Watertown republican. [volume], September 02, 1885, Image 3

About Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906

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IN THE CATHEDRAE, CEOSE.
BY EDWARD DOWDEX.
In the dean's porch a nest of clay
With live small tenants may be seen ;
Five solemn faces, each as wise
As though its owner was a dean.
Five downy fledglings in a row,
Packed close as in an antique pew
The schoolgirls are, whose foreheads clear
At the Veuite shiue on you.
Day after day the swallows sit
With scarce a stir, with scarce a sound;
But dreaming and digesting much,
They grow thus wise and soft and round.
They watch the canons come and dine,
And hear the mulliou bars across.
Over the fragrant fruit and wine,
Deep talk about the reredos.
Her hands with field-flowers drench’d, a child
Leaps past in wild-blown dress and hair.
The swallows turn their heads askew,
Five judges deem that she is fair.
Prelusive touches sound within,
Straightway they recognize the sign,
And blandly nodding, they approve
The minuet of Rubinstein.
Ah! downy young ones, soft and warm,
Doth such a stillness mask from sight
Such swiftness? can such peace conceal '
Passion and ecstaey ot flight?
Yet somewhere ’mid our eastern suns,
Under a white Greek architrave
At morn, or when the shaft of fire
Lies large upon the India wave,
A sense of something dear gone by
Will stir, strange longings fill the heart
For a small world embowered and close,
Of which ye sometime were a part.
The dew-drench’d flowers, child’s glad eyes.
Your joy unhuman shall control,
And in your wings a light and wind
Shall move from the maestro’s soul.
A AJEU THEORY.
The Views and Experiences of Man
Who Has Wres led With the Dreaded
Disease of Cholera.
[Prof. Mezzeroff in the New York Tribune.]
There is no disease of which the peo
ple of all nations are so much afraid as
of cholera, the reason being that it
makes so quick work with its victims,
and is believed to be so infectious or
contagious that anyone coming in
contact with, or proximity to cholera
patients, is liable to be at once in
fected. Nothing could be farther from
the truth than that persons are af
fected by germs emanating from cholera
vicinities. For if true, no one could
escape, as these germs would have a
continually enlarging circle till none
would be left. I pointed out in my last
that cholera poison is not a germ,
either animal or vegetable, but a
poisonous gas which emanates from
the earth before, during and after vol
canoes and earthquakes, and during
the decomposition of large masses of
animal matter. My proofs are beyond
any question of doubt to anyone who
has investigated the history of the
pestilence.
I shall give my own experience of the
disease as it acted on me for twenty
four hours. The first indication I had
was a heavy weight or oppression in
the region of the stomach. There was
a feeling as if air did not get to the
bottom of the lungs, and I had to
take long inspirations as if the heart
and lungs were expressed by something
I could set aside by the strongest
breathing. In a short time, say half
an hour, saliva flowed freely from the
mouth, after which, in about twenty
minutes, the stomach felt as if it was
rotating. This continued for about an
hour, when vomiting began, and after
the stomach-was emptied the vomit
ins still continued, and cramps of the
stomach and the bowels began, fol
lowed by an agonizing diarrhoea, im
mediately followed by cramps in the
arms and lower limbs as well as in the
stomach and intestines. At last I was
unable to speak on account of cramp
of the muscles of the face, but there
was no change in my mental faculties;
they remained clear through all my
suffering. I made desperate efforts to
speak, but failed; also to move my
hands, but failed. It appeared that
my neck, brain, lungs and heart all
were free from cramps, and to this,
and another thing I will mention, I as
cribe my recovery, with the aid of
medicine.
While the vomiting and diarrhoea
were going on, and my whole body
and limbs were convulsed with cramps,
I thought that if I could speak but
once I would surely recover. I knew
of one way to set aside ordinary
cramps, and that was to hold my
breath to the verge of swooning. I
set about it at once, and I think I
held my breath for at least a minute,
during which, I was told —an I I felt
like ir—that the eyes were bursting
from their sockets aid all present
thought it w cxZ the death struggle.
But during the time I held my breath
there was no vomiting nor pain, and
the moment I drew the first breath
the entire system had relaxed and the
cramps had gone from the face and
arms and I was able to speak. In a
few moments I called for a glass of
brandy and two drams of chloroform
mixed with sugar and water. And I
called another nurse to get one pound
of mustard and one pound of flour,
which I ordered mixed with warm wa
ter, into which was put one ounce of
tincture of capsicum (which is red
pepper) and one dram of oil of cinna
mon. This was quickly attended to
as I was a physician and the nurses
were obliged to obey. I bad this
spread on thin muslin that had been
dipped in warm water. This was put
over the entire abdomen, and in a
short time it was burning me beyond
description. After this was done two
attendants rubbed my limbs with
chloroform and reaction set in in a
few minutes.
Fifteen minutes after I took the
chloroform and brandy, which, to my
great joy and surprise, remained on
the stomach, I took one ounce of sul
phate of magnesia, two drams of chlo
rate of potash, one dram of bi-carbon
ate of soda mixed in water. I had a
terrible fight to retain this, which I did
for twenty minutes, when some of it
was rejected. In the meantime the
mustard was burning so it had to be
removed, but every cramp had gone
except in the feet. In one hour after
the first draught I took one dram of
the chlorate of potash and half a
dram of bi-carbonate of soda, and
kept this up every two hours for two
days, with the result that I was up on
the second day, and on the third re
ported for duty all right. This treat
ment was entirely my own theory, all
but the capsicum which I saw freely
used in warm countries to prevent
cramp and diarrhoea.
Now I will give you what I consider
the rationale of these medicines. First,
I believed from the deaths I saw that
all who died in a few hours did so
directly from cranes of the heart;
hence the reason why they turned
black in a few minutes. I believed
then, and have since proved it, that
vomiting, purging and cramps were
not produced by any germ, but by
some acrid poisonous gas, which af
fected the nervous centers something
as strychnia does. I knew also that
strychnia kills so speedily by inflam
ing the nervous centers, and thus it
produces cramp, which paralyzes the
heart and destroys life in a short time.
But as I had had three dogs poisoned
by strychnia and as I saved them by
pouring into them brandy and chloro
form, I concluded that cramps in
cholera patients arose from poisoning
of the nervous centers, and that if
chloroform could cure cramps in the
one case it could in the other. So I
succeeded in my own case and many
others besides. I took the chlorate
of potash and bi-carbonate of soda
for the purpose of neutralizing the
acrid poison in the system. The sul
phate of magnesia, I had proved, was
the best medicine to cure inflammation
of the brain and nerve centers of the
spine. The first object in effecting a
cure is to stop the cramps and permit
the blood to flow in its natural way.
Nothing can effect this so quickly and
surely as chloroform. It relaxes the
whole system in a few minutes. Next,
the sulphate of magnesia will speedily
relieve the brain and nerve centers.
If taken before fatal collapse has set
in these medicines are a sure cure for
cholera. The mustard, capsicum and
cinnamon oil plaster will draw the
blood from the bowels, stomach and
brain and greatly assist in relieving
the great pressure on the heart and
lungs.
The best medicine to prevent cholera
is the following, namely, chlorate of
potash, one ounce; nitrate of potash,
a half ounce; black pepper, two drams.
Mix in one pint of water these three,
and take a teaspoonful once each three
hours. Any person in fairly good
health who takes this each summer,
will defy cholera x>oison and get rid of
several other troubles also. Besides,
each person ought to take a bath, into
which some washing soda has been
put, say a half x>o un and dissolved in
boiling water and poured into the
bath. Wash the skin clean with this,
and use soax) and brush or coarse
towel. By this means the pores are
kept clean, the circulation stimulated,
and you will defy cholera poison.
Shun all acid fruit, all cabbage,
pickles, vinegar, acids, salads, frozen
fish and lager beer. Do not drink any
water unless boiled. Drink good
whisky or brandy with plenty of black
pepx)er mixed with sugar and water.
Eat no veal or young meat. Eat fowl
or well roasted mutton and roasted
X>otatoes. Eat corn and green beans,
but no peas as they q>roduce diar
rhoea.
Terrible Persian Punishments.
[From the St. James’ Gazette.]
The exceptional punishments in
Persia are blowing from guns or mor
tars, crucifixion, walling up or burying
alive, burning alive, and in the few
capital punishments of women —(who
are usually strangled, or wrax)ped up
in a carpet and jumped upon, flung
from a precipice or down a well.) All
these have been inflicted
within the writer’s knowledge. One
poor fellow twice experienced the bit
terness of death. He was led out to
be blown from a gun. A fellow culprit
had just been executed in this way be
fore his eyes. The executioners pre
pared to lash him to the muzzle of the
gun; but as he was a little man they
had to get some bricks for him to
stand on. When ail was ready the
priming vras fired, but in the hurry the
artillerymen had forgot to load the
gun. Though urgent representations
were made to the governor, he refused
to spare the man; and the poor fellow
was unbound, the gun was loaded, and
the culprit blown away. The first
part of this tragedy I myself witnessed.
Crucifixion in Persia is done against a
wall; the sufferers occasionally live
many hours. The crime of one man
so executed was that of having stolen
the golden necklet of the prince gover
nor’s horse; this was looked on as a
sort of high treason. Some highway
robbers who, among many other
achievements, had looted and carried
off the writer of this article (he fortu
nately escaped from them,) and mur
dered a Syud or holy man, were walled
up alive near the scene of their crimes
in hollow brick pillars. Eleven other
highway robbers in one batch were
thus buried alive in Shiraz in 1879;
while a priest was burned to death in
the public square of Shiraz, just before
my arrival in Persia (he was an ex
ceptionally atrocious criminal.)
The Age of the Cheap Piano.
[From the New York Herald.]
There was a time when the piano
was more expensive and less depraved.
Then it haunted only the gay salons
of fashion, stopped only at the best
hotels, and became violent only in con
cert halls and public places where there
were skillful people to subdue it. But
that is all over now. The demon ap
petite for a key-board which was long
confined to the weaker of the sexes
now rages in every hamlet in the land
and each day is mowing down the
young and unsuspecting without re
gard to gender or condition. Its en
croaches are the more fatal because
the more insidious. The man who
whistles or the woman who sings is not
safe. Both may believe in their will
power and fancy they can fool with an
octave or fritter away a moment with
some skittish fugue or cadenza without
harm. But the step is fatal. They
are soon seized by the maddening
thirst for music and go down in the
vortex, an easy prey to the fell piano.
Sleepless parents and aggrieved neigh
bors have undertaken reformation
and tried to crush out the dreadful
craving. But too late. The being who
has once been stung by a piano will
never recover, but will go through life
shedding tunes and ululations on his
path.
SCIENCE AND INVENTION.
According to M. Dreulafait the
mean daily evaporation of the water
of the season on the southern coast
of France is at least six milimeters.
Orange peel is now said to be col
lected, dried in ovens and sold for
kindling fires. It burns readily and
with great fierceness, and is safer than
kerosene.
The complete destruction of the
carcasses of animals that have died of
contagious diseases is recommended
by M. Girard. He would dissolve the
bodies in cold concentrated sulphuric
acid.
It is reported in the Gaceta Indus
trial that the Metallurgical Society of
San Juan de Alcarez has succeeded in
manufacturing excellent copper tubes
without soldering, and so as to be able
to compete with all other similar
products.
Perack, in the Malay Peninsula,
now about as much tin every
year as Cornwall. Last year Perack
exported not less than 7,000 tons of
that valuable metal. In the mining
works there are 40,000 Chinese em-
at present.
The Dutch government is not to give
the prize of 20,000 guilders for the dis
covery of a “northeast passage” to the
intrexnd Swedish explorer Baron Nor
kenskjold. It is refused because the
route is rather a scientific than a com
mercial one, and it was for the discov
ery of the latter that the reward was
offered.
The scintillation of stars, Montigny
asserts, increase during auroras, the
increase being very marked in winter.
The difference is most noticeable in
the northern stars. When a magnetic
disturbance is indicated at the Brus
sels Observatory the frequency of the
scintillation becomes greater with the
intensity of the storm. Considerable
obscurity hangs about this whole sub
ject.
This is anew German method for
preparing a pressed enamel upon
glass: A mixture of dry enamel, tiiick
pine oil, and dammer lac is laid on the
glass in a semi-dried state. After dry
ing the drawing is pressed in. The
enamel is then burned. In this way
it is jiossible to reproduce the forms of
figures in slight relief, the leathers of
birds, the hairs of animals, and the
veins of leaves.
France takes mineral water from
1,027 sources of supply. Puy de
Dome has 94 of these; Ardeche, 77;
Vosges, 76; Ariege et Pyrenees Orien
tales, 69, and Hautes Pyrenees, 64.
As to the chemical nature of these
springs, 319 are classed as sulphurous,
357 as alkaline, 136 as iron and 215
salt. About 651 of them are t hermal,
their waters having a temparature of
more than 15° C.
For preparing unglazed potter}’ to
write upon it with ink this method
has lately been invented: A whey is
used, which is obtained by adding a
small quantity of acid to skimmed
milk, and separating the precipitate
by filtration. The plates prepared
from white pipe clay are impregnated
with the nitrate and dried, and then
it is quite as easy to write upon them
as upon imperfectly sized paper. The
process is simple enough.
Bricks impregnated at a high tem
perature with asphalt are being suc
cessfully used in Berlin for street pave
ment. By driving out the air ard
water with heat, bricks will take up
from 15 to 20 per cent, of bitumen,
and the porous, brittle material be
comes durable and elastic under pres
sure. The bricks are then put encl
ways on a beton bed and set with hot
tar. It is said that the rough usage
which the pavement made of these
bricks will stand is astonishing.
From a zoological paper by M.
Michaud on the material collected and
observations made by him in the val
ley of the Ogoone, in Central Africa,
some interesting facts are given. The
temperature is nearly constant at
about 90° Fahrenheit. Maize, mani
oc, and tobacco are growm. Although
the people are peaceable, they are very
brave. The sheep have no w r ool, and
but very little hair. In the forests
there is a dark, fierce species of cattle
found in great abundance, probably
because the fear with which the natives
regard them allows these animals to
multiply without the restraint of the
chase. There are no indigenous horses
in the region.
A little more than a decade ago a
new disease began to despoil the pota
to near Stavanger, Norway, and it
has been steadily increasing in viru
lence year after year. Fungoid
growths infest the stem, reducing its in
terior in the first place to a sort of
pulp, and at last so prey upon the
plant that the stems are mere hollow
reeds which readily fall to the ground.
The ripe germs of the fungus are about
the size of a small bean, and when
they remain in the earth all wdnter
they are found when the warm sea
son commences sending out minute
spores, which attack the jdant before
it shows itself on the surface. The
ravages of this pest are more marked
about the end of July and the begin
ning of August.
A Story and its Sequel.
[From the Louisville-Courier-Journal.]
All the newspaper-readers will re
member a little episode recorded in
the Washington dispatches about
three months ago. It w r as a pretty
little story, and must have touched a
sympathetic chord in the hearts of all
who read it. Pension-Commissioner
Black received a letter, childishly
spelled out, from the little daughter of
a Western employe of his department,
begging him “not to turn her papa out
of office, because he was a dear, good
papa, and needed the pay very much,”
and added that her father did not
know of her writting in his behalf, and
that he would be “real angry” if he
did. This little letter so affected the
commissioner that he answ T ered it him
self, and promised the little maiden
that he would look into her papa’s
case and, if possible, not disturb him
in his office. But the pretty story has
a sequel. It seems that the “dear
good papa” not only knew of his child’s
letter, but that he even caused her to
write it; and, furthermore, it appears
ttiat he was not the only dear, good
papa willing to enqiloy this unique
method of securing the continuation
of his official salary. “As soon as the
information went abroad that the
commissioner’s heart had been touched
by this child’s request, little letters
from 12-year-old girls began pouring
in from all parts of the country, each
ax>pealing for the retention in office of
some dear, good papa, and so closely
did these letters follow the model of
the first one, which had been published,
that the commissioner saw through
the trick at once.”
Shiftless.
The story is an old one of the man
who did not repair his leaky roof for
two reasons: one was that he could
not do so when it was raining and the
other was that the roof did not need
mending when it was not raining.
Such shiftless creatures are common
even in this busy world.
A family named Kilridge in Indiana
was notoriously shiftless. The hus
band and father, a giant in x>hysical
strength, sx>ent his time playing an
old fiddle, sleeping, and eating when
there was anything in his tumble
down old cabin to eat.
The mother was as indolent as her
husband. A pixie of tobacco or mull
ein leaves, a cup of rye and corn
meal coffee, and any old rag in the
shape of a dress supplied her earthly
wants.
A horde of half-dressed and half
starved children ran wild in the woods,
sometimes living a week on berries in
the summer, and huddled around an
old fireplace in the cabin in winter,
when they were not out begging or
“borryin’ ” of their thrifty neighbors.
Several acres of excellent ground sur
rounded the Kilridge cabin, but not a
foot of it was cultivated, and the
fence had disappeared in ashes and
smoke.
A stranger rode up to the cabin one
fine June afternoon. Mr. Kilridge
was stretched out at full length under
a wild cherry-tree in the untidy door
yard. Four big yellow dogs were lying
around him. His wife was sound
asleep on a board of the loose cabin
floor.
“Hello, there!” cried the stranger.
“’Elio!” said the yawning Mr. Kil
ridge.
“Do you live here?”
“Yaas.”
“Do you own the place?”
“Yaas.”
“Why are you not putting in a gar
den?”
“Ain’t got no fence,”
“Why don’t you make one?”
“Aint got no garden. Don’t need no
fence.”
“How many children have you?”
“Dunno. Aint counted ’em lately.”
“Do they go to school?”
“Naw.”
“Why not ?”
“Haint never been sent.”
“Why do you not send them ?
“Aaint got no books.”
“But why don’t you get them
books ?”
“They don’t need ’em, ’cause they
haint in school.”
“What makes you keep so many
worthless old dogs?”
“Aw, I dunno.”
“Why under the sun don’t you fix
up your old house? It will tumble
down about you some time.”
“Let ’er tumble.”
Here Mr. Kilridge yawned and closed
his t^yes.
“Well, see here,” said the stranger,
I’ll give you half a dollar if you’ll
watch my horse and keep it on the
grass while I’m fishing in yonder
stream.”
Mr. K turned over, and called
out,
“Marier! Say, Marier!”
“What yer want?” asked Mrs. K—
sleepily.
“You wanter make half a dollar?”
“Not ef I hev ter git off’n this board
’n’ go out in the hot sun fer it.”
“Yer to shit’less ter live,” said Mr.
Kilridge. “I guess ye’d better ride on,
stranger. Some folks won’t work w’en
they kin. ’Riar’s one ’o them kind,
an' I reckon that’s w’y I don’t git
’long no better.”
The next momemt Mr. Kilridge had
buried his nose in the grass, and was
sound asleep.
Who Redeemed Her.
[From Texas Siftings.]
In some portions of Southern Ger
many when a woman desires to mar
ry she has to pass a sort of civil ser
vice reform examination by the priest,
to see if she properly comprehends the
nature of the sacred obligation she is
anxious to assume. The priest of a
Bavarian village was sitting at his
desk writing out his sermon, when
there came a timid knock at the door.
“Come in,” said the pastor, and an
unmarried member of his flock, who
had survived some thirty summers of
single blessedness, entered. The pas
tor kept on writing. Presently he
looked up and asked what she wished.
“I—am —going—to—be—married, ”
she said, chewing her apron modestly.
Once more the pastor began to
write, but remembering the civil ser
vice reform examination, to test her
knowledge of the plan of salvation, he
asked her:
“Molly, w T ho is it that has redeemed
you from your lost and hopeless con
dition ?”
“Hans Pickelhaube, your reverence,
and he is such a n-i-c-e young man.”
The French Beau of 1800.
[From McMasters’ History.]
The pantaloons of a beau went up
to his arm pits; to get into them w r as
a morning’s w r ork, and, when in, to
sit down w r as impossible. His hat was
too small to contain his handkerchief
and was not expected to stay on his
head. His hair brushed from the
crown of his head toward his forehead
and looked, as a satirist of that day
truly said, as if he had been fighting
an old-fashioned hurricane backward.
About his neck was a spotted linen
neckerchief; the skirts of his green
coat were cut away to a mathemati
cal point behind; his favorite drink
was brandy and his favorite talk of
the last French play.
FOREIGN NOTES.
The village of Landeck in the Tyrol
has been destroyed by fire.
The health of the entire kingdom of
Italy is declared to be excellent.
Michael. Davitt again denied in a
speech at Longford that there was any
difference between him and Parnell.
Among the 36 students at Warsaw
University who successfully passed the
jurisdictional examination, no less
than 20 were Jews.
The Maharajah of Lahore has just
added to his popularity in London by
a number of very valuable gifts to
members of the queen’s family.
Bismarck and Mr. Pendleton are on
the best of terms. Mr Pendleton fre
quently gives Otto hints as to the
most effective way of combing the
hair.
A Frenchman and his wife have
twenty-five sons in the army and six
at home. The neighbors must have
been mighty glad when twenty-five of
those boys enlisted.
F. A. Gower, who made a balloon
ascension from Cherbourg, France, has
not been heard from since. He was
well known in the scientific world as
one of the joint patentees of the Gow
er-Bell telephone.
Dr. Jenkins, of Dresden, having in
formed the American x>eople that Bis
marck is no more axirotectionistthan
is Prof. Sumner, of Yale College, there
is some curiosity to know who “Dr.
Jenkins, of Dresden,” is.
Two races of men are dying out —the
Laplanders, who number 30,000, and
the Maoris of New Zealand, reduced
from 100,000 to 45,000 since the
days of Capt. Cook, and likely to be
extinct by the year 2,000.
Lord Coleridge writes to the Lon
don newspapers in reference to his re
cent marriage to say in effect that the
details of his private life are of no in
terest to the public. That is where
the judge probably makes a mistake.
The removal, by Germany, of the
restriction on imports of hogs from
Hungary, has also been applied to
Russia, and it is now explained that
the restriction was imposed because of
the existence of hog disease in the ter
ritories furnishing the prohibited ani
mals and not because of the customs
difficulties between Germany and Aus
tria and Hungary.
The delegates sent from Paris to in
spect the poorhouses of London have
returned and reported their observa
tions. The Rappel, commenting on
the report, says that the English, in
■ the treatment of their poor, adopt
the views of Herbert Spencer, that it
is best to clear them off as soon as
possible, without leaving a posterity.
The Rappel adds: “The country
bearing the banner of fraternity can
not imitate this system.”
The Berlin National Gazette says
that China has contracted with a
Manchester firm for materials for the
construction of a rail way from Takon,
at the mouth of Hoen-Ho, on the Yel
low Sea, to Tong-Chow, on the Peid-
Ho, an affluent of the Hcen-Ho, at a
point about twenty-five miles east of
Pekin. The railroad will be a most
important work and will be about
100 miles long and will give Pekin a
direct and easy communication with
the Yellow Sea. The railroad is to be
built and operated by the Manchester
firm with Chinese labor and capital.
China is now engaged in raising in Eu
rope a loan of 100,000,000 florins, to
be expended in internal improvements.
That at Least was Saved.
[Hallowell Cor. Portland Argus.'l
The other day a genius loci, a verita
ble old inhabitant, chuck full of old
stories and traditions, and also,l regret
to say, of bad whisky, told me an anec
dote *of the olden time that pleased me
immensely. It seems that before the
railroads, the so-called Black Route
and the road to Farmington, tvere put
through, Hallo well was a great trading
and shipping center. Farmers all
around, even as far up as Farmington,
brought their produce to market at
Hallo well. In the winter it was cus
tomary to make a road across Liberty
Pond to prevent a long detour. One
day in the spring an old fellow out that
way started for Hallowell on horse
back, to do a little business and get
his jug filled with good old New En
gland rum from the Vaughn brewery
near “the Hook.” The shades of
evening had begun to fall before the
old fellow finished his business, filled
his jug and was again seated on his
horse. He was seen to leave the village
with his jug all right except that he
had a trifle too much on board.
Whether he increased this supply on
the road is not known.
At any rate he never turned up at
home, and nothing more was heard of
him for some time. The next summer
a boatload of boys rowing across
Liberty Pond, looking down into the
clear depths, saw the old fellow fitting
on his horse on the bottom. The news
was taken to the village, a party set
out for the spot, a rope was dropped
over the horse’s head, and the pair
hauled to the surface. “And,” says
the old inhabitant, his eyes glistening
and filled with great wistfulness, “the
whisky was all right.”
Keeping the Light in Motion.
[From Harper’s Magazine.]
The keeper of the light at Pointe de
Monts relates: “Just imagine that
toward the close of the fall, at the
first snow, my family was attacked
by typhoid fever. The first stroke of
the disease was to put seven of us in
bed, and very soon all the others fol
lowed. I was the only one able to
work. My nearest neighbor (at Egg
Island) was twenty miles off, and as
bad news travels without much wind,
this light-house was avoided even by
Indians as an infested place. One
man, however, was touched by my
misfortunes, and volunteered to help
me. Things went better then for a
while; but as we were then at the last
days of navigation, fogs and snow
combined against me, and obliged us
to fire the cannon every half-hour, el
even every quarter-hour. The vibra
tion was terrible in the tower, seven
ty-five feet high, and our patients
could not endure it. It was necessary
to go up the five stories of the tower,
transformed into an infirmary [hos
pital], before every shot, to notify
the poor fellows, and stuff cotton into
the ears of the most nervous. Days
and nights thus passed, without bring
ing anything else than pain, anxiety,
and sleeplessness. Laurent and I
were ready to lose our senses, doing
the service of the light and the hospital
like machines when the Lord took
pity on us, and in His mercy sent us
some rest and joy in a general conval
escence.” The light at Egg Island
shows a revolving white light, visible
fifteen miles, and giving a flash every
minute and a half. “All sailors know
how important it is that a flash light
should revolve with mathematicalac
curacy; otherwise one light might be
taken for another, and a wreck might
be the fatal consequence of such an
error. One night, toward the close of
the autumn of 1872, a pivot broke in
the clockwork regulating these revolu
tions. The season w r as too far ad
vanced to get help from the Ministry
of Marine at Quebec; the only thing to
be done was to replace the machine by
human energy, and the keeper and his
family devoted themselves to the task.
During five weeks of that autumn and
five other weeks of the next spring,
man, wife, girls and boys turned tire
machine by hand. Cold and fatigue
stiffened the hands, sleep weighed on
their eyelids, but nevertheless they
must turn, turn, without haste
and without rest, all through
those long watches, in which the
order was to become an automa
ton and keep turning the machine.
Not one, from the child to the master,
either complained or shirked his duty,
and the light at the Egg Island con
tinued each minute and a half to flash
its projecting light over the tempestu
ous gulf.”
Passed In.
[From the San Franciscan.]
The other morning a young man of
affable manners presented himself at
the box-office of a San Jose theater,
and requested a press pass.
“You claim to be a journalist, do
you?” asked the manager, glancing
suspiciously at the good clothes ancl
innocent expression of the applicant.
“Yes, sir, I do; I’m on the Petaluma
Peavine.”
“Hum; what’s your department?”
growled the showman, “I was a news
paper man myself, once.”
“I do the ‘Answers to Correspond
ents,’ ” asserted the youth.
“Do, eh ? Lemme see; what w r aa the
fastest mile ever skated for money in
this country? Come, now.”
“That question is always signed
‘Amateur,’” said the young man,
promptly; and the answer is “Died in
Brazil, 1441,”
“Correct,” said the manager. “In
what year was Cleopatra hung?”
“Trim with three-ply ruchin’, and
bake before quick fire.”
“Did Oliver Cromwell have a pink
wart on his chin ?”
“B takes the trick, of course.”
“Please tell us the exact size of
George Washington’s shoe?”
“See patent-office report for May.”
“One. Was Queen Elizabeth bandy
legged or only bandied in one leg ? and
which one? Two. How* do you take
marble out of ink-stains?”
“One. Inquire at any hardware
store. Two. Patagonia -was discov
ered by Benjamin Franklin, 1293.”
“That settles it,” said the manager.
“I see you’ve got ’em all by heart.
Here’s a private box. Pass right in.”
Gray Hairs and Health.
The correlation of gray hair, as well
as its causes, deserves more attention
and study than they have received.
Such a change is undoubtedly indica
tive of some deep seated psychological
process, but what this is we can only
ascertain by a much wider series of
observations than have yet been sub
mitted to scientific analysis. Many
persons begin to show gray hairs
while they are yet in their twenties,
and some while in their teens. This
does not by any means argue a
premature decay of the constitution.
It is a purely local phenomenon, and
may coexist with unusual bodily
vigor. The celebrated author and
traveler, George Borrow, turned quite
gray before he was 30, but was an ex
traordinary swimmer and athlete at
65. The spot where grayness begins
differs with the individual. The phil
osopher, Schopenhauer, began to turn
gray on the temples and complacently
framed a theory that this is an indi
cation of vigorous mental activity.
Race has a marked influence. The
traveler, Dr. Orbigny, says that in
the many years he spent in South
America he never saw a bald Indian,
and scarcely ever a gray-haired one.
The negroes turn more slowly than the
whites.
His Lawyer was Heady.
[From the Criminal Law Magazine.]
An old lawyer in Paris had in
structed a very young client of his to
weep every time he struck the desk
with his hand. Unfortunately the
barrister forgot himself and struck the
desk at the wrong moment. The client
fell to sobbing and crying. “What is
the matter with you ? ” asked the pre
siding judge. “Well, he told me to cry
as often as he struck the table.'
Here was a nice predicament; but the
astute lawyer was equal to the occa
sion. Addressing the jury he said:
“Well, gentlemen, let me ask you how
you can reconcile the idea of crime in
conjunction with such candor and
simplicity? I await your verdict with
the most perfect confidence
Carry a Brick in Your Hat.
Dio Lewis in his “Nuggets” advises
the stoop-shouldered that he don’t
believe in shoulder braces. Nature
furnishes the needed braces to keep
the shoulders in position; and when
you use the artificial these natural
ones become weak for want of exercise.
The best way to cure stooping shoul
ders is to carry a weight on the head
a half hour morning and evening.
Make the weight large. There is no
other single exercise so valuable as
carrying a weight on the head. A bag
of sand weighing from twenty to
eighty pounds is ood weight.