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TIIE CHINESE HEADSMAN. A Very Kipcrt Pmonaie With T/>t of Work (O do The Pareto. A letter to tnr* Inter-Ocean says: Down toward the southeast corner of the city j walls, but outside of it, there is in Can- . ton a short thoroughfare or lane, about j fifty yards in length and from four to i eight yards in breadth, into which I never j dare to look when in that part of the , city. It is the Canton execution ground. There is no street leading directly to It, cither from the city or from the river. ! It is touched on every side, bv the shops and houses of natives, for it is in the heart of the southern suburb, where the people altonnd like swarming bees. The whole eastern side is bounded by a dead wall of brick about twelve feet high, while on the opposite side is a row' of workshops for the mannfacture of the coarsest kind of unglazed earthen wafe. I suppose there in no spot on earth where so many tragedies have been enacted as on this little plot of ground; and how any human being can endure it to live in proximity to the place is more than I can understand. I suppose it is because by s merciful provision of nature the fear of death diminishes in exact ratio to its in creasing frequency. Here it is so fre quent that the people laugh at its ap proach, and instances of heroic death are the rule, rather than the ex ception. The national sensibilities seem to have been almost destroyed. Here in one year, during the “Talping” hellion, I am told that 50,000 heads were severed from as many bodies; and for a number of years thereafter the av erage annual decapitation rate was 1,500 persons. Think of it! It seems as if the ground must be crimson with the perpetual sacrifice of guilty and innocent blood; and I half wonder that the stain JUs not passed through this tiny earth to redeem the soil of America on the other side. While from a soinewrhat cursory ex amination of the penal code of China, I am led to believe that it aims at ns high a state of public virtue and justice as that or most civilized countries, I am Compelled daily to shudder at the in human way in which the enforcement of the laws is conducted. The torture sys tem prevails, not only in connection with the punishment of convicted criminals, but also as a means of forcing an accused man to confess, whether he is guilty or not, and as a means of forcing a witness to give the evidence that it is suspected he has in his possession. If I were writing for some publications instead of a decent American newspaper, P might fill columns with revolting details such as any traveler may witness here, which would not only have the merit of truth, but would exceed in thrilling sensation alism any of the fiction its way into after-dark literature. * The hardest feature of it all is the un .•cmly haste with which criminals are hustled into eternity. About an hour be- ! FACTS FOB THE CrRIOUS. "Whales were eaten by persons rf flics 1 upper classes in Europe as late at least as the latter part of the thirteenth cen i tury. The tail and tongue, dressed witli > peas or roasted, were prized as choice | delicacies. The Princess Eleanor dc ! Mont ford paid, in 1260, the sum of i twenty-four shillings for “100 pieces of j whale” to be used as food in her house hold. The latest novelty in New York city is paper soap, which is mainly for the uso of travelers. The sheets of paper, which are put up in the form of a small book of about three inches square,arc coated with soap and are said to be just as good as the regulation article,in addition to being much handier. There are fifty soap sheets in each book, costing in the aggregate alxmt as much as an ordinary cake ol soap. A twenty-months'-old child in Gran itevillc, Cal., w'hile standing in the door way of its home, was charmed by a rat tlesnake, which coiled itself in front of him. It was but two feet away and wa* gently moving its head backward and forward, and iooking at the child with eyes like two flames. The child's sister, twelve years of age, pulled her little brother away, when the reptile glided swiftly out of sight. The child seemed stupefied for some time afterward. An Englishman proposes a “reform” in printing by omitting “the” from the copy. In a chance copy of the Londoa Time* he found “the” occurring 200 times in the first column of the first page; he calculates that it occurs I,OOC times on every page of every copy of the Time n, making 16,000 times for each en tire copy, equal to 38,000 letters. Keck oning that every line in a London Timet numbers forty letters and that a column is m:ide up ol 150 lines, 6,000 letters are consumed in setting up a column, which brings the calculator to his grand result —that an ordinary cops of the London Time* devotes eight columns of its space to one little word “the.” A great many persons say “God bless us ” when the/ sneeze. The following explains the origin of the practice: Ac cording to the rabbinical theory it was originally ordained that men should sneeze but once, in’ that act, possible only when the time of death had come, giving up the ghost. But the patriarch Jacob, feeling that such a sudden call al lowed no time for the settlement ol worldly affairs and for preparation foi 'the hereafter, prayed for exemption from the rule, and in answer to his prayer was allowed to sneeze and not die. Tne change was regarded as a great benefit, and “ all the princes of the universe,whea they heard it, ordered that for the future sneezing should be accompanied with wishes for its prolongation.” Hence the custom whi ?h has prevailed among all nations of uttering some form of saluta tionon thejttcasion of the act. A very -g" l:- A Condfaf lor’s Story. M I have beeri running .a train for thirty years,’* saU a gray-haired con dietoron the Wabash. “I started in jnJ the New Ytirk Central, have been Lake Shore, Pennsylvania and C.’s, and here 1 am on the Wa bash. “ibid you know old Vanderbilt?” “Did I know him ? Well. Housed to ke£p a pretty close watch of every thing, I tell you, and there wasn’t much going on along the line the road that he didn’t know about. One time I got ulyself into a box. At Albany they brought a corpse onto my train, and nobody had bought a ticket for it, according to rules. At first I re fused to carry it, but the station agent said it belonged to some of the rail road folks, and the charges would be paid to me in New York. When we got to New York nobody called for the corpse. I was in a hurry to go home, but I waited round for my as I knew I’d be held responsible for It. Nobody came, and nobody at the depot knew anything about it. Tbs vexed me a good deal, and so I made up my mind something had to ba done. So I* sent word over to the medical college there was a ‘stiff’ at the Central depot for sale. A doctor came right over, and I sold him the body for just enough to pay the charges, entered the fact on my re ;K>rt, and went home. Next morning { heard the body was that, of a rela tive of old Vanderbilt himself. And f had gone and sold it to a medical col lege! Well, I went straight to the old man’s office to get my discharge. I Knew my time had come. But, would you believe it, I wasn’t bounced. The <?ld man took it very cool.” “What did he say?” “lie said he had got the body back ,Ul right, and had inquired into all the circumstances. Then he raised my waives a hundred dollars a year.”— Chi. cago Herald. Divlp? for the Remains of Ships. The diving for the remains of the Greek and Persian ships sunk in the great sea fight at Salamis has caused a II utter in archaeological circles.^^^B - - | FOR CURING CHILLS AND FEVER AND Removing the Distressing Effects of Malaria, AYER’S AGUE CURE HAS BEEN FOUND SO •, ■ t NEARLY INFALLIBLE, THAT . . We Authorize Dealers to Return the Money, If the medicine is taken according to directions, without benefiting the patient. PREPARED BY DR. J. C. AYER & CO., Analytical Chemists, LOWELL, MASS. S >!d by all Druggist*. Frice fl, six bottles ft r PARSONS’IS’PILLS Positively cure SICK-HEADACHE. Biliousness, and all LIVER and BOWEL Complaints, MALARIA BLOOD POISON, and Skin Diseases (ONE PILL A DOSE). For Female Complaints those Pills have no equal. **l find them a valuable Cathartic and Liver PHI.—Dr. T. M Palmar. MontioeUo, Fla." “It! my practice I use no other. —J. Dennison. M.D.. DeWitt, lowa." Sold everywhere, or aent by mril fnr *3 cts. tn stamps. Valuable lniormation FREE. I. S. JOHNSON Ar CO.. BOSTON. MASS. YegetaWe Componnd 13 A POSITIVE CUBE For Female Coinplainta and Wenknesßcn no common to our best female population. It will euro entirely the worst form of Femalo Com plaints, all Ovarian troubles, Inflammation and Ulcers* tion, Falling and displacements, and the consequent i Spinal weakness, and is particularly adapted to the Change of lfe. It will dissolve and expel tumors from the uterns In an early stage of development. The tendency to cancerous humors there is cheeked very speedily by ita use. It remgges faintness, flatulency, destroys all craving for stimulants, and relieves weakness or the stomach, Jt cures Bloating, Headaches, Nervous Prostration. Creneral Debility, Sleeplessness, Depression and Indiges* tl°n. That feelingof bearing down, causingpain, weight *nd backache, is always permanently cured by ita nso.' it w.ll at all times and under all circumstances act in harmony with the laws that govern the Female system. For the cure of Kidney Complaints of either sex, this Compound is unsurpassed. PricesLOO. Six bottles for $5.00. No family should bo without LYDIA E. PINKUAM'S LIVER PILLS. They cure constipation, biliousness and torpidity of tho liver. 25 cents a box at all druggists. A Regeneration for Kl 8 IB* enfeebled systems, fifEJ** 1 “* " V||V suffering from a gen CIICBRATID oral want of tone,and its usual concern it - . __ ants, dyspepsia And nervousness, is nifiDtaa/f seldom der i v a b 1 e Wfcwr WMn/1 from the use of a ”\Wr nourishing diet and • Stimuli of appetite, -3“ una ded. A medicine that will effect a re gf 9 moval of the specitic I utiMtnclw to rmiowiA ft m • Mi V/Aft I>V/ ft V • mm-* a. -w m-m • ! BN 11 20 1 TEC3B OulcipdGoe or Mg Machine Orp f'an be applied to any Sowing Machine in af| i minutes. It will play any tm e and any one can play it. It ia a perfect Automatic Organ four times the power and volume of tone of an> other Small Automatic Instrument, and has the carrying quality of a pipe organ. Ft ia the onlv Automatic Instrument that will render alow or sacred music with a powerful sustaining organ tone- It will produce any degree of expression and will carry with distinctness throughout the extent of the largest dancing hall. It is unlimited in it’s range of tunes, as we produce them all in the perforated form. If you have been prejudiced by the advertising of trashy toys called manual instruments Iny your preju dice aside long enough to hear and see the Hewing Ma chine Organ, and you will he convinced that you can buy a really good Musical Instrument for a nominal sum. Price sl2- Music on spools 4 cents per foot. For sale by all leading hewing Machine dealers and by A. O. MACnONKU. A CO., 0 12 Union Hquarw, New York. cAMARITik* A SPECIFIC FOR Epilepsy, Falling