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THE EAGLE: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 1895. 13 c.pyijook or the back of a pattern, sharpens her pencil with the scissors or gnuws the end sharper. She takes an old geography, tucks her foot under her, sucks her pencil periodically and produces literature. She can write with Genevieve pound ing out her exercises on the piano, with Mary buzzing over h.-r history lesson for to-morrow, Tommy teasing Ihe baby, and the baby pulling1 tht cat's tail. The domestic comes and goes for directions and supplies, but the course of true love runs on, the lovers woo and win, and the villains kill and die among the most common place surroundings. A man's best eft'orts, falling short of genius, are apt to be stilted, but the woman who writes will often, with the stump of a pencil and amid the distrac tions above mentioned, produce a ten der bit of a poem, a dramatic situation ora page If description that, though critics rave, lives on, travels through the exchanges and finds a place in the scrapbooks of the men and women who know a good thing when they see it, whether there isa well-known name signed to it or not. HIS REGULAR BUSINESS. A Mayor M ho Wan Not A hove Asking a Stranger for A I ins. The people of the extreme south of France, in the neighborhood of the Pyrenees, have a hard shift to live. Some of them gain a livelihood by tam ing bears. Many others take to begging, which becomes a trade by itself, reasonably remunerative and not exactly dishon orable. Baron llaussmann in his "Memoires" cites the ease of one of these professional beggars who amassed a good property and finally became mayor of a large commune. Even then he continued to ply his trade, especially in the bathing season, when many tourists visited the coun try. One of these outsiders was so taken aback at the sight of the mayor begging on the street that he remon strated with the mendicant. "I should think you would be ashamed," said the stranger. "You, a man holding so honorable an office." "Office!" said the mayor. "My office! Why, man, this is how I gained it." Nitpoloon'H Opln'on of Love. During the period when Napoleon was with his regiment at Auxonne. as lieu tenant of artillery, he devoted much of his spare time to authorship, lie wrote two short pieces, one a "Dialogue on Love," and the other "Reflections on the State of Nature." Prof. Wil liam M. Sloane, in his new "Life of Na poleon," quotes the following inter esting extract from the former in the Century: "I too was once in love," he says of himself. It could not well have been in Ajaccio, and it must have been the memories of the old Valence, of a pleasant existence now ended, which called forth the doleful confession. It was the future Napoleon who was pre saged in the antithesis. "I go further than the denial of its existence; I be lieve it hurtful to society, to the indi vidual welfare of men." A QUEEN'S BATH. How the Queer Royal Custom Is Observed in Madagancar. Since the great African island has lately caused a great deal of talk it will not be uninteresting, says Loudon Tid-Uits, to give some account of the strange ceremony practiced at the Malagasy national festival every year, as related by nearly all the travelers who have visited the land of the Hovas. The "Fandroana," or royal bath, was first instituted by King Ratambo, and is held annually, by royal proclama tion, from November 22 to January 10. During this time no business is allowed to proceed. The people of the king dom meet the queen in the silver palace on the first day of the festival, and a red cock is then brought by the head priest or sacrificer of the court, i ts neck is wrung, and its blood, being caught in a banana leaf, is carried to the sovereign, who touches with it her forehead, neck, stomach, armpit, linger nails und toe nails. The rest of the assembly follow the example. Next day the people assemble again for the royal bath in the great palace. This the queen takes in one of the acred corners of the hall, in a silver hath, being screened from view by "lambag," held by her attendants. Amid the firing of cannon and the joyous shouts of her humble subjects, her majesty then passes along the balcony, and from a horn in her hand prinkles the crowd with the water .'.lie has just been using for her ablutions, exclaiming at the same i lime: "Masina, aho!" (I am purified), j i'his sprinkling is said to typify an .tbundunce of rain during the coming year. To be absent from the ceremony would be to incur the royal displeasure, so that the French plenipotentiary minister himself, M. le Myre de Vilers, who is now again on his way to Mada gascar, had to submit himself, in 1HS(, to this strange ordeal. Every wife, ..lso, must be with her husband at the lime, or it is considered that :.he is as rood as divorced. The new yvvr i then supposed to have be;;nn. an.l for cveral weeks there is a givac deal of visiting and feasting. PUNISHMENTS OF CRIMINALS. Penalties fur Trans.Trcssiii:; t'i. I.uv 1 a French Prison. Crimes of a serious nature committed in the prison of Melun, France. re ol- iously referred to the i r.iinarv .ribunals, says the Conli iu;: r: tv Re view, but disciplinary ciVu .es are xut with each moriiiiv in n court room by the governor, i'. . ' ;ed by Ihe .ispee tor, the schoolmv U r '.id the hit t warder. The puid límente, in- lieted are first, repriman;!:;; t-ceond. leprivation of use of eantccr.: Ihir.'i punishment eell, with ordinary food: fourth, punishment cell, with bread and water, each fourth day being the rdimiry food; fifth, deprivation of vis its this, however, is rarely inflicted: ixth. deprivation of correspondence, when the prisoner has attempted to uiiiuie it: seventh, fines; eighth, re duction of scale of proportion of earn- This latter punishment, whijh may be inflicted for two or more days, not exceeding fifteen, consists of prisoners passing the day from five a. m. to seven p. m., alternately, sitting for fifteen minutes, and walking for twenty min utes, being allowed neither to read, to speak nor to work. The food is bread and water, with soup once per day. On the occasion of my visit there were thirteen men sitting about one. yard apart from each other, in rows, on square stools built of stone, with a wooden top. The punishment cells do not appear to be such formidable affairs, having a wooden bed fixed to the floor, bedding being supplied at night. The lloors are of polished wood. Ry an ingenious arrangement, the-amount of light to be admitted into the cell can be regu lated at will from the corridor with out. Incorrigibles, whom it is found impossible to employ in the work shops, owing to their turbulence and persistent breaches of discipline, work in their cells. This sequestration may be carried on for any period up to ninety days, and gives no claim to the reduction of the original sentence. Such Is l ate. Long she stood at the window and mused. The rays of the setting sun entangled themselves in her Titian hair or surrounded her glorious height of five feet eight inches with an aureole halo. Proud, queenly, limbed like a goddess, she was indeed a magnificent specimen of femininity, "Strange." she muttered. Then a soft, half-pity-ing, half-happy smile flitted across her face like a gleam of April sunshine. "Strange," she said again, "to think that I, who only six short months ago was the quarterback of the Emanci pated Maidens' football eleven, should have lost my heart to a man whose col lar is a size and a half smaller than mine. Rut such is fate. And I love him!" Carelessly picking up a forty pound dumb-bell she tossed it out of the window and across the lot, and then sought her boudoir. Quito Satisfactory. The king of the I'elgians went out for a walk the other day, and entere . a farm to ask for a glass of miik. When he had made a remark in English to his companion, he heard the hostess say to hr husband in Flemish: "I won der what that long-nosed Englishman will give us for the milk?" Whereupon the king took out a live-franc piece mid gave it to the woman, saying in Flem ish: "Allow me to offer you the por trait of the long-nosed Englishman." Simple KoIIkíouh Service. Worship in Japan is a very simple affair. In many of the temples the chief feature isa looking-glass emblem atic of purity of souL Near it is a font of water in which the worshiper washes on entering. lie then prays before the glass, drops a few coppers into a box and rings a bell three times as he goes out. Since the mikado de i clared himself no longer divine and in . fallible Japanese skepticism has grown rapidly.