Newspaper Page Text
DEMAND northern food. Northern Markets Feeding Florida and the West Indies. Tll e Winter Demand for Good Meat a-d Freeh Vegetables A New Yorker's Experiences There—Keep ing. houbo in the Tropioe-50,000 Fed from the New York Market. ••This is the time of year when New York begins to feed Florida and the West Indies ” a West Indian commission mer chant said to a 'reporter' yesterday. “It Bl vs an appreciable difference in our feeding 50,000 persons or more to Florida through the winter, and nearly many in the West Indies. -This is a moderate estimate,” he con tinued, “of the number of people in those two places who are fed directly from this market all winter. There are nqt only visitors from the north, but the natives as well. If you R° to either Florida or the West Indies In summer, you find the residents eating native food as far as they can; but in winter, when the tourist hotels are full and business is lively, there is more money in circulation, and everybody eats New York food who can get it. lam shipping quantities of pota toes and other staple vegetables to the West Indies by every steamer now.” ••is it not an anomaly,” he was asked, ••to dc shipping vegetables from a frozen countries to islands where they would grow at any time of year?” “It is an anomaly,” he replied, “hut it Is also a very substantial and profitable fact. There are no white potatoes raised to the West Indies, and none to speak of in Florida. Grow there? Of courso they would grow there; particularly in the West Indies, where the soil is richer than in Florida. But it is not the custom of the country to raise them, and when that’s said all’s said. When it is not the custom to do a thing there is no use talk ing about it. I saw an American plant # hout an acre in white potatoes in Nassau several years ago, and raise two beautiful crops in one winter. You will appreciate the scarcity of fresh vegetables in the south when I tell you that a hotel man from Florida went over to Nassau ex pressly to buy vegetables, and that he bought this man’s entire crop at sl3 a barrel. But the American moved away, and the West Indians are still buying northern potatoes by' the check’s worth. “Check's worth?” “Yes, check, 3 cents, the great West In dian market coin. There is no such coin, but they make the amount with ‘a big copper and a little one,’ a penny ha’penny English, or three American cents. Nearly everything in the "West India markets, particularly in Nassau, is sold by the check’s worth. For instance, I send a barrel of potatoes, ten barrels, fifty barrels, down to one of the Nassau im porting firms. They sell one of the bar rels to a marketman, and he lays them out on his stall all divided into little heaps, three or four potatoes in a heap, according to size. That’s the only way you can buy them; a check a heap, If the customer wants half a bushel, the mar ketman counts the number of heaps it takes to fill the measure, and still charges a check a heap. It is so with all vegeta bles.’’ “Such a system must make housekeep ing in the West Indies rather an intricate matter,’’ it was suggested, “Intricate?” he replied; “to a north erner it is productive of insanity/ I kept house for three winters in Nassau, and it has shortened my life. Everything is done on such a different plan from our own ways that it Is very confusing. At first you cannot help laughing at the nov elty, but you soon feel more like growl ing. It is the hot climate that makes the difference. No food can bo kept any length of time, so the custom is to send to the market every morning and buy supplies for the day. A When night comes there is not a bit of food in the house— not one mouthful ; and there is no break fast until the cook, who is never in a hurry, has time to go to the market. You’ve no idea what a luxury it is to be at home near New York and have a month's supply of everything in the house; but that would be impossible in the West Indies. “They have some queer native dishes, and some queer ways. I’ll give you, an example of each. One morning I hap pened to be with a friend in the town of Roseau, the capital of the island of Domi nica. It was very hot, of course, and we dropped into a canteen to met a fooling drink. There was a lemon tree growing just outside the window, and some of the beautiful golden lemons were actually ha ?f? in F inside. We took the hint and ordered two lemonades, and upon my word we caught the landlord five minutes later making our lemonade out of bottled lemon juice imported from Paris. The real lemons, fresh from the tree, were mo common to use. One day in Basse Terre, the capital of St. Kitts, wo saw a number °I colored boys running about the street with big limber sheets hanging over their arms, and thought the afternoon papers must be just out. Bless me I the sheets ?’®. ro loaves of bread—cassava bread, roucdjout thin into sheets and baked on hot stones. “You would hardly think that on an island like Nassau, whore 'there are uli ■ ve , ac * £s 10 every white, and all I fl ? r ""°rk, there would be any | about getting servants. But good a j r( ./ ver - v * lard *° R et , and when you *!/ taem y° u have to have at least six reieryone you would have at home, ine chambermaid will not sweep the nnMKi and i,he parlor maid will not wait l*hAr -ru jthcy believe in division of ha,o u 6 hutler—for of course you must kir , 1 bul j ler —does no work himself, but mts around and looks pleasant. I found w a family of two six servants I* absolutely necessary. Fortunately par*/? f, re low ’ and they are-satisfied to O.hpp U po ?’ tish - rice and hominy. season" 186 they Would ruin a man iQ one out Af e t'’ lace 1 rented was about a mile nev an( i tlle house had no chim (if am! h ! K'tchen. of course, was in a wife fna T UI dlllfr and hud a chimney. My e and j soon fouud that W 0 could b 0 but or 100 c °id whenever we chose, count nf r ,v? Xact *' V ripht. That was on ac blow trade wind, which began to about fn m - northeast every morning If we Ia, 0 - aad hept it up till dark, oner if 1 " ind or left the windows eventm- u and our marrow and blew the u-i , ns about the house. If we shut we hau!!it OWB j 0r sa t in a sheltered place some'.t da , ndroasU ' a nd. But not always; behiv v, tllere came a col<l Pell. There be no til chimneys, of course there could cold The tr °Pical way, when a that w-,,.S a i ncs ’ ls 10 sit and shiver; but upon inlii dnot suit us, so we fell back goinVio° ®i° ve - However, lam not cltaatlo > T rev^e the climate; it is the best int, I \vY„f' \ er 8l ?, w ’ anc Ut is the market “Wh! nt 10 tell you about, livine started in the natives were had not 00t *> * or the hotel season lartpivV?f P f ned yct ‘ Niltive food consists freon t,ir,i frUl ?’ ,1sh ’ conchas, yams rn?i. 0^n ’ swoot potatoes, and beminv 7? these may be added rice and a 6 ll tter always called grits, the fish n,'„ ery we ii * or a week or two, for in thn wnHrf Pnta *’ the lobsters the best ■ea f rr „? r d ' R r cn turtle plenty, and all market cheap. Every morning on their Passed the door with trays i lnaded w ith fish, fruit, Were cnlht T‘i a rc f°tal)les. The tisb tlie daylight, and sold Wc re , n }®rni n P. Some of the lobsters 1 0 feet long, and that size sold for cents. Eggs, never more than two or three to be bought from the same person, a check apiece. Chickens, very old and tough, 13 to 20 cents each. “In a short time this fare became tire some. and I began to haunt the market. A few northern visitors arrived, and business looked up a little. It was ne cessary to go to market very early in the morning, and I would meet three or four white men. business men, buying their day’s supplies. All the rest, buyers and sellers were colored. When my wife went with me to market we made a sensation, for no white woman in Nassau goes to market. Nine-tenths of the stuff, includ ing all the beef, was imported from New York. One of the first things we saw was a lot of heads of American cab buge, each head cut into quarters like a pie. “What do you slice your cabbages that way for?” I asked the marketman. “Dat’s de way our people does mosl’y want it, sah,’ he replied. Ono gemman does buy one slice, anoder gemman an oder, an’ so it goes. Does you want some nice fresh cabbage, sah? Two checks a slice, sah?” “I objected to buying cabbage by the slice, and found some that had not been out; but tne price was the same, two checks a slice, making it cost from 34 to 36 cents a bqpd, according to size. On one stand we found about half a bushel of small native tomatoes, some of them counted out into heaps. “ ‘How do you sell the tomatoes?” I asked. “ ‘Check a lot, sah I” the woman said. “ ‘But for the whole lot? What do you want for all you have?’ “ ‘Can't just say, boss, till I count ’em out,’ the woman replied, and she im mediately began to lay them out in little heaps, check a heap, to see what they were worth. “Onions? Well, it would make you smile to go to market and buy a quarter of an onion, but they all do it down there. Big ones they slice like the cabbages, and sell them by the slice, check a slice. All imported from New York, of course. The soup lots were equally funny—little heaps of stuff, each containing two or three very small tomatoes, a slice of onion, and small bunches of herbs. ‘Check a lot, sah.’ They were used for making soup. “Buying beef was the funniest of all. You had to go to market very early in the morning to get good beef. Hear me talk, will you? Good beef! Nobody in the West Indies knows what good beef is ex cept in the tourist hotels. The cattle are all right, good American cattle, brought down alive and fattened after landing. The trouble is in the butchering. No butcher in the West Indies has any idea of cutting up a beef. The animal js killed before daylight, and the last shred of it must be sold and eaten before noon, or it spoils. It is cut into chunks and slices, just as it happens, without any re gard to roasts, steaks, boiling pieces or soup bones. Every part of the animal sells at the same price, whether porter house or shinbone—all a shilling a pound, 34 cents, and take it as it comes. The little strips that are left in cutting, odds and ends of bone and fat, are piled in little heaps for the colored gentry— check a heap. “Mutton is sold in the market some times, but generally by private butchers. The butcher comes to the house the day before, and says, ‘Mr. Smith, I’m going to kill a sheep to-night. Would you like a little mutton in the morning?’ The West Indian sheep is a fearful razor-back spectre, with hair instead of wool, and before breakfast the butcher brings you what you have ordered, killed an hour or two before, and still warm. It’s enough to make you sick to think of eating such stuff, but that’s the way the natives eat it. It must be eaten early in the day, too. •If you keep it till dinner time, the butler is very likely to come in and say, ‘Werry sorry, sir; the mutton's sniled, sir!’ “We found that the native mutton was very fair when we could keep it a few days. But to keep it required ice ; and to keep ice required—well it required in domitable industry and considerable cash. Ice is a government monopoly in most of the West India islands. Nassau among the rest, and it comes high. The govern ment builds an ice house and sells the privilege of keeping it. The ice house is a great institution, and generally has a grocery and provision store connected with it. The common price is three cents a pound, and the natives use it very sparingly. The popular way is to wait till dinner is on the table, then send a servant down to the ice house to buy a pound. He rushos up to the counter, slaps down his three cents, and orders in a loud and commanding tone: “ ‘Check ice!’ “The ice man saws off a slab that he thinks will weigh a pound, for to chop it would involve too much waste, and the darkey starts for home with it. Nassau’s sun is hot, and by the time the pound of ice reaches the table It is a lump about the size of an egg, which is dropped into the water pitcher. At meal hours thq>ee house is full of these customers, all knock ing their coppers on the counter and yell ing, “Check ice!” They are in a hurry, for dinner is waiting. - “We soon found that existence without ice was not worth the bother, so I sent up to New York fora refrigerator. Of course, none are to be bought in a country where ice is used so sparingly. But think of ico at SOO a ton! I went to the ice house and learned that by taking it in such an un heard of quantity as fifty pounds a day I could have it for 2 cents a pound. In that climate it had to be wrapped in blankets and kept in sawdust or fifty pounds would disappear in an hour. As soon as we be gan to keep Ice, the cry was heard: ‘Who left that refrigerator open?’ It was gen erally my voice, too. Let me look at the refrigerator twenty times a day, and every time I would find the door open. Nothing would induce the darkeys to keep it shut, nnd of course the warm air admitted wasted the ice. The question rings in my ears yet, ‘Who left that re frigerator open!’ “With plenty of ice, we always had good mutton, buying it warm and keeping it two or three days. But the beef ques tion was not settled until the hotel opened. The hotel had to have New York beef, for the guests were all Americans, who would not eat slabs of Nassau-killed meat. Not only beef, but almost everything else, ex cept fish, had to be brought down from New York. The system was to keep four big iceboxes, each about six feet square, constantly under wav—two going up to New York empty, and two returning full of ice and good food. It is no joke to keep such iceboxes constantly moving, the freight being SSO the round trip for each box! besides the cost of ice and the 25 per cent, ad valorem duty on everything taken into the country. “Bnt many a time those Ice boxes for the hotel saved our lives, metaphorically. Stuff could only be had out of them as a favor, and freights and duties made the prices tremendous; beefsteaks 50 cents a pound, oysters $i a quart, and other things in proportion. But Sam Morton, of tho Kovnl victoria hotel, was a fellow New Yorker, and always ready to oblige us After you’ve eaten fish three times a day for fifty days, the price of a good steak is no object at all. We used to draw on the steamers, too. when they -came in for eatables; prime roasts of beef, beautiful crisp celery—ah. my friend, vou don’t know what celery is till you live a while in the tronics, where it won’t grow . “Morton and I use to condole with each other over the scarcity of good food in a land of plenty. Sometimes the steamers would be two or three days late, and the ice boxes empty, and there would bei a lively prospect of the hotel coming down to fish and grits for a few days. It takes nice engineering for a big hotel West Indies to keep just enough New York food on hand, without letting it go to waste. But some of the Americans nearly broke Morton’s heart when they com THE MORNING NEWS: SUNDAY, JANUARY 7. 1894. plained about prices. “Wb.v, Mr. Mor ton!’it was a common thing for them to say when they paid their bills, you are charging me as much here as I should have to pay in New York!’ It was natural that he should, when he had to bring everthing a thousand miles in ice chests and then pay 35 per cent, duty on it. “It is a land of fruit, of course; but outside of oranges and bananas, no tropi cal fruit amounts to much. The oranges are excellent and cheap. We kept a bar rel of them constantly standing on the piazza, bought for 80 to 50 cents a hun dred. As to bananas, half a dollar would buy a bunch as tall as you are. The other southern fruits are flat and taste less—sugar anples, papaws, cherimoyas, and so on. However, I must except the alligator pears. They grow as large as melons and are very good. D“The cooks are very wasteful. There is no such thing in the West Indies as delicate little dishes made from yester day’s leavings. Whatever is left on tho table disappears like magic, because there are so many servants about. When they boil a pot of which they do three times a day, they waste at least a third of it by letting it burn fast to the pot. This they never try to prevent, but con sider it the proper thing. -Dat de pot cake, boss,’ the cook says, when you ask him about it. The ‘pot cake’ goes to the pigs and chickens. “The Dutch oven is a great institution with northern people living in the West Indies. Imagine a New York housekeeper baking in a Dutch oven! I suppose you know what it is! Simply an iron pot with a flat bottom and a flat iron cover. To bake in it you make a bed of hot coals on the ground, put the pot in the midst of them, and cover them with more coals. Primitive as it is, it gives the housekeeper a chance to make some dainty little dishes of her own without going into the kitchen. The kitchen is almost forbidden ground for the woman of the house. It is a block away from the bouse, to begin with, is always dirty and smoky, and always full of sisters, cousins, aunts and children of the cook. There is no keeping them away, and it would be a waste of breath to try to have the kitchen kept clean. There is always a heap of dirty dishes in one cor ner, for the custom of the country is to wash the dishes before a meal, not after. Last night’s dinner dishes stand all night in the corner, to be washed this morning before breakfast. “The West Indian cook despises a stove. Give him an old-fashioned fire place and a few old pans and he is satis fied. His favorito light is a candle stood in the fireplace. While he cooks a meal the kitchen is full of darkness and smoke; but he pulls through somehow, and If you give him the materials he will cook you a good dinner. Occasionally he burns a dish because he has had to stop to kill a snake. The snakes are harmless, but unpleasant, being sometimes eight or ten feet long, and they have a great liking for kitchens and chicken yards. “Half through the week, every week, there was an eternal thump, thump, thumping in the back yard. It was the lady who did the washing. Beginning on Monday morning, with a barrel and a big pounder, she pounded our clothes to pieces for three days. The last three days of the week she spent in ironing them, the family consisting of two per sons. This lady who did the wash ing led mo into one of the first of a series of comical blunders that a stranger must inevitably make in such a strange country. My wife being inaccessible, the lady of the barrel ana pounder came to me tor bluing for the clothes. Having none, I sent a boy to the store for some, with a written order, of course—for woe soon comes to him who trusts a verbal message to a West Indian boy. ‘Please send me a box of bluing,’ was the order, for I had always seen the stuff moulded into round balls and done up in little pasteboard boxes. An hour later the boy came back on a cart, for the box of blu ing was too heavy for him to carry. It was a box of bluing with a vengeance, be ing more than two feet square. When opened it was found to contain 144 bottles of liquid blue. “When we were at our best—that ls, In the hight of the season, when the hotel was full and New York food was compar atively plenty—we lived almost entirely upon imported things. Tho cost of it makes me weep to think of it, but no matt ter. Many and many a dinner we sat down to with every blessed thing on the table imported from America, even tho water. Yes, sir, even the water. We be gan to tire of rain water stored in tanks, the only water available, and fell to drinking imported water. The ice also came from Maine; prime roast beef from New York; all the bread and pastry, of course, originally from New York in tho form of flour; all tho vegetables from the New York markets; even the fruit from New York, for, after six months in tho tropics, all the native fruit in the world is not equal to one northern apple, or ‘Nord apple,’as they call it down there. “However, all these little troubles about food in the far south help to make busi ness for us in New York, so I have no rea son to complain. I am shipping food stuffs by every steamer, and in another month the southern demand will double.” A MAN-OF-WAR ROOSTER. Hi. Encounter With the Rooster That He Saw in the Brass Ventilator. From St. Nicholas. Who would think that a rooster could become a great pet on board ship? But on the flagship Chicago, the man-of-war which last spring traveled almost 6,01)0 miles to get home for the Columbian naval parade, there was a rooster that was the pet of the men on board ship. He was bought in the West Indies, on the way to Montevideo, and was intended for the Christmas dinner; but his great cheerful ness as shown by his hearty crowing in the most unseasonable weather won him his life. _ After his liberty had been given to him and ho had become fairly tamed he noticed one day another very'proud rooster in a polished brass ventilator which stands on the quarter deck. He immediately put on the proudest air; then, noticing that the other rooster did the same, he step ped closer to inquire, and soon found him self glaring puginaciously at the other fellow, who seemed quite as defiant as himself. From looks it came to blows, and soon our rooster was indignantly fighting his own reflection. Occasional ly he would strike the ventilator hard with his bill and be thrown Dack much astonished, only to return to the attack when he noticed that his enemy apparent ly retreated. This was kept up at intervals for sev al weeks, until the rooster learned that more hard knocks than glory were to bo got by keeping up the fued. Even now, after many months on board, he occasion ally renews the attack, but in a half hearted way, as if he knew that he was doing something silly. His name is Dick, and when there is food ahead he answers to it like a gentle man. At Ensenada, in the Argentine Re public, the Chicago lay alongside tho dock in the Grand canal, and Dick was allowed to run on shore and pick up what he could find. He never strayed far from the gangway, and would come proudly strut ting back when called on board by ono of the men. He is a very pugnacious bird, and in En senada started a fight between a dog and himself. The combat, witnessed by the whole ship’s company, while productive of no harm to either side, was an amusing sight, and consisted of dashes at the dog, with occasional real blows on the part or the rooster, and much barking and run ning about on the part of the dog. Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth, the author ess, eolebrated the seventy-fourth anniver sary of her birthday on Christmas day. Her health ls better than it ha. been for several years. LEOPOLD ADLER, (SUCCESSOR TO A. R. ALTMAYER & CO.) # OUR ANNUAL GREAT Muslin Underwear Sale. E; /Rp Jjjjj Muslin Jflr Drawers, —ay Torchon or •~~~Mf Lace Trimmed. DBnd or Yoke Slope. 25c. Ten Different Styles. 25c. Children’s Drawers. Worth 25c, Hemmed and Tucked, only 3 pieces to a cus tomer, l3c. 7Sc. Tw BHNftf Sl,l*‘VoL Children’s Cowns. Neck and Sleeves Finished with Ruffles and Embroidery; very finest quality Muslin, 50c. PROMPT AND RAPID ATTENTION GIVEN TO ALL MAIL ORDERS. MASSACRE OF MICE. The Government Preparing to Kill Them on an Extensive Scale. To Be Inoculated With Typhu.—The Disease I. at Onoe Most Peculiar and Destructive-Some Very Remarkable Migrations. From the Pittsburg Dispatch. Washington, Dec. 80.— Bacilli of “mouse typhus” are being propagated just now in the laboratory of the bureau of animal industry here. The disease is one peculiar to the family of field-mice. It is proposed to ascertain if destruction can be wrought upon that tribe of rodents in this country by inoculating them artificially with the germs in question. The latter were iso lated and identified by the German Prof. Loefiler, who by means of them is said to have cleared Thessaly of a plague of those animals during the last year. A similar affliction has now attacked Southern Scotland. From time to time mice of the same family, though of a different species, become epidemic, as it were, in one part or another of tha United State., doing great damage to the crops. Prof. Loeffler was employed by tlie Greek government, which paid all tho expenses of his work in the province of Thessaly. On reaching the scene of the plague, he prepared many gallons of an infusion of oat and barley straw. The straw being boiled, the water from it was poured through a seive into tin vessels re sembling milk cans. Then a little glucose was added, and the mixture was dosed with a small quantity of gelatine contain ing a pure culture of the typhus bacilli. Finally, it was subjected to a temperature of 36° Fahrenheit. Under these condi tion. the germs were propagated by mil lions in the solution within a few hours. It only remained to dip into it pieces of dry white bread, a bit of which was placed in each mouse-hole. A. THOROUGH TEST MADB. Tho mice ate the bread, and within from six to eight days they sickened, dy ing within a few hours. To begin with, an experiment was made with a field which was so thickly infested with the vermin that the ground was literally rid dled with their holes. Around this area a ditch was dug, so as to isolate it, and then tho Infected food was scattered about. A fortnight later not one of the rodent pests remained alive. It happens that the disease is one to which no other animal is subject, so that no danger is in volved to man or domestic beasts. In or der to satisfy the people In Thessaly of this fact. Prof. LooHler and his assistants ate in their presence pieces of tho pois oned bred and fed them to the dogs and cows. Mouse typhus is not contagious. Recently a scientific commission was appointed in Scotland to investigate the plague there, and members of it traveled all the way to Greece for the purpose of observing the results of Prof. Loeffler'. work. They wore not satisfied that his achievement was as satisfactory or com plete as had been represented. The dis appearance of the mice might be attribu table to one of those epidemics which nat urally arise among animals that have multiplied excessively. This is one of na ture's methods of keeping down the num bers of species which might otherwise overrun the earth. Another objection to the remedy was based on th. non-conta gious character of the disease, which ia only communicated to those mice which actually swallow the bread. Healthy in dividual. are supposed to be infected by eating the bodies of dead ones, but this is not proved. ' TO-MORROW MORNING, Bright and early, we place on sale 10,000 PIECES of Ladies’ and Children’s Muslin and Cambric Underwear that for quality, style, perfection of fit and finish and price have never been equalled in this city. The reputation of our January Underwear Salo Is so well established and so well deserved that our announcement always brings In a .treat crowd or customers. We have de ckled to make this salo unusually Interesting and have col lected an assortment of Muslin Underwear such us wo have never beforo shown. Including all the latest styles, dainty and charming designs specially made for this occasion. 2,000 I 2,000 2,000 2,000 Ladies’ Ladies' Ladies' Ladles' Muslin Fine Finest Fineft Drawers, Muslin Cambr, ° C,mbrl ° and and Chemises, Chemises. Muslin . Muslin Corset Covers. Drawers, Chemises, Chomlses, Night Dresses Corset Covers, Drawers, Drawers, and Night Dresses Corset Covers, „ . Night Dresses Night Dresses SklrtS ' Skirt. a " d 10 Skirts. Skin.. different 10 10 styles different different different styles styles styles t 0 to to to each. each. each. each. 25c. 50c. 76c, 98c. We guarantee the goods are better and cheaper than anything ever effered beforo for the money. The cheaper goods, as far as lit and finish are concerned, are as good os the most expensive, containing nothing but the most reliable grades of Muslin. THIS QUESTION OF COST. But the most important difficulty was considered to lie in the high cost of the inoculating gelatine culture, which Prof. Loeffler furnished to the Greek govern ment at $1 for a small tube. However, Undo Sam’s bacteriologists do not in dorse these views. They say that, with the plant possessed by the bureau of ani mal industry, the stuff could be turned out for 10 cents a tube. Now. the con tents of a single tube are sufficient to fill with the germs a volume of bouillon or other suitable solution equal to that of ail the oceans of tho world. All that the microbes need is a start and something to live on. Thus it will Be seen that the requsite disease-producing material could be made cheap enough, the amount of bread needed for treating even a large farm being not very great. The gelatine culture preserves its properties for two months. The field mice of Thessaly. Scotland and the United States are three different species of the same genus. Unlike the others, those of Scotland do not live in burrows, but in tho herbage. All of them eat the roots of every kina of vegetable. In meadows they live almost entirely on the roots of grasses, thus reducing the yield of hay per aero often very largely. When they become so numerous that their ordinary food supply is insufficient, they devour everything green. They do great damage to fruit trees in winter by gnawing a way the bark all around the trunks from the ground level to tho sur face of the snow. In this way they will destroy entire orchards, and in the same manner tens of thousands of maples and beeches are killed. In Scotland they have inflicted much injury on the sheep industry by ruining the grass crop. SOME EXTRAORDINARY STORIES. During the recent plague in Thessaly the mice were present in such swarms that the fields were vocal with their squeaking. Extraordinry stories are told of their doings. In one instance a farmers had given orders that several acres should be mowed the next morning. When the laborers arrived they found no grass to cut; the vermin hud destroyed the entire crop in a siugle night. On an other occasion a miller went to a field and cut a quantity of corn, which he loaded on an ass and brought to his mill. Then he went for a second load, but on his re turn he found scarcely a vestige of tho first load remaining. Supposing that he had been robbed, he hid himself for, the purpose of watching, and presently an army of mice appeared and proceeded to carry off the gram. There is mention of such plagues of small rodents in the Bible, and the ancient Greeks had a mouse-killing god- Appoilo Myoktonos. Tho field mice of the United States are not more plentiful in any particular part of the country than elsewhere. From time to time they iucrease enormously in fi umbers in ono section or another and be come a plague for one or more seasons. Like tho Greek species they live in shal low burrows, each pair having its own dwelling in which they rear their young and deposit a store of food for the winter. These subterranean animals produce three or four litters a year for each fe male, with five or six young ones at a birth. Sometimes this rapid rate of re production is increased beyond the nor mal limit. The causes which bring about the plagues are difficult to ascertain. U Scotland the present trouble is attributed in part to tbo destruction of the natural enemies of the mice, such as owls, crows and weasels. THE MOST DEADLY FOBS. The most deadly foes of field mice are the short eared owls, which are always present in great numbers when a plague occurs. Enemies quite effective In their way are adders, but it would hardly be practicable to encourage tho propagation l of daugerout serpents for such a reason. In South America the plains of the Ar gentine are much infested by these rodents, which are preyed upon to some extent by the armadllloes. That these queer and clumsy animals should be capa ble mo users is hard to realize, but such is the fact. One of the most curious meth ods adopted for fighting these vermin is to scatter about a mixture of powdered burnt gypsum and dry wheat meal, to which sugar and a little aniseed oil are added. The mice eat the stuff with avid ity. When taken into the stomach it combines with the gastric juices to form a solid ball and Mr. Mouse dies of indi getion. In Franconia, Germany, tho farmers catch the mice alive and smear them with a mixture of cart grease and fish oil, afterward letting them run free. The odor of this preparation is so offensive to the animals that they leave their bur rows and are easily killed, while it is said that many actually run themselves to death. One efficient, though costly, remedy is the digging of pitfalls, wider at the bottom than at the top, into which the mice fall. Being unable to get out they die of hunger. Cats have been em ployed to destroy them, while terrier dogs are even more effective. An active man armed with a spado can slay thousands in a day in an infected dis trict. Poisons have not been found to work very well; besides, they are dan gerous to domestic beasts. ANOTHER METHOD ADOPTED. Anothor method adopted Is to scatter small haycocks over the land, which at tract numbers of the mice for shelter. Around the haycocks ditches are dug and then fire is set to the hay. The animals Jump into the ditches and are readily de stroyed. On a single large estate in Saxony 300,000 of the little pests were killed in seven weeks, and delivered to a manure factory, which paid for them at the rate of 1 cent for eightdozen. Boveral bacteriological experts have suggested that field mice might be inoculated with anthrax or scab. The latter disease, it has been urged, could be propagated among them without difficulty. Unfortu nately, the failure of Pasteur’s attempt to infect the rabbits of Australia with a fatal and contagious complaint has thrown discredit on such experiments. In Thessaly the resident Turks regard tho mouso ulaguo as a visitation of God. and are Indisposed to adopt any remedial measures. During their recent affliction they sent messengers to Mecca to fetch holy water for sprinkling on tho fields. It is reckoned'that two-thirds of the bumblebees in Great Britain are de stroyed by field mice. The latter eat the honey stored by those insects and so starve them. Now, it is literally true that any one who kills a cat is upsetting tho natural balance of life to an extent which will liave an unfavorabl® effect on the productiveness of garden and field. Pussy’s death permits more mice to live. They wipeout the bumblebees, on which clover and many other plants absolutely depend for their fertilization. In the ab sence of the bumblebee* these plants do not ripen seed, and thus the next crop is affected. VERY REMARKABLE ANIMALS. Very nearly related to tho field-mice are tlie lemmings, which are in their way among the most remarkable of animals. They are about live inches long, with very short tails. Dweiliug in the high lands of the great central mountain chain of Norway and Sweden, they build their nests of straw fined with hair, under stones and tussocks of grass. They are very pugnacious. When disturbed, in stead of trying to escape, they sit upright, hissing and showing fight. Certain culti vated districts of Sweden and Norway, where these creatures are ordinarily un known. are occasionally, at intervals of from five to twenty-five years, overrun by armies of them, which steadily and slowly advance, always in tho same direc tion, regardless of all obstacles, swimming across streams and even lakes several miles in breadth and committing great devastation. In turn they are pursued ®soo. Handsomely trim med with Em broidery Insertion between Clusters of Tucks. Em broidery or Laos 50c. Ten Different Styles. 50c. Corset Covers. Ladies’ Plain Corset Covers,worth 25c, only 3 pieces to a customer, l7c. a 98c * Skirts, Four Wide Tucks. Kudla or Hemstitch ed Embroid ery. 98c. Six Different Styles. 98c. Children’s Drawers. Finished with Bunches of Tucks, Ruffles and Embroidery, Fine Quality Muslin. 25c. and harrassed by crowds of beasts and birds of prey, such as bears, wolves, foxes, wildcats, weasels, eagles, hawks and owls. Even domestic animals, cat* tie, goats and reindeer, Join in the hunt. None of these migrant lemmings ever return by tho course from which they come. Jhe onward march of the sur vivors never ceases until they reach the sea, into which they plungo and, swim* ming onward in the same direction as be fore. perish in the waves. Asa matter of fact, the lemmings which perish in the sea are acting under the saute blind impulse that led them previously to cross smaller pieces of wator in safety. No survivor* of the migrating hoards ever live to transmit their iinal and fatal experience to subso* quent generations, und so this gigantio mistake is periodically repeated. Abnor mal increase of numbers and consequent necessity for food bring about the migra tions from the highlands to the lowlands, winding up in the ocean. The animals only travel at night and pause when they find sustenance plentiful. Exhaustion of the food supply compels them to proceed. Naturally, they would not turn back on their tracks, tho region behind being eaten bare. It is a curious fact that during these journeys they multiply enormously and even more rapidly that* at home. Such a migration lasts from one to three years. PRUDERY’S VICTIM. Henry Vizetelly, Who Was Im prisoned for Selling Zola's Books. Dies. From the Philadelphia Press. London, Jan. 2.—-Henry Vizetelly died at Farnham yesterday. He had been la feeble health since he was imprisoned tow selling Zola’s works. MR. VIZETKI.LT’S “HEINOUS” OPFENSB. The irony of fate has seldom been mora forcibly illustrated than in the case ol Henry Vizetelly. Since 1889, when, at the age of 70, he was imprisoned for the heinous offense of publishing three works of Emile Zola’s without sufficient emascua lation to admit of their being read with out a blush by the prudish British press censors, the veteran publisher has beeo steadily failing in health. A few months ago, when almost on hia deathbed, he witnessed the wondrous spectacle of the whole British social and literary world in a furore of bliss over tha author of these same works, and unabla to fete him enough. Britain blessing him on his deathbed for what it had sent him to jail for not four years before. His imprisonment aroused much indigs nation in certain quarters. Uobert Buc hanan denounced tho decision as fatal to literature. The purveyors of pornography were on their knees before the Vigllanca society and great/ holocausts of unclean print were indulged in. One publisher sacrificed 100,000 French novels. Tho Seneral Journalistic opinion was stated to e that the tyranny of tho juror in tho matter of libel suits and licentious prints had become insupportable. To say that Oulda had been more immoral than Zola, now that Zola had been Judicially con demned, exposed a critic to charges of libel, and severe criticism became impos sible except of dead authors. Q-ilt-Edge Mutton. New York Letter In Baltimore Sun.' A week ago a SI,OOO imported Holstein ram strayed away from the Vanderbilt farm at Oakdale, E. I. There was a vain search for the animal until yesterday, when a sheriff's deputy found the ram’s skin tacked upon the door of a house. In side the house the carcass was being cut up for consumption. The man said he found the ram dead, but he will be asked to give a further explanation of bis hank ring after such gilt-edged mutton. 11