !)7 asaiust it. while in tha House of Commons the vote was 24 iu favor to 209 against. The Minister of Public rorks has petitioned the Spanish Parliament for funds sufficient to send 100 workiugmeu employed in various trades to America for two rears' training. > - ... * Tj* *7 WESTERN MAILROBBERIES Operators in Two Big- Raids Obtain More Than $50,000. ?*1?f ?X onl HTn/la V?a? **!-?? TM n W M"/> Where Pouches Laden With Paper Worth 840,000 Were Taken Washington, D. C.?The Postoffice authorities are greatly concerned over the operations of a gang of mail pouch robbers now operating in tlie Middle West Already the gang, in two daring thefts, obtained more thau $30,000 iu ca-sb, drafts, money orders and checks. The first successful haul was reported to the department on February 28. On the preceding nigbt two mail pouches, probably containing registered matter, were stolen near Poplar Bluff, Mo. No trace of the thieves has seep gleaned. The pouches were routed from Memphis to St. Louis, by way af Hoxie, Ark., where a transfer is made. Postoffice inspectors who have been at work upon the case report that the pouches reached Poplar Bluff ail right, but that 110 trace of them is obtainable after they left that point. Soon complaints of lost money orders and checks, drafts and currency, began to pour into the inspectors' office. It is now known that over ?40,000 worth of loot was secured in that raid. Hard upon the heels of the robbery at Poplar Bluffs came a report of a like robbery at New Lisbon, Wis. The gang operated in the same mysterious manner, the first intimation of the loss coming to the Washington authorities in the shape of complaints from the losers. Two pouches were abstracted, and they were the richest in the car. This last robbery is understood to have occurred a week ago. So far about $10,000 worth of currency and paper has been reported missing. These are not the only robberies in which the gang has been concerned; but in other cases they missed connection and got comparatively little. It is believed that employes of the department are accomplices, abstracting the pouches while in transit and tbrowing them off th^trains to confederates. In ordinary mail robberies the offenses are committed on the same run, and the detectives are able to discover the thieves by a process of elimination. But this gang seems to choose a different route and a different section of the West. Postoffice inspectors in Washington are reticent. Several of the best and keenest operators in the Secret Service of the department are now in Missouri and Wisconsin, closely scrutinizing all department employes connected with the railroad mails and the transfer series MAJOR BEAN SHOOTS HIMSELF. Army Officer Who Conducted Cheap Food Experiments a Suicide. Omaha. Neb.?After calling to his wife to play for him on the piano while he was preparing some baggage for his approaching departure fir the Philippines, Major William H. Bean, chief commissiary for the Department of the Missouri, shot himself through the temple and died instantly. "Play something with a go in it." he said; "something lively." She struck up a march, and in the middle of it the pistol shot startled the household. So far as can be ascertained the act was unpremeditated. Major Bean was particularly distinguished for his successful efforts towards perfecteing the emergency army ration. f: He was forty-three years of age. a graduate of West Point, and had been " ffering from insomnia for several ninths. His body was sent to his old home at Chester, Pa., for interment. 22 LIVES LOST IN SHIP CRASH iirfigusu vessel is &umc uy a uerman Off Dublin Bay/ Dublin, Ireland.?The German bark Mona met in collision with the English ship Lady Cairns off Dublin Bay. The Lady Cairns sank in a few minutes. Her crew of twenty-two were drowned. The Mona, badly damaged, was assisted into Dublin harbor. The Lady Cairns was a three-masted iron sjfip of 1186 tons, comm.- xL by Captain T. Evans, and was bound from Liverpool for Timaru, New Zealand. She was built in Belfast in 1869 and was owned by L. Tulloch, of Swansea. The Mona was commanded by Captain Schwarting aud was last reported at Ardrossan. HOSTILE MORO LEADER KILLED. Last of the Irreconeilables in the Island of Jolo Shot on a Mountain. Manila, P. I.?General Wood reports that the allied dattos in the island of Jolo drove the recalcitrant datto Pangliman Hassan, the last of the hostile lVfnrn frnm r?1 <1 0{\ mh/irn ha bad been biding since bis defeat, near Siet Lake. One of the dattos killed two of Hassan's sons. A detachment under Major Hugh Scott of the Fourteenth Cavalry surrounded Hassan on a mountain and Hassan was killed. He was the promoter of the troubles in the island of Jolo. Dowie Begins to Pay Up. Creditors of John Alexander Dowie have received the first installment of their claims, according to an arrangement made shortly after the receivership piftceddings. Ten per cent, of ihe claims was the first of four installmnnfc* 4-rv IA Lunula iv uc ^/uiu. r iiiiucl pajLUfiii? are planned as follows: June 12, 25 per cent.; Sept. 12, 25 per cent.; Dec. 12, 40 per cent. Johannesburg Plague. An outbreak of the bubonic plague has occurred in the Indian coolie seetiou, at Johannesburg. South Africa. Killed in Bull Ring. "Cucko," a celebrated matador, was kilietl by a bull iu the amphitheatre at Juarez, Mexico. Assassinated in His Cab. Albert Ferguson, a Imckmnn wis ! *hot. four men at Kansas City, Mo. World's Fair Pointers. The Belgian Building at the World's Fair, one of the largest and handsomest in the foreign section, is remarkable in that the walls are not broken by a singly window. The large structure is well lighted by immense skylights seventy-live feet above the floor. A pack train of twenty-five horses. With all nf llipir n/VfliitrompiUs will ho one of the novelt.M at the World's Pair. The unusual spectacle will bo sent by citizens of Wyoming to mark Wyoming I)aj\ The horses will all be equipped as if ready to start ou the trail. .. An Et?oIdk Thought. Softly, as when a mother's hand Tuck# in her little ones at night, The dackness folds the drowsy land, % " '$ And fades and fades the lingering lights) -v On velvet slope and glimmering fell 1 ' J The tender shadows rest like love, And wheresoe'er God's children dwell His peace is shed their lives above. God's children! Bird upon the bough, And lambkin lying on the hill, And wild goat on the mountain's brow, And eagle where the great winds thrill-> .f And all the wayward, wandering ones, The tribes of men, or near, or far; J God .keeps the whole, 'neath stars or sun* Where life is found God's children are. If precious be the rocking nest And guard He hath for hidden lair, Are we not yet more truly blest, i ^ And closer in His sleepless care? / j So may we shut our eyes and sleep; * fin mav \xra Knvo na frtrafc wif.h fp.ir? The dear Christ stoops our soufs to keep, As Christ's own life, our souls are dear. 3^ Lo! through the dusk I seem to see The lifting of an awesome cross, Where once He hung for you and rae His ransom paying for our dross. Lo; through the dusk I hear the song. That never ceases where they stand The countless glorious white-robed throng, Who praise Him in Immanuel's land. ;'i ?Margaret E. Sangster, in The Interior, ^ The Word of Ood. Charles Darwin, being asked, in his lafc* fcer days, whether science supported the Christian's faith in the being of God, re- . ' plied that science presented probabilities both for and against it, and that the "de-1 siding vote" had to be given by each individual, according to his personal make-up* ? Neither the being of God nor the inspira- j tion of Scripture, says the Chicago Inter- v ior, can be proven as one proves a problem. 5j I ill gcumcvi y, iilul ai iabiuv;iuauuu owiw not with axioms, but with postulates: not | with premises which it is impossible to deny, but with assumptions which men o? exemplary life are bound to accept. What it is impossible to prove to a scoundrel, it '>, is unnecessary to prove to a saint. Tha. normal soul has its perceptions as truly *? the normal body. You ao not need it to , demonstrate the beauty of the rainbow to the unclouded eye, or the obligations of rirtue to the heavenly mind. To the Christian the word is a living presence, from which he cannot escape. It speaks to him with a voice exceeding in> : authority that of any earthly state or soy*. ereign. It restrains his passions, curbs his appetites, moderates his conduct, forbida indulgences and proffers satisfactions whicb are most real and vital experiences. He ' may not be able to define inspiration, but* he responds to it. He is not expert intf ouestiori^of canonicity, but he knows the flower by its honey. What, he is, the Bible has made him. It found^iim in "the slippery paths of youth." pursuing pleasure as Addison says, "with heedless feet," ana it arrested him, turned him about and "brought him up to man." He believes in the word of God, moreover, because men he abhors do not believe * in it. He knows it to be the word of God, because the minions of the pit hate it. He gives it the place of honor in his home be- % cause it is kicked out of the saloon; he sends it forth with his blessing because the gambler curses it; he pillows his dying head upon its promises because in every age every son of Belial has hastened to 3 consign it to the flames. Against a faith so founded waves of adverse criticism beat in vain. The word of God rests not upon tradition, but upon our hearts, ' . 'S ??? -** " ''v'jsS Keeping: Fit. Any one does his best work and does it aoniltf t?fkAn Via ia nKirai/ialltf fif. fnr if it therefore follows, says Wellspring, that he should keep himself fit for it, so far as he knows how, and there are very few who do not know that over-rich food and eatI ing, staying up late of nights, indulging in; I sweets and smoking and drinking are sure in a measure to unfit one for taxing duties. Young people may be sure that they will need all their physical resources to meet the demands that will be made upon them, j Some are so full of vitality now that they are as careless of their health as some | foolish people are with their money?scat! tering right and left that which would be ' their stay later on. The editor does not | think that one should always be anxiously concerned over each little symptom he may have; he only suggests that one should not knowingly transgress the plain rules of right living. When one is in good condition it is easy to keep so; it is hard to recover health when it has been lost. To enjoy life, work hard, be abstemious in mere pleasure eating, avoid dissipation, play vig! orouslv when you can without slighting your obligations. There is such a thing, too, as keeping morally fit for what one has to do. Tnere are certain things which one cannot do without a spiritual letting down. The soul needs communion with God just as much as a plant needs sunshine. Anything which interrupts that communion should be promptly put aside, if you would be equal to the ethical emergencies which you will have to meet. Here is one who readily yields to temptation. Why? Because he was net* in a spirit to resist it. If ? great temptat m should - >me to you, are you sure tfiat it would no. overcome you? You may save yourself from awful shame and disgrace by becoming morally fit to cope with life's daily problems and then keeping so. i'oy That is Oars. Dr. A. T. Pierson says regarding the joy that is ours in the contemplation of eternal life: "Do you know what eternal life is? One of the grandest conceptions ever put before the human soul is the idea of critical life. It is much more than immortality. which is by no means synonymous witu eternal life. Eternal life has no beginning, and it has no end. If you love God and serve Him you shall partake of the eternal I past of His being, as well as the eternal fuI ture. Just as wlien you put a scion into a I tree, the scion begins at once to get the j benefit of all the past years of that tree'a life, as well as its present vigor and power j and fruitfulness, so if you are ingrafted j into God all the eternal paot of God con| tributes to your present security, your I present strength and to j'our future victory I and glory. Eternal life is bliss; eternal life I is power; eternal life is glory; eternal life ' is holiness, none of which things are neces| saiy in immortality." Wit liout God. T t-- ? " ...it-li i m in ivlin mi all I J. niciy uc attgij ?? ?wi ...? ??- ?0? I carve statues and punt pictures if he spent I his life in making mock flowers out of wai j and paper, but when a man who might j have God for company shuts up and disowns those very doors of his nature | through which God can enter, and lives without God. his loss is too dreadful to be angry with. You merely mourn for him and long and try to help liim if j-ou can.? Phillips Brooks. Life. T> iive is more than tc make a living.-* Ruin's Horn. City of Batto on a Slide. The city of Butte, Mont., which started to slide down the mountain several years .ago, has just made another move. That part of tbe town between Montana and Wyoming streets, east and west, a distance of three blocks, and between Park and Quartz streets, north and south, a distance of throe blocks, has shown a decided down-hill movement in the last two days. A number of large buildings within. *he territory show cracks, due to the movement. The street railway tracks at several places have been pulled apart for several inches and the water mains on. Wyoming 6treet have broken at several places. Two years ago the western par^ o? the city was affected by a slide. 0 I . ^ . ..