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About The Sioux County journal. (Harrison, Nebraska) 1888-1899 | View Entire Issue (June 17, 1897)
a V i4: i. I ft- 1 r WINDS THAT HINDER. RfcV. DR. TALMAGE TO THE WEARY AND DISCOURAGED. lie Give Worda of Con fort to All Wko Labor Under Adverse Circum stances, Both Pbyaical and Mental 'ihe Overburdened and Overworked. Our Waahinirtoa Pulpit. Dr. Talmage's sermon this week is one of good cheer. It will give encouragement to many struggling souls. The subject i "Contrary Winds," and the text Mat thew xiv., 24, "Tlie wind was contrary." As I well know by experience on Lake Galilee, one hour all may be calm anil the next hour the winds and waves will be so boisterous that you are in doubt as to whether you will land on the shore or on the bortom of the deep. The disciples in tne text were caught in such a stress of weather and the sails bent aud the ship plunged, for "the wind was contrary." There is in one of the European straits a place where, whichever way you sail, the winds are opposing. There are people who all their life seem sailing in the teeth of the wind. All things seem against them. It may be said of their condition as of that of the disciples in my text, "the wind was contrary." The Divine Physician. A great multitude of people are under seeming disadvantage, and I will to-day, in the swarthiest Anglo-Saxon that I can manage, treat their cases; not as a nurse counts out eight or ten dni of a prescrip tion and stirs them in a half glass of wat er, but as when a man has by a mistake taken a large amount of strychnine or pans green or belladonna, and the patient is walked rapidly round the room and shaken up until he gets wide awake Many of you have taken a large draft of the poison of discouragement, and I come out by the order of the divine Physician to rouse you out of that letbar.ry. First, many people are under the disad vantage of an unfortunate dfime given them by parents who thought they were -doing a good thing. Sometimes at the baptism of children while I have he'd up one hand in prayer I have held up the oth er hand in amazement that parents should have weighted the babe with such a dis sonant and repulsive nomenclature. I have not so much wondered that some children should cry out at the christening font as that others with such smiling face should take a title that will be the burden of their lifetime. It is outrageous to af flict children with an uudesirable name because it happened to be possessed by a parent or a rich uncle from whom favors are expected or some prominent man of the day who may end his life in disgrace. J t is no excuse, because they are Scriptnre names, to call a child Jehoinkim or Tig-lath-I'ileser. I baptized one by the name of Bathsheba! Why, under all the circum ambient heaven, any parent should want to give to a child the name of that loose creature of Scripture times I cannot im agine. I have often felt at the baptismal altar, when names were announced to me, like saying, as did the Rev. Dr. Hichards .of Morristown, X. J., when a child was handed him for baptism and the name given, "Hadn't you better call it some thing else?" Impose not upon tnat babe a name sug gestive of flippancy or meanness. There is no excuse for such assault and battery on he cradle when our language is opulent with names musical and suggestive in meaning, such as John, meaning "the gracious gift of God," or Henry, meaning j "the chief of a household," or Alfred, ; meaning "good counselor," or Joshua, meaning "God, our salvation," or Am brose, meaning "immortal," or Andrew, meaning "manly," or Esther, meaning "tar," or Abigail, meaning "grace," or Victoria, meaning "victory," or Rosalie, meaning "beautiful as a rose." or Mar garet, meaning "a pearl," or Ida, mean ing "godlike," or Clara, meaning "illus trious," or Amelia, meaning "busy," or Bertha, meaning "beautiful," and hun dred of other names just as good that are a help rather than a hindrance. ' The Family Name. But sometimes the great hindrance in life is not in the given name, but in the family name. While legislatures are will ing to lift such incubuses, there are fami lies that keep a name which mortgages all the generations with a great disadvant age. You say, "I wonder if he is any re lation to So-and-So," meaning some fam ily celebrated for crime or deception. It is a wonder to me that in all such families some gpirited young man does not rise. Baying to his brothers and sisters, "If you want to keep this nuisance or scandaliza tion of a name, I will keep it no longer than until by quickest course of law I can lough off this gangrene." The city di rectory has hundreds of names the mere pronunciation of which has been a life long obstacle If you have started life under a name which, either through ridic ulous orthography or vicious suggestion, has been an incumbrance, resolve that the next generation shall not be so weighted. It is not demeaning to change a name. Saul of Tarsus became Paul the Apostle, lladassah, "the myrtle," became Esther, "Ihe star." We have in America, and I suppose it is so in all countries, names which ought to be abolished, and can be and will be abolished for the reason that tbey are a libel and a slander. But if for any reason you are submerged either by a given name on hy a family name that you must bear, God will help you to overcome the outrage by a life consecrated to the good and useful. You may tiruse the curse from the name. Again, many people labor under the misfortune of incomplete physical equip ment. We are by our Creator so econorn loafly'Built that we cansot.afford the ob literation1 of any physical faculty. We want our two eyes, our two ears, our two bands, oar two feet, our eight fingers and two thumbs. Yet what multitudes of peo ple have but one eye, or but one foot! The ordinary casualties of! life have been quadrupled), quintupled, sextupled. aye, centupled, in our time by the civil war, and at tbe North and South a great mul titude are fighting the batUe of life with " half, or less than half, the needed physical arouiuanta. I do not wonder at the pa- tkos of a soldier during tbe iar, who, wtofi told that he must have bis band amputated, laid, "Doctor, can't you save itr and wlien told that if wa iupoMi , tic, mM. with tear rolling down hi 'rtwkaf uWa3, then, food-ky, old band. ' fist t part wkh Oft, Ton have done r4 Merka tot many yean, but it ; j r-A ft. uood-by.M a scene J -"2t of of the 3 !" the students to ) opi r,i?ed .n. Tbe ar g"on was pointing out tn: and that to"1" indents and handling the wounded ! g, arid Wus about to proceed to stipulation when the poor man leaped from the table and hobbled to the door, and said, "Gen tlemen. I am sorry to diMtjoint jmi, but by the help of God I will die uitU my leg on." What a terrific los is the loss of our physical faculties!, The w ay the battle of Crecy wi decid ed g:iit:st tLe French was by the Welsh men killing the French burses, auJ that brought their riders to the ground. And when you cripple this body, w hirh is mere ly the animal on which the soul rides, you may sometimes defeat the soul. Physical Jllo. Yet how many suffer from this physical taking off! Good chet r, my brother! God will make it up to you somehow. The grace, the sympathy of God will be more to you than anything you have lost. If God allows part of your resources to be cut off in one place, he will add it on some where else. As Augustus, the emperor, took off a day from February, making it the shortest month in the year, and added it to August, the month named after him self, so advantage! taken from one part of your nature will be added on to another. liut it is amazing how much of the world's work has been done by men of subtracted physical organization. S. S. Preston, tbe great orator of the southwest, went limp ing all his life, but there was no foot put down upon any platform of his day that resounded so far as his club foot. liee thoven was so deaf that he could not hear the crash of the orchestra rendering his oratorios. Thomas Carlyle, the dyspeptic martyr, was given the commission to drive cant out of tbe world's literature. The Ilev. Thomas Stockton of Philadelphia with one lung raised his audience nearer heaven than most ministers can raise them with two lungs. In the banks, the insurance companies, the commercial es tablishments, the reformatory associa tions, the churches, there are tens of thou sands of men and women to-day doubled up with rheumatism, or subject to tbe neuralgias, or with only fragments of limbs, the rest of which they left at Chat tanooga, or South Mountain, or the Wil derness, and they are worth more to the world and more to the church and more to God than those of us who have never so much as bad a finger joint stiffened by a felon. Put to full use all the faculties that re main and charge ou all opposing circum stances with the determination of John of Bohemia, .who was totally Wind and yet at a battle cried out, "I pray and beseech you to lead me so far into the fight that I may strike one good blow with this sword of mine." Do not think so mijch of what faculties you have lost as of what facul ties remain. V'ou have enough left to make yourself felt in three worlds, while, you help the earth and balk hell and win heaven. Arise from your discourage ments, O men and women of depleted or crippled physical faculties, and see what, by the special be!p of God,,you can ac complish! A New Outfit. And then remember that all physical disadvantages will after awhile vanish. Let those who have been rheumatisjned out of a foot, or cataraeted out of an eye, or by the perpetual roar of our cities thun dered out of an ear, look forward to the day when this old tenement house of flesh will come down and a better one shall be builded. The resurrection morning will provide you with a better outfit. Either the unstrung, wornout, blunted and crip pled organs will be so reconstructed that you will not know them, or an entire new set of eye and ears and feet will be given you. Just what k means by corruption putting on ineormption we do not know, save that it will be glory ineffable. Xo i limping in heaven, no straining of the eye sight to see things a little way off, no put- j ting of the hand behind the ear to double I the capacity of the tympanum, but facul- i ties perfect, all the keys of the instrument attuned for the sweep of the fingers of ecstasy. But until that day of resumption comes let us bear each other's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Another form of disadvantage under which many labor is lack of early educa tion. There will be no excuse for igno rance in the next generation. Free schools and illimitable opportunity of education will make ignorance a crime. I believe m compulsory education, and those parents who neglect to put their children under educational advantages have but one right left, and that is tbe penitentiary. Knt there are multitudes of men and women in midlife who have had no opportunity. Free schools had not yet been established, and vast multitudes had little or no school at all. They feel it when as Christian men they come to speak or pray in reli gious assemblies or public occasions, pa triotic, or political, or educational. They are silent because they do not feel com petent. They owe nothing to English grammar, or geography, or belles lettree. They would not know a participle from a pronoun if they met it many times a day. Many of the most successful merchants of America and men in high political places cannot write an accurate letter on any theme. They are completely dependent upon clerks and deputies and stenogra phers to make things right. I knew a literary man who in other years in this city made his fortune by writing speeches for Congressmen or fixing them up for the Congressional Record after they were delivered. The millionaire Illiteracy of this, -ountry is beyond measurement. Nov, stippos. a man finds himself in midlife without education, what is he to dot Do the best he can. The most effect ive layman in a former pastoral charge that 1 ever heard speak on religions ttJes could within five minutes of ex- 'botfUtion break ail tbe laws of English gMJinar, and if he left any law tinfrac tu4 he would complete the work of lin gual devastation in the prayer with which he followed it. But I -would rather have him pray for me if I were sick or in trou ble than any Christian man I know of, and in that church all tbe people preferred him in exhortation and prayer to all oth ers. Why? Because he was so thorough ly pious aud had such power with God he was irresistible, and as he went on in his prayer sinners repented and saints shouted for joy, and the bereaved seemed to get back their dead in celestial com panionship. And when he had stopped praying and as soon as I could wipe out of my eyes enourh tears to see tbe closing hymn I ended the meeting, fearful that some long-winded prayer meeting bore would pull us down from the seventh heaven. Opportunity. Not a word bar I to say againit accu racy of spefoti or line elocution or high mental cnltnre. Oct all those you can. Bat I da any to those who wore brought bp ia tat da, of poor school bosses sad tseraat actootaawUra and no psort- liit. : ion may have o uiiU'h ff good in )"iir soul and i much of to-avi n in your ; rttry-djy l:fe thst yu tviII be mightier ! for g.Mid than ar.y w!i went through the curriculum of Harvard or Yale or Oxford, yet i.evi r graduated in the ohool of 'hrit. Win n you g t up to the gate of bcaveu, no one will a-k you whether you can pare the first chapter of Genesis, but whether you have learned the fear of the Lord, which i the beginning of wis d m, m r w he h r y u Wn uv how to s'juaie the circle, but whether you have lived a square life in a round world. Mount Zioa Is higher than Mount Parnassus. But what other multitude there are un der other disadvautagt s! Here is a Chris tian wuiuaii whose husband thinks reli gion a sham, and while the wife prays j the children one way the husband swears ' theru another. Or here is a Christian ! man who is trying to do his best for God j aud the ( hiiri-h, and his wife holds him back and says on the way home from prayer meeting, where he gave testimony for Clirist: "What a fool you made of yours.-if ! I hope hereafter you will keep still." And when he would lie benevolent ami give "( she criticises him for cot giv ing rl) cents. I must do justice and pub licly thank God that I never proposed at home to give anything for any cause of humanity or religion but the other part ner in the domesiic linn approved it. And when it seemed beyond my ability, and faith in God was neces:arv, she had three fourths the faith. But i know men who when ihey contribute to charitable objects are afraid that the wife shall find it out. What a withering curse such a woman must be to a good man! Then there are others under the great disadvantage of poverty. Who ought to get things cheapest? You say those who have little means. But they pay more. You buy coal by the toh; they buy it by the bucket. You buy flour by the barrel; they buy it by the pound. You get ap Irel cheap, because you pay eajdi; they pay dear, because they have to get trust ed. And the Bible was right when it said, "The destruction of the poor is their pov erty." Then tiiere are those who made a mis take in early life, and that overshadows all their days. "Do you not know that that man was once in prison?" is whis pered. Or, "Do you know that that man once attempted suicide?" Or, "Do you know that that man one absconded?" Or, "Do you know that that man was once discharged for dishonesty?" Per haps there was only one wrong deed in tSie man's life, and thai one act haunts tfce subsequent hajf century of his existence. Other Hindrance. Others have a mighty obstacle in their personal appearance, for which th-y are not responsible. They forget that God fashioned their features and their com plexion aud their stature, the size of their nose, and moutb, and hands, and feet, and gave them their gait aud their gen eral apiM-arance, and they forgot that much of the world's best work and Che church's best work has been done by homely people, and that Paul the ajwstle is said to have been humpbacked and bis eyesight weakened by ophthalmia, while mnny of the finest in apearance have passed their time before nattering looking glasses, or in studying killing attitudes, and in displaying the richness of ward robes not one ribbon, or vest, or sack, or glove, or button, or shoestring of which they have had bruine to earn for them selves. Others had wrong proclivities from the start. They were born wrong, and that sticks to one even after he is born again. Oh, this world is an overburdened world, an overworked world! It is an awfuUy tired world. It is a dreadfully unfortu nate world. Scientists are trying to find out tbe cause of these earthquakes in all lands, cisatlantic and transatlantic. But what about the moral woes of the world that have racked all nations, and for COM years science proposes nothing but knowl edge, and many people who know the most are the most oncomforted? A Cheering Voice. In the way of practical relief for all dis advantages and all woes, the onJy voice tfhat is worth listening to on tliia subject is the voice of Christianity, which is the voice of Almighty God. Whether I have mentioned tlie particular disadvantage under which you labor or not, I distinctly declare, in the name of my God, that there is a way out and a way up for all of you. You cannot be any worse off than tJiat Christian young woman who was in tbe J'etnbcTton mills when they fell une years ago, and from under the faUen tim bers he was heard singing, "I am going home to die no more." Take good courage from ohat Bible, all of whose promises are for those in bad predicament. There are better duys for yon, either on earth or in b-aven. I put my hand under your chin and lift your face into tlie light of the coining dawn. Have Gxl on your side, and tiien you have for reserve troops all the armies of heaven, the smallest company of which is 'Jl.'XiO chariots and the smallest brigade 144,(XK), the lightnings of heaven their drawn sword. Tbe voices of your adver saries, human and sat a trie, shall be cov ered with confusion, while you shall be not only conqueror, but more than con queror, through that grace which has so often made the fallen helmet of an over thrown antagonist the footstool of a Christian victory. Short Keruons. Conscience. Lrirth'u neatest truge dy U the tragedy of tte who have fallem from Integrity and virtue, an stars fall out of Hie ale. A (drip nwjr lom; It wills iijmI nuldor, but If It retail IU cornpflMH it yet ir4iy reach tbe har bor. But In life all la lost when man Uwwn hl conscience. Iter. Dr. HIllU, Iwleiend'!it, ClilcAgn, 111. GovcriHiKrtit. If tto Htflto should nt BUtne iwUeriin rnlat.k.n toward Ha citi zen tbe result would be that it would six mi 1 liNiked uMu as a gigantic nurse, who.woiikl linve the mniMigctiicitLt and direction of every thing. All energy, by which wealth Is acquire! and art ami lndutttrW advanced, would be deaden ed, flJkd joclety would noon la.pc Into a tate of Iwrliarlwn. Ilev. B, M. Palmer, rrcabytcrbui, Nw Origins, La. UnftktUod Iiflbor. New maHilHery la more and more enabling unskilled labor to re-place UIh1 labor. In a Califor nia, city teat winter I waa told that tbree-fdnmha of the men were out of work. I hope it wa an exaggerate. I wa told In Kaii Franc-laco by an em ployer of labor that he could get any jmonM of labor be wWhod by tm&oy ta men who wero wtiliog to work. Kr. W. D. P. tSm, CpteconallaaV Co fTHE OTHER BOX. A well broiiglit-up by learns at a very curly age that practical Jokes are dangerous tilings. Soinctiiiies be learns It at Iris mother's knee, sometimes on bis father's-face down, otherwise he receives physical demonstration from a bigjrer lxy. From which It would appear that the youngsters gazetted to the Irrepressi bles were not well brought up. At all events, they had the reputation of be 1ns the most rowdy crew in the army list. Now. in India, a reputation is only gained by lieim; deserved. And It was !u a bill-station that the -'(mlterns of the Irrepressibles reached the loftiest pinnacle of their folly. The affair was hushed up afterward, for the honor of the regiment, as such things should be. The Irrepressibles were unlucky hi their quarters that year. They were fixed ou the plains at a time when there was nothing to do. no game, no society, no anything. In a case like that they were thrown back on themselves, aud the result wns unfortunate. Men's tem pers beau to give way under the strain, and. from the commanding officer down to the smallest boy capable of lieating a drum, there was not one who did not curse the hour he was born at least seven times a day. The trouble came. It all arose out of the Junior Subaltern going out fishing one day, or out of the fact that he caught nothing. Coming back, bow ever, he must needs run across a cobra, which, with bis usual foolhardiness, he duly forked and transferred alive and wriggling into his creel. Thence, ou arrival at quarters, it was removed to a perforated box and tenderly fed. Two of the subalterns began to de velop a most astonishing degree of ha tred tbe one for the other. They were two men sufficiently alike In character and capabilities to !e either the firmest of friends or the bitterest of enemies. As a matter of choice they were the latter. Jealousy was at the bottom of the trouble, no doubt. In the natural order of things, this little feeling didn't make life any the pleusauter for the rest. At first it was treated as n wel come diversion, and for a time the oth er youngsters used to take an artistic pleasure' in fanning the quarrel, fore most luring the Junior Subaltern. What was originally a variation of the monotony of life, however, soon came to be a nuisance, and the Irrepres sibles tiegan to feel very sick. Then they got to wishing that one or loth of the men wonld die. This ia not a nice sentiment to entertain toward any man, especially If he is a brother-officer. But, most of all, each of the men wished that the other would go out, and this waa even worse. At last matters came to a head. The two subalterns had a regular row one night after mess. They would have come to blows If It hadn't been for the Interference of the older men. There were eix men present, all aubalterna except one, and it would have been bet ter If they had let tbe two fight It out then aud there. Probably tbe difficulty might have been nettled finally. But peace waa patched up for about three days, and then. tbey broke out worse tliao ever, and said things that half a century ago would have led to pistols next morning. In the meantime, th Junior Subaltern and four other imps of mischief bad matured a plan by which they hoped to fix up the matter once for all. And in this plan, natural ly enougb, the snake took some part It was a grim enough practical joke at the bent, and they ought to have pos sessed more sense between the five of them than to think of such a thing. The idea was nothing more or less than to propose to the two men to spend a night together, and with the cobra, in a disused room In quarters. They were to lie locked In and left to settle the matter among themselves during the night, and In the morning the rest of the party would release the survivors, If any. Of course there was no thought, even for a moment, of let ting loose the corba In that way, but, as the Junior Subaltern said: "It won't do them any harm to think It out, and perhaps with reflection will come an increase of wisdom." While the two men were still In the heat of anger, the Junior Subaltern pro pounded to them his idea of settling their difficulty by means of the snake. The affair being thus decided, a dis used room was chosen as the scene of (he ordeal, and was hastily cleared of what furniture was in it This being done, the two men, who had not changed color during the wene, were stationed at opposite corners of the room, propjM'd up In sitting positlous, with a clear space between them of something like fifteen feet All preliminaries having lieen ar ranged, the lioy brought In the fatal ls)X and deposited It In the center of the room, lii!irli a manner that the lid should open sideways. Here again his ingenuity came into play. It was ob vious that the box must le opened when all except tbe principals were outside the door. Luckily, the box had a sliding lid, and the Junior Subaltern was able to arrange it so that, by at taching a piece of string, any one standing outside the door would baable to slide back tbe lid 'and so release the presumed occupant of the box. During all these arrangement, tbe Ave conspirator bad felt very serious. Tbey bejfan io rJIlt that It was rather a grin Jom tkgjr wen bavMg. and It Is probable that the two men who weren't behind the scenes, who each 'doubted whether he might be alive In the morning, were less nervous. But then they, were still very angry, and hadn't had time yet to think out all the details. At. last all t.'ie arrangements hnd beeti settled with due exactness. The Junior Subaltern had been an uncon scionable time at work. It Is probable that he was getting very sick of his hoax, and would have been glad enough to show it up If anyone had given him the lead. After all. he knew that there was an ugly side to the farce, and as his first lavish enthusiasm dh-d away he wanted to throw the thing up. But no one helped him out of it, and for very shame he could scarcely give him self away. Besides, the two principals wouldn't have thanked him. Nothing more remained to be done. There was solemn enough leave-taking on all sides as the five youngsters filed out of the room and locked the 'J'-w, leaving the two men In their corners and the box In the center of the room. For a moment or two the five stood In silence out In the passage, the Junior Subaltern holding the end of the string and shaking like an aspen leaf with suppressed excitement Then he gave it a sharp tug, and they could hear the box-lid sliding back until It dropped to the floor with a slight smack. It was a bushed and rather conscience-stricken band that dispersed to the various rooms in quarters, and the hours of that night hung heavily. It is a fact that the five youngsters did not average an hour ofrieep between them. This was proved by the alacrity with which they all .turned out at the first break of dawn, and assembled, shiver ing and drawn-looking and haggard, ready to go and release their voluntary prisoners. They were. In fact so disturbed that they took no notice of the Senior Cap tain, who, for some reason best known to himself, had turned out too, and fol lowed them as they trod softly along to the door of the disused room. He was still unnoticed as they reached it, and there made a marked halt; and his curiosity to see their little game pre vented him from announcing himself. They stood for a moment In breathless silence, showing a strange, sudden dis inclination to stir. Then, as was the case the night !e fore. the Junior Sulmltern fook the lead. There was a faint murmur as be turned the key In the lock and stepped tioldly into the room the rest following in a crowd. The Senior Captain stood for a moment outside, wondering and trying to make out what It all meant But a sudden, stifled cry caused him to step quickly after them. He was a man who had been In sev eral actions. He had seen men killed under all sorts of ghastly circum stances, ne had commanded burial parties sent out ofter the Afghan wo men had been at their devilish work, and had seen sights that, hardened as he was, had made him feel sick and full of horror. But those scenes were In no way comparable with what met his eyes as he entered tbe room lx-hind his juniors. The two men were no longer proppinl np in the position In which they had been left Their swollen, distorted bodies were huddled on the floor in at titudes that showed the awful manner In which they had met their doom. But the figures, almost grotesque In the contortion which had attended the last death agony, were as nothing. In each case the face was upturned, livid, with distended cheeks nnd crack ed skin, with flecks of blood oozing from mouth and nose, and with eyes widely oen and a fear and horror in them past oil description. It was not so much the physical agony ns the ex pression of terror In the fixed faces that rendered these corpses so dreadful to contemplate. Yet the two men, while' alive, were as brave, with all their faults, as any men should be, As he looked In, the Captain was glued to the ground by the nameless horror of that death-stare. He seemed forgetful of his companions, of where he was, all bis faculties concentrated on the two huddled masses on the floor. A ghastly Incident aroused him. Tbe Junior Subaltern burst into a laugh, faint at first and then swelling Into pt-al after peal of uproarious mirth. ' "Ha! ha!" he shouted, reeling from foot to foot ad holding his shaking sides. "Look at them! Don't they sham well? Aren't they first-rate ac tors?" Tbe Senior Captain stopjied up to trim, and laid a hand roughly on bis shoulder. Then the lioy turned, and they could all see In his eyes that he was mad. But the touch had quieted him. "They act beautifully, don't they?" he whispered confidentially to his senior officer, "I wonder when they first found out the Joke." "What do you mean?" asked the other, soothingly. "Menu?" the maniac replied. "Why, don't you see? I had two Isixes Just alike, and I put the empty Imx In here. The snake Is still In tny own room. It seemed something like a grim con tradiction that, almost at the sim mo mct,' a flat, sitcctacled head reared Itaelf under one of the bodies, and t wo baleful eyea surveyed the swe-struck froup. gsn Francisco Argonaut CAPIU31NG rtN LAOLi. A V ii ii T- u I : r I ' i m-rM for a t In t nnthrrti -1 riiio-ii. lu M. .; -iiobn. Wol 'o't I Clear p.-ard wrii.-s of "M-ses: A Tame Ka g!e." one of bis pets w Irile he was en gaged in i ii'Uiectl:ii in southern Ari zoiu. Mr. B. aid gives the followim,' ai-c iimt of its e-'pture; 1 s:iw ou 'lie rounded top of one of the gmsit caeti with which these des erts are thickly"' studded an eagle the like of which, though familiar with the fow ls of that region. I had never before seen: and I may here add that we nev er did with any certainly discover thu species to which she belonged. I rode lieur to get a better view, but she de sired no c loser tieqiiaititance; for, after unfolding her wings once or twice in a hesitating sort of manner as I ap proached, she finally spread them and (lew heavily away, a couple of pistol shots from the wagon having only the effect of Increasing her sjieed. The cac tus ou which she had been resting was a very f.rr sample of the largest varb ety in the world of that Interesting plant. Of thp thickness of a man's body, It rose straight from the ground, a beautiful fluted column of vivid ap pie-green, to a height of twenty-live feet, where a cluster of branches near ly as thick as the parent stem grew out from It and turned upward, while the main trunk, without a ls-nd,. roso several feet higher. Between two of these branches and the trunk there was built a nest of good-sized sticks, alxiut twice as large' as a bushel basket; ami on this my eyes happened to be resting when the nolso of the shots brought nliove Its edge a little head covered with grayish-yellow fuzz, out, of which peered two big round eyes with an air of anxious inquiry. In that desert country, far from rail ways and towns, we led rather dull lives; so the several pets we possessed in the big Jiermanent camp miles away served In no small measure to amuse us; and to these we wished to add our young friend of the cactus. But how to get hira down was a problem. Somebody suggested that a volun teer climb the cactus, but no one thrust himself forward to do so. The Spanish name by which it Is known Is Snjuarro, which, put luto English, means "that which scratches;" and as the spines which thickly cover the outer edges of the ridges are from one to four Inches long, and as sharp as needles, It will le seen that the name gives a good idea of that plant. , We did not like to put it down, fot fear the fall might injure the fledgling", but after some debate no is'tter method presented itself, so tlie town axuien set to work. As the first blows made tht green shaft tremble, the head appeared once more, trying, with an expression of concern, to s-e what was going on below; but this the thick sides of the nest prevented. Then It looked at m nnd said, ".lark!" This was the first remark "Moses" ever made to us, and there wns no time for more then; foi the axes hud eaten through the pulpy mass, which now liegan to bend to Hi fall. As the nest tilted we could sec the thick body belonging to the head, with two big claws clutching wildly, while the weak, featherless wings flapped niudly in an instinctive effort to support their owner. The coctus came down with a crash, and running up we looked for our bird; but only a little gray down was visible, with one leg helplessly extended from under a big branch which, broken by, the shock, had fallen across aud almost bid him. We feared he was killed; but, when, by means of an ax-bead booked around the prickly stuff, It was pulled aside, he gatherexl himself together, quite unhurt, and then, surveying the strange beings who surrounded him, made up his mind to them with that philosophy we later learned to be on? of his traits, and opening his great mouth to its fullest extent, hinted that he was hungry and wanted something to eat lie Wanted Little. lU-preseutttUve Ellis, of Oregon, had an amusing visitor at the Capitol the other day. A young man from Eastern Ohio called to see the Representative, and after sending In a picturesque lit tle card managed to corner Mr. Ellis In the lobby, says the Washington Star. "What can I do for you to-day?" snid Mr. Ellis, smilingly. ' Mr. Ellis," KJild he, "I've cutiie a good distance to see yon ami ask a small favor; my family Is well con nected In Ohio; we are friends of MaJ. McKinley and personally acquainted with Mr. Hanua," proceeded the young man, with a serious air about him, which aroused Mr. Ellis' curiosity. "Now, I thought that as 1 am anxious to go to Oregon to begin building up my own fortunes I would ask for a helping hand." "I will help you all I can," said Mr. Ellis. "Well," said the Ohioan, "I thought perhaps you would recommend me for the post mastership ot either Portland or Astoria, which ore In your dlsjrtct as a starter. I think I could make out, with such a start." Mr. Kills' mouth opened at least two Inches, his eyes watered, ho put hi ha mis across Iris head In a bridge fash Ion and looked at the young innn for fully five minutes without uttering a syllable, so great was his amazement, and the young man walked off won dering at Mr. Ellis silence; Mr. Ellis' district contains but two postmsstershlpH of great prominence In the Stale, and they are Portland and Astoria, and the scramble of Ida con stituents after the places Js something terrific when there Is n vacancy at either; in fad, coupled with the Ohlo an's request was more than he cotild staiid, and he was too duinfounded to talk. Truth may be stranger than Qctiou but a lie sells better. ' t. f I &c-