-s
SOME MYSTERIES OF RANK.
Complicated System oC Our Kngliah
CouHinn Makes Trouble.
An African explorer tells of a tribe
tft met whose members determine' !
rorldly rank according to avoirdupois.
ic heaviest savage was cbief of the
jtribc , the next fattest was first lieu
tenant , and so on. As soon as a mem-
pcr gained in weight over tbe neighbor
z&ext above bim in rank he advanced
one step in authority. Wealtb , looks ,
personal popularity , capacity , were not
taken into consideration when deter
mining the standing of members of
die tribe.
It is a pity our English cousins
could not adopt some sucb simple
method of determining rank , for their
{ present scheme is so complicated tbat
jjthey themselves have difficulty in un
derstanding it , while to the stranger
jwitbin tbe gates its technicalities are
absolutely bewildering , says Robert
ebster Jones in tbe Housekeeper.
r instance , we are told tbat at a
{ recent public dinner in London one
( hour was spent in arranging the diners
in ante-prandial procession according
fco rank.
The general rule prescribes tbat the
&rmy and navy shall have first place ,
then tbe law , tbe church , medicine ,
' "gentlemen" not engaged in any pro
fession and , lastly , those In "trade. "
jln tbe latter class , however , it appears
{ that wholesalers are considered more
" 'respectable" than retailers , unless a
tctailer happens to be a knight or a
ibaronet , which sometimes occurs , when
{ he takes precedence over his business
associates who are mere commoners.
But not even all lawyers , it seems ,
iire "gentlemen. " The question arose
{ luring a recent case at law , and it was
decided tbat while "barristers" are
"gentlemen , " "solicitors" are not enti-
jtled to that distinction. According to
( English custom , a young man wbo baa
gust been called to the bar is many
{ steps bigber in tbe social scale than
fhis father wbo is a millionaire wbole-
isale grocer. >
1 In addition to tbe few instances
teited , there are a wbole host of specla
-exceptions founded on birth , education
imd other conditions tbat make tbe
{ English scheme of social precedence a
perplexing stud3r for those wbo desire
bo aristocracy in tbis country , though
Smaginative persons have endeavorec
to create one of wealth.
Horror of Needless IVoine.
It is the needlessness of most noisea
hat renders them insufferable. You
Ieep very well through the roar of a
wintry storm , but if some one has for
.gotten to fasten a blind , and it begins
"to bang , then you are lost ; you might
as well get up and locate that blind
.and fasten it first as last The man !
fold noises of your steamer's plunge
through the night , with tha perpetual
wash of the sea , unite in a lullaby to
which the worst conscience sinks into
repose ; but a snorer breaking from
rthe next stateroom recalls the memory
of all one's sins. The rush and leap
and incessant but varied grind and
* dang of the sleeping car become sooth
'ing at last , but a radiator , beginning
, to fizz and click after the steam has
; fceen turned off , seems to leave the
t would-be sleeper no resource but suicide
, -cide ; if you could get at the second
engineer , and leave him weltering in
his gore , you could snatch a few cat
. .naps before morning ; but you cannot
iget at the second engineer after mid
night in most hotels. Continuous
aoises and necessary noises are things
_ you can adjust senses or your spirits
to ; but the noise without a reason ,
'without an apparent right , like the
tnawing of a rat in the wainscot , is
-what drives so many to perdition. W
15. Howells , in Harper's.
Disastrous Failure.
The stocky , red haired man with the
Cfalway whiskers had been run in on a
-charge of too much conviviality and boisterous -
terous conduct.
"Bprisoner , " said Police Justice
Wachenheimer , "vot is your name ? "
"Me same , y'r anner , " answered the
.prisoner . , "is Gottlieb Louderschlagel. "
"Dot's a lie ! " exclaimed his honor. "I
gif you sigsty days in de vorkhouse. "
Chicago Tribune.
Fatal Fault.
"She's really too young to go shop
ping alone.
"Yes , she is rather impressionable. "
"Impressionable ? I don't see "
"I mean she's liable to get excited
end buy something. " Philadelphia
Press.
POSTUM CEREAL CO. , LTD.
Guarantee on Their Products.
We warrant and guarantee tbat
all packages of Postuin Cereal , Grape-
Nuts and Elijah's Manna hereafter sold
by any jobber or retailer , comply wltb
tbe provisions of the National Pure
Food Law , and are not and shall not be
a adulterated or "luibrnnd d witbin tbe
\ aaeaning oi said Act of Congress ap
proved June 80 , 190(5 ( , and entitled , "An
aelfv.for preventing the manufacture ,
sale ( transportation of adulterated or
mis-branded or poisonous or deleteri
ous fioodsy drugs , medicines , liquors ,
and for regulating traffic therein for
other purposes. "
POSTUM CEREAL Co. , LTD.
C. W. Post , Chairman ,
Battle Creek , Mich.
Dec. 12 , 190G.
Subscribed and sworn to before me
this 15th day of December , .idOU.
BENJAMIN F. xlEiD ,
Notary Public.
'My ' commission expires July 1 , 1907.
„ * - , Our goods are pure , they always bave
V i Seen and always will be , they are not
jnais-bcanded. We bave always since the
beginning of our business , printed a
truthful statement on the package of
the ingredients contained therein and
we stand back of every package.
THE BEAI SANTA tJLATJS DT THE EfOKTBWEST.
? v § $ x % §
iSS S
. \ . * . . _ _ * N
-nushnell
J
Cincinnati Post.
BURN BARNS FOR FUEL.
Many Dakota Farmers Have Worthing
Left lint Their Homes.
All the world now knows of the dis
tressing privations on the fureat western
prairie just passed through by tue ambi
tious settlers owing to the coal and fuel
famine , but few realize the utter destitu
tion caused by the need for fuel.
There have been many times in history
when people were forced to burn treas
ures to keep warm , but never before on
the prairie has fuel been so scarce. One
hundred and fifty miles southwest of
Fargo , N. D. , is a settlement of Russian
farmers who have recently come to the
State. When the coal question came up
and the railroads could not supply fuel
there was nothing for them to do but to
chop up their outbuildings for fuel to
cook with. The question of kfeepSng a
steady fire for heating purposes was at
an end.
One family named Roustoff , which came
to the State in the spring , had no fuel
in the house nor oil for lamps. The sta
ble was used for cooking purposes and
the other outbuildings followed. The
horses and the cattle were turned loose
to seek shelter on the prairie and to be
victims to any blizzard that might over
take them. Then the platform around the
pump was made into fuel , then the wag
on boxes and later the wheels.
Everything about the farm except what
was needed about the house to keep caat
the cold was sacrificed to keep the kitch
en stove burning long enough to cook the
bPef and make the coffee. The family are
well after the awful ordeal. They say
it is worse than in Russia , for there they
have plenty of fuel.
At Granthom , a small town , the fuel
shortage was as bad. Two families mov
ed into one house and chopped up the
other house for fuel. One day a train
went through and forty men attacked the
crew , but found extra locks on the coal
cars and the coal of poor quality , so let
the train proceed. A man named Wall-
dran traded a load of wood for thr&e
horses. At Renning several families
burned bushel after bushel of oats and
said that it held fire like coal.
The farmers had plenty of money and
went to the stores and purchased suffi
cient supplies of canned and dried fish
and fruit , so that with what the house
wives had in store the question of food
we.s not a serious one. The cold weather
wi.s the most difficult to endure. Many
settlers and old farmers hauled out the
old hay burners which were in vogua
nyiny years ago and used the long wild
grass in their barn yard stacks for fual.
This did good service.
One of the luckiest things connected
with the coal famine was the fine wesrther.
While it was very cold through South
and North Dakota , there were no storms.
Had a blizzard swept over the country
while the scarcity of fuel was at its
height there would have been a great loss
of human life and of live stock.
Real estate men fear a fall in Ulnd
prices owing to the fuel situation this
winter. They claim that inasmuch as the
railroads have been unable to haul coal
to them and the grain from them there
will be a much greater shortage of cars in
the year to come unless something is done
to relieve the congestion. No one can
devise a plan.
In South Dakota the great elevators
are overflowing with wheat and corn and
other grains are being stored away on
the farm in the best way possible. The
stock is the only thing the farmers and
ranchmen are able to move. This pro
vides them with plenty of money , but
money cannot buy coal.
In the western part of North Dakotf.
are many hundreds of people who went
there last summer to secure cheap landtt.
They went with small amounts of money
and spent it in getting as much land as
they could. They built insufficient house ? ,
to keep out the cold , and thus when the
cold snap came and the coal and wood
ran out the suffering was intense.
Flywheel to Steady a Ship.
Octo Schlick , the noted marine engi
neer of Hamburg , now- proposes that a
heavy wheel he mounted on a vertical
axis , so as to prevent the rolling of the
ship , acting on the principle of the gyro
scope.
The Ohio's Record Voyage.
The new battleship Ohio , which waa
constructed by the Union iron works of
San Francisco and which has been a flag
ship of the naval forces in the far East ,
arrived at New York Dec. 2 , having
sailed 50,000 miles without straining a
rivet Her coming is pursuant to the
policy of withdrawing battleships from
cho Asiatic squadron.
Ten buildings in the heart of Ware-
mm , Mass. , were destroyed by fire , with a
088 Of $100,000.
TO MAKE SWAMPS USEFUL.
"Under Proposed Plan They Wonld
Blossom as the Rose.
An effort will be made during the pres
ent session of Congress to commit the
federal government to the policy of drain
ing swamp lands all over the country and
Senator Flint of California will be one
of its leaders. The Senator has pre
pared a bill providing for the drainage
of all swamp lands under the auspices
of government engineers.
The measure provides for the creation
of a fund for conducting the drainage
operations on the installment plan , Con
gress to appropriate a million or two
dollars every year until the sum of $10-
000,000 or $20,000,000 is on hand. As
land is reclaimed from a submerged or
partially submerged condition , the bill
will provide for its sale , and the proceeds
therefrom will be converted into the
drainage fund.
This is similar to the plan under
which the national reclamation or irri
gation law operates. The vastness of the
project involved in the Flint bill can be
understood when it is stated that the
total area of swamp lands in the United
States is roughly 75,000,000 acres , or
about 120.000 square miles. This is over
half as large as the whole German em
pire and greater than the area of most
States in the Union.
Virginia and New Jersey contain a
large part of the total in the Dismal
swamp and the Hoboken flats. There is
some swamp land in New England , but
less than elsewhere , on account of the
generally hilly character of the ground.
Michigan contains nearly 0,000,000 'acres
of swamp lands , Minnesota contains
more than that.
There are about 4.000.000 acres in the
Sacramento valley , California , alone. The
estimated area of the Everglades swamp
in Florida is 7,000,000 acres.
Poultney Bigelow , the man whose criti
cism of canal methods was assailed by
both President Roosevelt and Secretary
Taft , now comments on the President's
message that it will be time enough for
him to answer its misleading statements
when the President can find a single resi
dent of the canal zone who does not smile
at his report.
Mayor Weaver of Philadelphia , on the
witness stand in the city's $5,000,000 fil
tration suit case against the McNichol-
Mack contracts , told how Israel Durham ,
the former Republican boss of the city ,
had dictated the appointment of Director
of Public Works Costello and other im
portant acts , including the raising of the
salary of John W. Hill , filtration chief.
An organization has just been formed
in New Jersey to be known as the Pee
ple's Lobby. It is composed in indepen
dent Republicans and Democrats , and will
mve branches in every county. Its pur
pose will be the collection and dissemi
nation of information regarding legisla
tion and the attitude of members of the
legislature so as to secure the widest pos
sible publicity as to legislation.
State Comptroller Berry of Pennsyl
vania has refused to approve the bills
of J. H. Sanderson and Joseph M. Hus
ton on account of furnishing equipment
and professional services for the new capitol -
itol to the aggregate amount of $158-
000 , notwithstanding that Gov. Penny-
packer and Gen. Snyder constituted a
majority of the hoard of public grounds
and buildings and voted for the payment.
Mr. Berry said he would not O. K. them
unless compelled to do so by the courts ,
and this was expected to force the whole
question of capital graft into the courts.
A mass meeting at Cooper Union , New
Fork , adopted resolutions urging the pas
sage of the Lodge resolution by the Sen-
ite. Dr. H. Grattan-Guiness , acting di
rector of the regions beyond the mission-
iry union , said it was impossible to dupli
cate the horrors of that country.
The completed canvass of the vote in
New York State at the recent election
jives Hughes a plurality of 57,973 and
Chandler a plurality of 5,442. Hearst ran
29,360 behind his ticket in New York
State and 31,824 behind in New York
Uity , but carried the metropolis fay 77.-
,0dd Happening's
of the Year 19o6
HE first month of the
ycar 190G came in witb
I00 * that Kentucky
deacons are made oi
much the same stuff as
Kentucky colonels. Two
of them bad an argu
ment as to John D.
Rockefeller's fitness foi
heaven , deciding the
matter with shotgun's.
The finding seems to
have been averse to the
future chances of the
oil magnate , as the
churchman who upheld
him got two charges of
buckshot in the breast.
June brought news from Des Moines
that some highwaymen had returned to
James Morgan , their victim of the night
before , three teeth they had "uninten
tionally" knocked out. They thoughtfully
suggested a plate setting.
And , with 1900 just dying , the White
Hall Republican reports : "Harry Page ,
the well-known theatrical manager , is at
home with sore feet. "
So the months of 190G have run.
Tombstone Tales. .
In Germany , too , the year opened oddly.
One Schmeid had had carved upon his
deceased wife's tombstone some frigid
words to the effect that she had died of
unscrupulous treatment ; thereupon libel
suits followed , and the widower went to
jail for fourteen days.
In Manila , Pedro Conception , admit
tedly the meanest man in the islands ,
stole his mother-in-law's tombstone and
pawned it ; and down in Owensboro ,
Ky. , a certain Mr. J. Q. Haynes has ad
vertised space for sale on the back of
the monumental stone which marks his
father's last resting place.
An actual sale of burial memorials was
held in September in Breslau. A "ring"
of undertakers had been formed to bear
prices , but a speculative outsider insist
ed on playing bull and the local troops
had to be called in to quiet the resultant
hard feeling.
Just Love.
A Chicago woman , who had prayed for
a husband fifteen fruitless years before a
plaster saint , presumably interested in
such matters , disgusted at last , threw the
Idol from the window. That did the busi
ness. When the man with the broken
head opened his eyes , it was to gaze into
those of the unwilling spinster , then play
ing nurse and the wedding followed.
One lover has cabled his proposal to
New York from Bueuos Ayres , and an
other , over in London , took advantage of
his dentist's trade to send in his heart-
deep proposition neatly engraved on the
plate of a set of false teeth. Both won
o-ut.
out.At
At Lynchburg. Md. , were married a
couple who had found a new use for old
love letters. The high contracting par
ties knelt upon white satin pillows stuff
ed to crackling with their amatory epis
tles.
Slovr lint Sure.
Letters of another sort have figured in
/he news of the twelvemonth , for Elisha
Hawes of Stoughton , Mass. , has received
( in his ninety-third .year ) one written to
him during the Civil War , by his boy ,
then at the front ; while another missive ,
mailed in Boston in 1SSS , never reached
its object in Grauville , N. Y. , till last
September.
Up in Biddeford , Me. , an honest farm
er had a dream reminding him that he
owed a neighbor a dollar. Both had for
gotten it , but , having figured that the
loan was of twenty-six years' standing ,
it was formally closed up.
Donald Burns , keeper of the hirdhouse
in the New York Zoo , took a serpent's
tooth from his right thumb. That was
last October but the original bite , which
had presented the man with the sharp
little memento , bore date of 1SS7 , and
was inflicted on the left forefinger.
A London magistrate has discharged a
man and his wife charged with conspir
acy , on the ground that they were legally
one person , and one person could not
conspire.
A Chicago physician was found guilty
of robbery , inasmuch as he had diag
nosed a certain case in a way afterward
proved wrong. The jury regarded his
fee as distinctly obtained under false
nretenses , and the M. D. had to give back
$10.At
At Bloomington , 111. , "Cap" Ijairs has
sued the estate * of a dead friend for $9.-
000 , alleging his services were worth
that , since , for three years before the
death of the deceased , he had told him
funny stories every day. Public opinion
seems to be that any man who could do
that sort of thing so long , and himself
survive , is worth whatever ne asks. *
Another glimpse of legal methods has
come across from Alsace. The mayor of
the town was caught picking the pockets
of a prisoner , and was "sent up" for a
month.
Wilmington has produced the champion
thirteen story. Francis E. Davis , with
thirteen letters in his name , was arrest
ed by Patrolman Francis G. Green
( ditto ) , at 10:13 on Jan. 13. the call go
ing in from box 13. At 9:13 next day
he was arraigned before Edwin R. Cochran -
ran ( thirteen letters again ) and his fine
and costs totaled at exactly $13.
Miss Margaret Schidu of Cleveland , on
Aug. 23 , sent invitations to twenty-three
friends to attend her twenty-third birth
day party , Sept. 23 , at 23 East Twenty-
third street. An orchestra of twenty-
three pieces discoursed exactly twenty-
three sweet dances from behind twenty-
three palms.
The other hoodoo digits came up twice
In April ; once when a Baltimore darky
was arrested for stealing thirteen chick
ens ; again at St. Louis , where a baseball
"fan" fell dead of heart disease during
the thirteenth inning of the St. Louis-
Pittsburg game.
Chicago and Kansas City give two of
the best of the year's hard liquor yarns.
In one case three saloonkeepers were
fined $7,500 , to be paid the orphans of a
man .who had died of drink ; and , in the
other , a certain Selby Jones was sentenc
ed to fjet drunk and gts so. Poor Jones
was later arrested in Chicago for steal
ing , in order to raise the wherewithal to
carry out the Kansas City sentence.
Kansas also reports a Boone county
cider well , where a farmer has stored his
apple juice in a cemented pit.
London ( England ) is responsible for
this : The armchair of a confirmed tip
pler , used at a "psychometric lec'ture , "
made tipsy every one who sat in it. The
signs of drinking continued upon four
"subjects , " till the chair was burned ,
when they at once sobered up.
The Old Folks.
The annual bridegrooms of an age past
expecting just that of them , were Isaac
Lloyd of Liverpool , who , at ninety , was
wed to a widow of sixty , in March ;
while , a month earlier , Jcacon French of
Nashua , N. H. , at eighty-eight , married
a spinster of seventy-six.
"The seventies" have even more to tell.
In Jauuary , Andrew Lansair of Toledo
began cutting another set of teeth ; in
February a Le Sueur ( Minn. ) matron
painted her entire house ; in October
Frank Bookwalter , returning to his boy
hood home in Attica , had the doorstep
lifted that he might find a dime he had
lost down the crack as a boy of five. He
found it. And each of these was just
three score years and ien.
The note of pathos , which so often
sounds with age , came from Middletown ,
N. Y. , in April. Matthew SmedeS , aged
70 , could no longer resist the call of the
fields. He took to the plow again and
was found dead in the first furrow he
had cut ; died in harness , as he had
wished to die !
Bahes and Divorces.
The divorce mill seems to have record
ed a new "farthest north. " A Seattle
judge separated an even dozen couples in
seventy-five minutes , in February , one
formerly fond husband receiving the
boon for which he prayed because his wife
has become a Shakeress , and another be
cause his better half had circulated a
report that he was an anarchist.
Mrs. Lorenz , on the other hand , re
ceived a divorce in Cincinnati on the
plausible ground that it was difficult to
live peacefully with a man who insisted
on appearing in the parlor with neither
shoes nor stockings.
Des Moines produced , in May , a baby
who changed in color three times a day.
When little Eli Rami awakes he is a
proper pink. By noon he is dark gin
ger in hue and before bedtime is startlingly -
lingly pale. But then he is the son of a
Hindoo father and an Illinois mother.
In August the "Hello lady" on the line
between Meredith and Wolfboro , N. H. ,
voice of two-hour-old sub
heard the a - -
%
scriber. The news of his arrival in the
world came first , and then his infantile
indorsement traveled across Lake Winni-
pesaukee. '
Stranger than Fiction.
That a laborer should discover gold-
bearing quartz in New York's Broadway
( March ) that a house out in Butte ,
while being moved , should rim away and
kill a team of horses ( September ) that
a Danbury ( Conn. ) young lady should
lose a locket while skating , only to find it
next week in the ice in the family refrig
erator these are odd enough. But odder
are two tales which the year has brought
from across the Atlantic.
In the one from Italy the story is
that four merrymakers , running away
in the hills near Lake Como , broke
through the parapet on the edge of the
road only to land right-side up in a high
tree just below , no one being worse than
frightened.
In the other Well , Australia may
claim something near the record ! At
some amateur theatricals , near Victoria ,
n January , two people in the stalls , when
ever the heroine was kissed , kissed each
other loudly. The man of this couple
was husband to the stage heroine , and this
was his way of reproving behavior across
the footlights to which he was distinctly
opposed.
Weird Wills.
When the late Michael Davitt be
queathed to all his friends "kind thoughts ,
to my enemies the fullest possible forgive
ness and to Ireland my undying prayer
'or her absolute freedom , " he yet did not
leave the strangest will of the twelve
months' probate.
Mrs. Christina Hoch of Brooklyn will
ed the ashes of her body , when cremated ,
is fertilizer for a rose bush on her son's
grave ; Mrs. Isabel Kreamer , at West
minster ( England ) , left her corli leg to
the parish poor warden , and a woman of
Florence , Italy , bequeathed $3,500 to the
staff of a local newspaper "in gratitude
for having been so often entertaiced by
their writings. "
Alphouse Strauss , one of London's mill
ionaire merchants , dying last May. dis
posed of an estate of $1,481,103 in just
ftrty-three words nearly $35,000 a
word ; while January brought sudden
wealth to a poor French girl , who at
tended the sale of a great aunt's effects
: o buy in some trifling memento of her.
The only bidder for a shabby oM book
of devotions she found between its leaves
T. will bestowing upon her the entire
property , valued at $80,000.
life's kittle Ironies.
If this last was the brighter side of
those little ironies which Jife shows the
vorld each year , the darker side appeared
o a sleep-talking farmer of Sibley , Iowa ,
ile had committed a murder two years
igo , but had never been suspected. Con
fessing the crime while asleep , he was
irrested , repeated his confession in court ,
and was duly sentenced.
In Milwaukee ( February ) one Harry
Marteas , playing ghost to frighten some
negroes , fell downstairs in the dark
ind became a ghost ! And a fellow named
Durenne , living near Quebec , in the be-
ief that the rope by which a suicide has
mnged himself will bring a later owner
uck , stole such a rope , only to fall to
lis death the next minute through the
rotten flooring of the belfry.
Was it nos ironical , too , that a mere
jragment of the handwriting of the Eng-
ish poet Chatterton should have sold
[ October ) for $155 , and that in the un
fortunate versifyer's native town of Bris
tel , where he died of starvation In his
seventeenth year ?
Europe has had many an odd tale to
tell since January was here. Antrim
has produced a man beside whom Pooh-
Bah was a laborer of very single aim. For
this busy Irishman is land steward , pier
overseer , port payclerk , game keeper , min
ing superintendent , bog bailiff , auctioneer ,
real estate agent , supervisor of shipping
and the manager of a private business be
sides.
Colored rain in the shape of millions
of tiny red , green and yellow insects fell
at Angers , France , in March , while ia
Nantes a young fellow , Gautier by name ,
has murdered his stepfather that his mili-
tarj sei vice might be a year shorter ,
through his being "the only son of a
widow. "
At one of London's West End clubs a
match game of billiards was played by
two men , one clad in full armer , save for
his hands , which were incased in the
heaviest woolen gauntlets , and the other
dressed as usual , but wearing boxing
gloves. Wool mitten won after a hard
fight.
Coincidence and Paradox.
Two other all-but-unbelievable transat
lantic tales tell of a New Zealand horse
race , which was won by a one-eyed mare ,
ridden by n one-eyed jockey , the two
weighing-room clerks also having only
two eyes between them ; and , of a Paris-
an June wedding when the twin brothers
2harteon married the twin' sisters Voisse ,
twin cousins ( male and female ) acting as
best man and maids of honor.
In New York , during a February
masked ball , there was a panic and many
casualties , all because the ( cotton. ) snow
man of the grand march had suddenly
caught fire.
The Gentler Sex.
In Colusa county , California , Miss
Florence Barker ran against her father
for school trustee and won out , in spite
of the fact that he was standing to suc
ceed himself. She did it because she had
heard he was going to oust a-teacher who
was her girlhood's intimate.
Word came out of Bavaria of three
mothers-in-law living happily under thereof
roof of the common son-in-law. More
than this , each mother-in-law had her
own mother , while the host had his , his
wife ( number three ! ) and four daugh
ters twelve of the gentler sex to one
mere man !
Pulpit and Platform.
Buttons sewn on a silk ground formed
a scrollwork sold at a recent church fair
in Montreal , Canada. It was the work
of the clergyman's wife , who thus con
verted into useful cash the buttons con
tributed to her husband's offertory bas
kets.
kets.Hoke
Hoke Smith , speaking at Atlanta in
September , was enthusiastically hugged
by Policeman T. J. Williams. The latter
was then hauled before his commission
ers for "taking an interest in politics. "
The Philadelphia Westminster reports
that a New York firm offers to fit out any
church with small mirrors 'set in the pew
backs to enable feminine worshipers to
see if their hats are on straight during
prayer time.
The Kansas cotton crop having shown
a surplus , agricultural papers of the
State are urging that shirts be made an
inch longer by law. That , they say ,
would increase the demand for cotton just
enough "to make things come out even. "
WINTERING IN EUROPE.
Heavy Exodus of Americans Expect
ed liy Steamship Companies.
Steamship people predict a marked in
crease in ocean travel this winter. Money
i.- more plentiful than ever before , and
the state of general prosperity augurs
well for increased investments in foreign
travel. Americans already have earned
the reputation of being the greatest tour
ists in the world. The "pace , " as it is ,
known , of modern American life is so
swift that nervous collapses are of com
mon occurrence. In these cases a change
of air and scenery is the first requirement ,
and if the patient's means allow a trip to
Europe or a cruise in the Mediterranean
or the West Indies is usually the physi
cian's first command. The balmy air of
more restful southern countries is a wel
come relief from the sharp winter climate
of American cities. Aside from those in
search of more healthful climes is that
large body of Americans who are aware
of the educational advantages of foreign
travel. Each year the number of students ;
and scholars , young and old , embarking
from the New York port in search of for
eign culture and experience grows larger.
The March of Industry.
Slaughte-ing and meat packing is the
chief indu.stry of the United States. But
lumber saw mills and timber camps give
employment to the greatest number of.
workers , and the flour mill stands first
with the greatest gain in the value of
products. So says the last report of the ?
census bureau. In the last four and a
half years the increase Til 7be gross valuer
of our manufacturers has been as great
as the increase for the preceding ten. In
our factory system there were more than
two hundred thousand establishments. If
all factory workmen , officials and clerks
distributed each establish-
were evenly , - :
nent would have thirty persons on their
payroll , and if values vrere evenly dis
tributed each factory or mill would turn.
ouC product of a gross value of $75,000.
Out of the whole number of establish
ments about 10 per cent controlled about
SO per cent of the business. Moreover ,
of this 10 per cent about ? ,000 establish
ments , or only 1 per cent of the grand
total , put out a product valued at 38 per
cent of tbe total product value of our in
dustries. This 1 per cent employed 25
per cent of all the wage earners. New
York , Pennsylvania , Illinois and Massachusetts - ;
chusetts , arranged in their proper order ,
contribute 30 per cent of all establish
ments , empioy 45 per cent of the workers ,
and turn out about half the value of our
national manufactured products.
Chemist Creates Vegetable * .
Prof. d'ArsOiival exhibited before the
Academy of Sciences at Paris recently-
artificial vegetables , which he had produc
ed by the methods of Prof. Leduc of the
Nantes medical college. The method ia
to form tiny seeds from one part sul
phate of copper and two parts glucose ,
which are thoa deposited in a gelatine
bouillon , tovhich is added a little ferro-
cyanide of potassium and sea salt. The
sed develops into plants resembling sea
weed and other marine growth. They
appear to have the same properties as the
plants they resemble , being influenced ,
similarly by heat and light.