. RURAL GERM'AHY.
The Life of Drudgery Which the Ger.
man Peasant Leads.
The Clumsy ami Heavy Tools with
WIricU He Works JEis Farm
Plows or Centura -Old
Pattern.
Amos Kaeg in San Francisco Chronicle.
fne Gerniau peasant's prosperity consists
in getting enough by the hardest kind oi
work to live on and having enough left
over to pay taxes, to give his marriageable
daughters dowry enough to make them
nought after by the neighbors' sons and to
lay up a few dollars a year for possible future
contingencies. If he succeeds iu doing theso
things ha is looked upon as a man of means
and aflhionco in the community. If he does
not succeed hois contented, generally: if not
contented he emigrates to America. Nations
may survive or perish, dynasties may rise or
Jail, but as long as ho is not disturbed and is
left to work his farm and drink his beer, his
(. utire attention and that of his wife, his
sons and his daughters, down to the smallest
toddler who can pull weeds or pick up stones,
is taken up by the few acres he cultivates.
IIAKD WORK AND POOR TOOLS.
His little patch of ground, separated from
1 hat of his neighbor by no fence, is the sceno
of his daily life from sunrise to sunset. Accompanied
by his family ho goes there in
the early morning, works hard all day and
returns to his cheerless home, to repeat ic all
the next day and the day after that. Yetfhe
h ts no one but himself to blame because his
t ork is so hard. He does everything in tho
I'ar lest and most laborious way. Labor-saving
machinery is unknown to him and all
operations are conducted with the most
p imitive implements. The spade, mattock,
M-the, plow and flail are his only tools.
With them heMelves and digs, plows and
harrows, raps and mows, plants- and threshes
and performs all other farm operations.
liven this would not be so bad if his implements
were not so clumsy and heavy. It
- vms to be his idea that everything he has
about him must be durable, and durability
with him is synouomous with largeness. His
spade is a monster of ugliness. Twice as
large and heavy as is necessary, its very
heaviness and largeness make it less effective,
its handle, generally home-made, is large in
Circumference, crooked where it ought to bo
straight and straight where it ought to be
crooked, rough and uneven, and is fastened
into the large socket of the blade in such
an ill-fitting and clumsy manner that one
aunot help but wonder what sort of
eyes the man who made it had. To
bi compelled to spade up the garden with
. ich an instrument would surely break the
i of any patriotic American boy. The
mattock is also a fearfully and wonderfully
ade concern. It cannot be described; it is
Mjimly sui generis. The nearest American
tiling lo it is a grubbing -hoe; notan ordinary,
practical grubbing-hoe, but a great, lubberly,
massive one, such as one would imagine a
Chinaman or an Indian would make. It re
quires an immense amount of muscle to raise
il. But when once raised it descends w ith
.u irresistible force, scattering the clods in
-Il directions.
AX EXASPERATING SCYTIIE.
The scythe has a blade twice or three
broad and heavy as the American ours.
A.id it is joined to tho handle in a hum
preposterously clumsy and crude mann.r.
King retained in its place by screws a- .
til ils and iron bands enough to build a
house. And the handle itself, ho:.l
large and rough and generally erooke
tli j wrong way, has a set of grips which are
ji itively exasperating, they are place i a
Mien ineffective angles to tho blade. T. ;
ife to say that a Uerman scythe will weigl.
tu:ee or four times as much as anAmcf.cn
one and is a hundred times harder to manage.
THE PLOW OF A CENTURY.
But the plow is worse than anything els.. (
Heavy and cumbersome, it bears a striking;
lesemblauco to tho models of plows which)
t ere used in America a hundred ago.
Made as nearly entirely of wood as a plow
can be made and still tear up tho surface of
the ground, its diminutive share scratches
the surface of tho mallow earth in a manner
hich would make a California gang-plow
laugh itself into lrysterics. Its beam, large
and unwieldy always, crooked and rough
generally, looks as if it were originally intended
for an entirely different purpose, and
had been put to its present use only as a
makeshift or as the result of an insane whim
of the owner. At the forward end of the
beam are attached two small wheels, eighteen
inches or two feet in diameter, which run
along upon tho ground. What the need is of
thefe wheels is a dark and bloody mystery.
It is probable that the first plow made in this
vicinity was fitted with wheels, hence every
plow since then has been made so, and it is
more than probable that every plow manu
factured here for a good many years to come
will also have them.
THE PLOW-TEAM.
The team which drags the instrument varies
considerablj. If the owner bo rather poor,
one cow does dutj" as a plow-horse. A step
higher and two cows appear. A man tolerably
well off, rich, one might safely say,
walks behind a horse and a cow, while only
the peasant Rothschilds are possessors of two
horses. Oxen are very seldom seen. They
cannot be utilized for any other purpose except
as beasts of burden, while cows can be
used not only in plowing, but also yield milk
a considerable item for their peasant proprietors.
And right here lam reminded of the fact
that I have seen but one mule since setting
foot on European soil. And that solitary
specimen was such a mild-mannered, inoffen
sive chap, without a bit of guile in the depths
of his liquid eye, that I very much doubt if
ho would pass muster in America as a Simon-pure
mule. At any rate, he allowed me to
play with his ears, dally with his hind feet,
and toy with various parts of his persou in a
manner which I would not dare to assume
with his American relatives.
WAKING UP.
American tools and modorn American
farming machinery, however, are gradually
creeping into use; very gradually, it is true,
for tho Gorman, under all circumstances, is a
most conservative chap and does not take at
all khviH n-i new things, but prefers old
methods u'ngly for no other reason than
becauM .'eold. Yet his prejudices are
Wrm .noved and P Pees - and
" i ' -
then," an agricultural implement store with a
tolerably fair stock of goods on hand. This
proves that they are used somewhere, but
where I do not know. Certainly none of
them are seen in the fields.
A. Politic Iuke.
The duke of "Wellington was a good courtier.
When George IV., after describing, ae
he sometimes allowed himself to do, how ho
led the British cavalry at Waterloo, appealed
to him as a witness, with u "Didn't I, Arthur?'
tho great general bowed politely and
said, "I have often heard your majesty say
sol"
OX A HEIGHT.
Mrs. Clara Doty Bates.
Far in the rare, the upper ether
Ascends a mountain peak:
No cloud can reach its summit, neither
Will wing of eagle seek;
For toward such peerless height uplifting
Mists are exalted in hopeless drifting,
And eagle's llight grows weak.
There lie the morning's earliest splendors,
liar saffron and her rose,
Long before earth her sleep surrenders:
And there at daylight close,
The world to and dark returning,
Night through, like fadeless beacon burning,
The sunset's crimson glows.
So high it is, no tempest sweeping
A'i tli hurricane can blow ;
Nor Hood can reach, nor lightning leaping,
Thunder, nor hail, norliOw.
A rainbow in the vaporous weather
Ioolcs like a painted bit of feather
Glided and gay below.
So runs the legend, and, moreover,
Tells how, upon a time,
A traveler, a rover,
Caring the steep to climb,
And on its crest a camp-fire lighting,
Left in the ashes words of writing,
His name a bit of rlryine.
After a score of years returning,
He found what he had wrought,
For the white ashes since their burning
Tempest had troubled not.
Traced with a careless finger merely,
Yet it carved in granite clearly,
There was his written'thought.
Where is the mount? In all earth's ranges
Rises there such a height?
Calm and a never changes,
Higher thau eagle's llight?
Aye. the peak of the lofty spirit;
The stress of turmoil comes not near it,
Nothing but heaven's light.
VISITING AIT 'IMPEESSIONIST'
Mow Whistler, the "Apostle of the
Works at Mis Kasel.
Croffut's Letter iu Pioneer Press.
In London last summer I tried to see some
of the celebrities, and among these 'Jimmy'
Whistler, as his cronies call him, holds a
place of some altitude. He is the father of
that vague modern school of art whose members
call themselves "impressionists." They
laiut their feelings, so to speak, instead of
the vision of the relinrs. "What on earth
docs this represent V1 1 asked one of theso inspired
beings at a last academy exhibition,
lacing a great splash of green with a strir
of brown beyond, and in the distance
a windmill with delirium tremens.
"That," he answerei with supreme
complacency, "represents how I felt about
that patch of turnips." So Whistler would
answer, you. He painted a canvas b'aek.
threw in the middle of it an immense red
horizontal streak, then spattered over it little
red, green and yellow stars, called it The
Fireworks in Vauxhall Gardens, and huug it
in Grosvenor gallery. Ruskin denounced it
as the work of a charlatan, anel intimated
that no one but a swindler would put ueh a
botch on exhibition and offer it for sale. The
trial was long, angiy, acrimonious, and the
verdict was given to Whistler one farthing
damages. He claimed it as a victory, be
cause Ruskin had tg pay tho costs.
Long before Wilde had thought of Japanost
decoration, "Whistler and Moscheles ha .
equipped their studios with the art trophies
of that Oriental people. Indeed Whistler's
paintings are felt to have in their balance oi
color, etc., a trace of Japanese influence.
After he had made'n good deal of money, and
could demand a good price for hi.-work,
the artist built for himself a mo !e
house on Chelsea embankment, mt
called it the "White House." It wa
built according so his own fantastic taste, but
was a violation of all conventional method
and plans. The whole top of it was a studio
a vast vacant place, and here, when not
working at portraits, he painted tho.se lean
and upright ligures of his on tho narrow and
upright canvases.
Whistler is the laureate of the cadaverous,
the apostle of the attenuated a wonderful
draftsman, a curious mixture of what lovers
of art are inclined to chaff, and what thej
are sure to reverence. In tho "White House'
Whistler did some good work. He never uses
a palette, and standsmost of the time ten 01
fifteen feet from his canvas. His paints are
arranged, in a sweet confusion that is
order to him, on a table between himself
and his model generally a
' quiet, blonde. He
nervously seizes a long brush, looks at the
model, rushes to tho table and gets the right
paint, springs forward and gives a sharp daL
at tho canvas, and darts back again. "Turn
your head a trifle! 'Down chin! There
Don't stir!" and he makes another dart at the
canvas. It is a most earnest and exacting
business with him an intense incubation.
He gesticulates. He cries out. He acts as il
he were driving a four-in-hand, or trying tc
break the bank at Monte Carlo. His easel is
a sort of target; he takes a long aim and
pulls the trigger all at once. It is difficult tc
get him away from his work.
Stronger Than Horses.
Auburn Dispatch.
Merviue Thompson, the champion Canadian
wrestler, gave an outdoor exhibition oi
his great strength last evening. He said that
he would pull against any team of horses in
the city or county, and would give $100 tc
the owner of the team if the horses
succeeded in pulling liim from a
ladder. Thompson quickly removed
his coat, vest and hat. A harness resembling
a pair of shoulder braces, only n
great deal stronger, was thrown, over hie
shoulders and around his waist, with twe
large straps left dangling from tne small of
his back. Then lying face downward
upon the ladder, fixed in a horizontal
position, securely lashed to a telegraph
polo, he grasped a round ol
the ladder with both hands and placed his
feet firmly against another flat rou a 1 at the
foot of the ladder, A team . hitched
to these straps, and then commenced
the tug of war. Tho large pair of horses
started, strained, and tugged. But in vain.
The man could not be pulled from his position.
After making three or four futile attempts,
this team was removed and a heavy pair of
sorrels attached to the man. They, like their
predecessors, could make no impression, and
the man of muscle did not exhibit the least
sign of weakening. Finally one of the
employes of Sir. Webster took the
animals by the head, and they again exerted
their well-trained muscle. This time the
large evener to which the whifiletress were
attached snapped in twain like a pipe-stem.
This settled the contest. The crowd in
attendance were well satisfied that the boast
of the stranger had been made good, auc
cheered him heartily.
Xot a firavo of Common reen.
Texas Sittings.
"Madeline, you know that 1 am about to
3ie; shall you ever think of me when lam
Tjonei!" "Oh, yes, darling," sobbed his wife,
'1 can never forget you, and I will ever see
" hat your grave is kept green." "Yes, my
dear, I know you will ; but I have one last request."
""What is it, dear?" "Do not keep
it that vulgar, low-down, common green,
like Simpson's grave, which is so tlistasteful
to the eye. Keep it a ricl. delicate olivd
green.
GRANT'S BELIEF.
Rumor That He lias Eecouie a Spiritualist.
Chicago, Dec. 4. It is learned, from
sources of the highest authority, that (Jen
eral Grant and his wife have been recently
converted to spiritualism in its most pro
nounced form. This statement comes from
two ladies, one of whom has a national
reputation for culture, attainments and position
in society, while the other is likewise
lady of great prominence, publicly
identified with the advocacy of spiritualism,
and 'who is not only
welcome, but the petted guest, in some of
the finest of Gotham's palaces. It is
suited that both General and Mrs. Grant
first became interested in spiritualism and
its doctrines from being present, by invitation,
at seances held in Fifth avenue and
Murray Hill mansions. From being mere
spectators they gradi:ally developed into
investigators, until they finally found
themselves in full accord with followers of
the spiritualistic school. The unquestionable
authority from which the information
conies is also authority for the additional
statement that only the fear of public ridicule
prevents the General from acknowledging
and championing his new-found
faith.
Washington Items.
Washington, Dec. 4. The Republican
Senators who met in caucus Tuesday morning,
failed to reach anjT understanding as
to the reorganization of the Senate. Another
caucus will be held soon.
In the drawing of scats tbis afternoon
the Cincinnati members were ratlfer unfortunate,
their names being drawn late.
Follett's seat is pretty far back, but in
front of the Speaker, while Jordan got a
seat well in front, but at the extreme corner
at the Speaker's right. There's quite
an Ohio colony on the Republican side, tho
two Taylors, McKinley and Robinson having
seats together.
Major Ben. Perley Poore received a dispatch
from New York this morning stating
that Senator Anthony had passed a quiet
night, and that tho Pennsylvania Railroad
Company had placed a special car at his
disposal whenever he is able to come to
Washington.
A resolution calling for an investigation
of the murders at. Danville, Ya., during
the recent election is being prepared and
will probably be presented in the House at
an early da'. Its passage will, of course,
be urged with great vigor by tho Republican
members.
THE PRINTERS' STRIKE.
The Kellogg Office to he Boycotted Ky
the Union.
Cincinnati, Dec. 4. The printers' strike
at the Kellogg Newspaper Union Office,
contrary to report, has not been
adjusted. Of seventeen compositors
who went out, only Hall anel Baker
returned, and the remaining fifteen have
since applied to join the Typographical
Union, which, organization now proposes
to antagonize the Kellogg office. An effort
will b'j maele through the secretary of the
Chicago Typograpical Union to make a
union office of the establishment here, and
that failing, the office hero will be boycotted.
Martin Remorse.
St. Paul, Minn., Nov. 4. Miss Ober,
manageress of the Boston Ideal Opera
Company, expressed sympathy when shown
the story of Martin's eastern escapade
and said remorse had evidently overtaken
him, for false malicious statements made
during the trial. She says he tried suicide
several years ago, owing to irregularities
in his accounts as clerk in a merchant
tailoring establishment, for which fact he
had been forbidden his father's house and
expulsion from the Adams, a social club in
the village.
Charles Francis Adams' Swindlers.
Chicago, Dec. 4. James Stevens, alias
"Fat Jack," arrested in this city a few days
ago for confidence operations, turns out to
be the rogue who swindled Charles Francis
Adams out of $S0,000 in checks and notes
about a year ago. The thieving fraternity
of Chicago are trying hard to save him
from punishment. His case will be decided
to-day.
Closing the Dance Halls.
Do'dge City, Kan., Dec. 4. The danco
' were closed last night for the first;
1. me in eleven years. No excitement prevailed
although the streets were crowded
with people. Mayor Dyer announces that
he will swear in fifty extra police if any
trouble is probable to-night.
The Milwaukee Fire Bugs.
Milwaukee, Dec. 4. Fire bugs attempted
the destruction of Adolph Heller's extensive
sausage factory. The two upper
stories were badly gutted, containing
about 22,000 pounds of sausage meat. The
sntire work was damaged to the extent of
$25,000. There is an insurance of $22,000
upon the building and contents in Eastern
coxnn&niee.
r
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