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Title: Harper's Round Table, January 12, 1897

Author: Various

Release date: October 4, 2019 [eBook #60423]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Annie R. McGuire


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARPER'S ROUND TABLE, JANUARY 12, 1897 ***




Produced by Annie R. McGuire








[Illustration: HARPER'S ROUND TABLE]

Copyright, 1897, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All Rights Reserved.

       *       *       *       *       *

PUBLISHED WEEKLY. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, JANUARY 12, 1897. FIVE CENTS A
COPY.

VOL. XVIII.--NO. 898. TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.

       *       *       *       *       *




[Illustration]

FAMOUS CAVALRY CHARGES.

BY RICHARD BARRY.


COOKE'S CAVALRY AT GAINES'S MILL.

It was a strange fact that those in authority at Washington and those in
charge of the immediate conduct of the Union armies in the field did not
early in the war recognize the immense importance of a well-organized
cavalry.

The idea that cavalry should be used merely as an auxiliary arm of the
service was held by General Scott, and those who immediately followed
him in command seem to have held the same opinion.

The small bodies of troopers of both the regular and volunteer branches
of the mounted service were attached to various isolated army corps.
Their duties consisted mainly in taking the places of orderly
messengers, doing patrol duty, and acting as advance outposts. Their
duties were onerous, and were not calculated to bring them much chance
for glory or advancement. The cavalry Captains and leaders demurred
greatly against this false position, and it may be said that the lesson
that the Union Generals learned in regard to the uses of mounted troops
was gained from the experience of battle, when they had arrayed against
them the quickly moving, impetuous horsemen of Stuart and the younger
Lees.

But even before the North had developed the magnificent and well-ordered
brigades that figured so conspicuously in the latter years of the war,
there occurred not a few instances where the trooper with his pistol and
sabre distinguished himself before the enemy and under the eyes of his
countrymen. The first charge of any importance that took place before
the reform was inaugurated that gave the men in the saddles a worthy
position was at the battle of Gaines's Mill, on the 27th of June, 1862.

About the part that the cavalry played in this affair much bitter
controversy has arisen. Men whose names are well known, whose intrepid
bravery and worth have long been recognized, have taken stands upon this
question. It is not the place of an article so short as this to go into
this in detail. We have but to tell of the brave actions which occurred
that day, and to relate the facts and important happenings on the left
of the line of battle, where the small detachments of cavalry that made
the charge were placed.

All day long the Union batteries and the Confederate batteries had been
replying to one another. General Fitz John Porter had estimated that the
forces under his command were greatly overmatched. Early in the day he
had determined upon a battle of resistance, and made up his mind to hold
the enemy in check if possible. A long line of infantry that stretched
along the swampy bottom-lands and woody ravines were hardly enough to
guard and support the artillery which had been placed in positions more
or less exposed on the crests of the hills and the vantage spots south
of the Chickahominy. This river divided the Union army, making it almost
impossible to send re-enforcements to the right wing or to gather it
together on the right bank.

On June 14 the Confederate General Stuart had made a dashing raid around
McClellan's army. The slow-moving infantry had not had time to cut them
off.

General Porter had posted his batteries of artillery, and had been
employed all the morning in forming his lines to await the enemy's
attack. General P. St. George Cooke had been instructed to take his
position with the small body of cavalry at his disposal under the hills
in the valley of the Chickahominy. It was expected of him to support the
artillery stationed there and to guard the left flank of the long line.
The whole attitude of the Union forces, as we have said, was one of
defence. The battle opened on the left in the morning, and by two
o'clock in the afternoon had spread along the entire front. It was a
strange fact that all of the severe battles of the seven days' fight
before Richmond began after noonday.

From one o'clock until six Cooke's cavalry, consisting of two and
one-half squadrons of the Fifth Cavalry, belonging to the First Brigade;
three squadrons of volunteer lancers from Pennsylvania, under Colonel
Rush, belonging to the Second Brigade; and two skeleton squadrons of the
First United States Cavalry, under Colonel Blake, to which were added
the provost-guard under Lieutenant-Colonel Grier--had stood inactive in
a sheltered position a little to the rear of the artillery, that had not
begun firing until quite late in the afternoon.

A few minutes past six General Cooke observed that the infantry on the
left wing in front of him was giving way, and at this moment three
reserve batteries that had been silent the whole day opened fire upon
the enemy advancing through the underbrush at the bottom of the slope.
General Cooke ordered the Fifth and First Cavalry to the front, and
deployed them a little to the rear of and just filling the intervals of
the two right batteries. The Confederates had opened a hot fire of
musketry, and shells were falling all about as the men took up their
positions. Turning to Captain Whiting of the Fifth, General Cooke said,
"Captain, as soon as you see the advance-line of the enemy rising the
crest of the hill, charge at once without any further orders, to enable
the artillery to bring off their guns."

Then he instructed Colonel Blake to support the Fifth, and charge when
necessary. The three squadrons of lancers were placed on the right of
the third battery just at the moment that it was limbering up preparing
to retreat, as it was wholly unsupported. Upon the arrival of the
cavalry the artillerymen loaded their guns again and opened fire.

No sooner had General Cooke left the line of men in their short jackets
with yellow trimmings, who were sitting on their horses and sustaining
without any return the galling fire that was being poured in upon them,
than Captain Whiting rode ahead, and wheeling his horse, cried:

"Cavalry, attention! Draw sabres!"

The metallic clash of the blades ran along the eager line.

"Boys, we must charge in five minutes," said the Captain, over his
shoulder, as he stroked the neck of his big brown horse. But almost
before he had stopped speaking the bayonets of the advancing
Confederates were seen just beyond the cannon that were blazing away in
front. They were hardly fifty rods distant. Turning in the saddle,
Captain Whiting gave the order:

"Trot, march!" and as soon as the whole line had started, he shouted
"Charge!" at top voice. At once, with a wild cheer, in solid column, the
cavalry broke forward. It was the first big Union charge of the war.
There was not a man but what was determined to save those guns if
possible, and to emulate the bravery of the artillerists, who had won
for themselves long before this the names of heroes, in the North. As
they swept past the guns it was necessary for the line to deploy right
and left. As they ranged up, it was seen that at one of the pieces every
man had been shot down, and one of the troopers as he rode by noticed a
wounded man struggling by the aid of the spokes of the wheel of the gun
to gain his feet and pull the lanyard. "I'll bet he'll fire that gun,"
said the trooper to himself, and kept off to the right. That gun was
fired, and if it had not been for this trooper's quick thought it would
have swept him down as the charge cut a gap through the advance-line of
the enemy.

But now they were within striking-distance, charging an army. The sound
of the sabre strokes was heard on every hand; the smoke from the volley
that had been poured into them, mingled with the dust, in the fading
light, rendered everything obscure. Men fought through the lines and
fought back again; but the rebel onslaught was stayed, and just then,
not being able to tell friend from foe in the gloom, the Union artillery
opened up from the rear with shrapnel and canister. It fell amongst the
intermingled fighting crowd, bearing down the Union horsemen as well as
the advancing men of Hood's brave Southerners.

The remnant of the Fifth Cavalry crawled back, shattered and broken, to
the protection of the batteries on the left. It was a small and
much-misreported incident; but of the 250 men who were in action only
about 100 returned from that bloody field. Not a few were captured, but
the greatest number fell in the first few minutes of that terrible
charge. They had done their duty.

The third battery of the Second Artillery, which had been saved from
premature retreat by the appearance of the lancers, kept up its fire for
some few minutes, and then, under command of General Cooke, fell back
toward the rear, the lancers guarding it as it limbered up and
retreated. As they reached a place of safety it was found that the
enemy's advance had been stopped again at the crest of the hill, and on
looking back it was seen that a brave handful of not more than one
hundred infantrymen who had stood their ground--they were part of the
Ninth Massachusetts--were fighting there so desperately that many times
their numbers had been checked. At once the lancers and the First
Cavalry were ordered to take up the position on the left of this little
band; but unfortunately, by some misunderstanding of the orders, they
advanced close upon their rear. Just as they disappeared in the smoke, a
single squadron of the Fourth Pennsylvania, under Colonel Childs,
reported to General Cooke. Immediately they were sent to the front, and
"with a precision and bravery that would have honored veterans," the
volunteers went down the hill under a hot fire of infantry. The advance
of the enemy was checked now on the left flank of the line of battle;
but the bravely fighting infantry and the new-comers suffered from the
fire of their friends as the Fifth Cavalry had done, and turning, they
retreated in good order. The infantry retreated at the same time, and
both formed in the hollow, safe from the volleys of the enemy and the
misdirected fire of the batteries on the enshrouded hill-side.

The Pennsylvania lancers, under Colonel Rush, lost 9 officers killed,
wounded, and missing, 92 rank and file, and 128 horses. The Fifth
Cavalry lost all their officers but one.




AN ANGLING THOUGHT.

BY JIMMIEBOY.


  Each day I go a-fishing
    For bull-head or for trout;
  As long as I catch something
    I'm not at all put out.

  It may be perch or blue-fish,
    It may be mackerel,
  It may be cod or halibut--
    I like 'em all full well.

  I may not land a fish, sir,
    Save minnow or sardine;
  If I get one I'm happy
    As any boy has been.

  But I will tell a secret
    Quite close unto my soul:
  When I have gone a-fishing
    I've always had one goal,

  And that's some day to hook one
    On river, lake, or sea,
  To make a fight if I catch him,
    Or if he catches me!




THE BROTHER OF STEFANOS.

BY G. B. BURGIN.


He was a lad of fifteen, sinewy, lithe as a greyhound, with dancing blue
eyes and immensely strong shoulders. Under one arm he carried a long
gun, a game-bag slung beneath the other; his legs were encased in yellow
gaiters, and his slouch hat, with a peacock feather in the band, shaded
bronzed resolute features. "Permit me to make known myselfs," he said,
with an amiable smile, as he raised the slouch hat and disclosed a head
crisped over with short dark curls. "I am Oscar Van Heidsteyn. And you
are the good Smithsons of Constantinople, is it not so?"

I languidly admitted that I was "the good Smithsons," and looked with
interest at the picturesque crowd on Smyrna Quay as my boat pulled back
to the ship which had brought me from Constantinople. A brawny ruffian
stood beside Oscar Van Heidsteyn with a whole arsenal of weapons stuck
about his person. This was the kavasse. His mustachios protruded like
the whiskers of a truculent tomcat; but I felt reassured on noticing
that his pistols had flint-locks only, and were as harmless as pop-guns.
I was just in the convalescent stage after a sharp attack of typhoid
fever, and most of my thoughts were concentrated on getting something to
eat. No one ever would recover from typhoid if he ate all he wanted to
when beginning to reach the convalescent stage. In all the sixteen years
of my life I had never before lived in such a chronic state of
starvation.

Van Heidsteyn saw that I was very weak. At a sign from him, the kavasse
slowly unslung most of his ponderous weapons, picked me up in his arms,
and carried me, feebly kicking and expostulating, to the carriage.

"What the dickens is he treating me like a baby for?" I asked.

Van Heidsteyn wrapped the rug round me. "Oh, because you are one little
babies!" he said. "You must make yourselfs to shut ups, or you will be
ill again. Now here is the train. I will carry you into it like
leap-frogs if you prefer it."

I submitted to the indignity of being carried "like leap-frogs" into the
ramshackle train. Three-quarters of an hour after the proper time, to a
chorus of "Inshallahs" and "Mashallahs," we crawled out of the station
into the beautiful country, still fresh with spring verdure.

"Ah, that is betters!" said Van Heidsteyn, with a long breath of
enjoyment. "I cannot live in the town."

"Where did you learn your English?" I asked.

Van Heidsteyn was busily engaged in opening a parcel of chicken
sandwiches, and the odor thereof was as manna in my hungry nostrils. At
a sign from him, the kavasse again picked me up, whilst Van Heidsteyn
spread a rug on the seat of the carriage, and turned that gorgeous
functionary's silk jacket into a soft pillow for my weary head. "Now you
will feeds," said Van Heidsteyn, energetically. "Never mind my English
languages. I have read it in books; and don't gobbles. When you have
eaten, you shall have some wine and waters."

"You're awfully good," I said, shamefacedly. "I can't help being hungry
all the time. Perhaps your father didn't know how hungry I should be
when he wrote to my father asking him to let me come here to get well."

Oscar laughed. "Ah, that is betters! Now you enclose yourselfs--shut
ups," he added, explanatorily, "and I will make you comfortables."

For two hours and a half we dawdled along in an aimless leisurely sort
of way, which would have been infinitely exasperating to a man in a
hurry. But I was not in a hurry. Every now and again I had a short nap,
then another sandwich, and then a glance at the fertile valleys, not yet
parched by the heat. As we got nearer the station for Oscar Van
Heidsteyn's father's farm, I noticed the lad look to his pistols, see
that his knife moved easily in its sheath, and glance carefully out of
the carriage window.

"We will wait, my friends," he said, as the people began to stream out
of the carriages and to thank the station-master for such a prosperous
journey. (We were only two hours late; but that was partly owing to a
great man having planted his mounted servant on the line, and told him
to stop there until it suited the great man's convenience to follow. No
one dare run over the servant of a Turkish official, and so, by this
simple expedient, the Pasha caught his train without hurrying.)

"But why wait? And why are we in the last carriage?"

Oscar smiled. "Oh, I will tell you by-and-bys. Suppose there was a man
waiting in the station to stab or shoot you, wouldn't you stop here till
all the peoples had gone?"

"Of course."

"Very well, then. The station-master will come to make his salaam; then
I shall know it is all rights."

"But what is 'all rights'?"

"Ah-h! Brigand-d-d!" Oscar's rifle was at his shoulder as he leaped from
the carriage. "There is the brother of Stefanos behind the engine-sheds.
Tomasso, take care of the Effendi, and I will make the brother of
Stefanos 'gits.'"

He ran nimbly towards the engine-shed, but the man loitering there did
not wait for his coming. By the time Oscar reached the sheds the fellow
was half-way up the opposite hill. Then he stopped, flung up his long
gun, and took a deliberate shot at the lad. The peacock feather in Van
Heidsteyn's hat was cut in two, and the lad himself lay sprawling on the
ground.

Faint with horror and weakness, I tottered up against the kavasse, who
caught me in his arms with a paternal smile. When I opened my eyes,
Oscar was joyously regarding me.

"I have hit him in the shoulders," he said, modestly. "If I had not let
him fire first, for old friendship's sake, I should have killed him."

"Fire? Kill who? What does it all mean?"

"Oh, it is the brother of Stefanos, and he has sworn to kill me, because
the Greek priest did kill his brother Stefanos, and he thinks I helped.
Now we will hold you on the white pony, and you shall ride him like one
Cyclops."

Van Heidsteyn presumably meant a centaur, but I was too tired to argue
the point. He leaped into the saddle, and, with the aid of the kavasse,
hauled me up behind him. A stout strap was passed round our waists and
the ends securely buckled together. Oscar had already reloaded his
rifle. A nondescript animal, which he informed me was a splendid hound
for wild-boar (it did not look it), ran sniffing ahead on the right-hand
side of the track; and Tomasso, the kavasse, ancient matchlock in hand,
went off in advance on the left.

"W-what's all this for?" I gasped.

Oscar steadily started the old pony. "I make myselfs to sit in fronts,"
he cheerfully explained. "If the brother of Stefanos has one pot shots
at me the bullet will not go through us both, and you will be all
rights. Courage, _mon ami_! It is only two miles to my father's, and
when we get there you shall have ever so much more to eats."

It seemed to me that if the brother of Stefanos, whoever that mysterious
and bloodthirsty individual might be, succeeded in carrying out his
murderous intentions, there would not be any necessity for me to "have
ever so much more to eats." However, I was too weak to do anything
except to lean limply over Van Heidsteyn's shoulder as we splashed
through a brook and descended into the plain below.

"There are not many trees," said Van Heidsteyn, reassuringly. "We shall
soon get to my father's tchiftlik all right. Then I will tell you all
about the brother of Stefanos."

I was too tired and done up to remember much about the rest of the
journey. The brother of Stefanos might have shot us a dozen times
without disturbing me. The smooth pace of the pony gave a rhythmical
swing to my body, and I fell into a state of dreamy indifference, from
which I was roused by the animal suddenly coming to a stop. When I
looked up we were in a great yard filled with cows and excited dogs, one
of which was endeavoring to hang on to my leg.

Tomasso, driving away the dog, gently unbuckled the belt, and lifted me
off the pony in his great brawny arms. He said something musical to me
in Greek, with the cooing softness of a dove, and I felt that his
exterior had belied him. So mild and gentle mannered a man had doubtless
been endowed by nature with his fierce mustachios as a means of
protection. I was not surprised, when bedtime came, to find Tomasso
hovering round me with a sponge and hot water. He even undressed and
carried me to bed as easily as if I had been a child. Then he
benevolently tucked me up, put some biscuits in a dish by the side of
the bed, and recited a prayer to keep off the evil eye, moving about the
room the while, in spite of his huge bulk, as noiselessly as a cat.
Whenever I woke in the night, there was Tomasso sitting by the wood
fire, watching me with friendly solicitude.

"Oh yes, Tomasso is one very good old womans," said Van Heidsteyn, the
next afternoon, as we sat sipping our coffee in the quaint old garden
attached to his father's house. "His people have been with us for so
long times I cannot count. He has asked for a holiday to-day, and
borrowed my gun. Perhaps he is going to make you a present of one
wild-boar. He calls you the 'Little Yellow One,' because of your hair."

As we sat, sheltered from the heat of the sun by the branches of a big
plane-tree, the pure air put new life into my veins. At the back of the
house was a long range of hills, the haunt of the wild-boar.

"Isn't that range rather handy for sheltering brigands?" I asked Van
Heidsteyn.

He laughed. "Oh yes, but it is all the betters. Now, Little Yellow One,
before you go to sleep I will tell you about Stefanos. I expect to hear
from his brother soons, very soons."

"My father told me you had been captured by brigands and behaved very
pluckily," I said, leaning drowsily back and gazing up through the
spreading branches of the plane, the gorgeously hued anemones in the
garden beds dancing joyously as my glance returned to earth.

Oscar lit another cigarette and stretched his sinewy arms. "Oh, it was
nothings," he said, modestly. "I am fat now, nice and ploomps, but when
I have come back from the brigands, ah! I was of shadows, so thin--like
grey-hounds or Greek pigs."

He leisurely produced a photograph from his breast pocket. On a deal
table were piled the heads of several men in a ghastly heap.

"But I shall better begin at the begins," he said, quietly.

"Put that thing out of my sight immediately. Do you want to give me a
fit?" I shouted. "You are ruining the remains of my nervous system."

"Ah, but then I cannot explains," said Oscar. "You see, I was in the
entrails of the steam-ploughs, and somethings tickles me. When I come
out of the bowels of the ploughs there was Stefanos the brigand, and his
brother, and his uncles, and three nephews, and some friends. (Stefanos
always went about _en famille_.) 'Ohé, my little mans,' said Stefanos,
'you must come with me for some ransoms.' I did not want to go for some
ransoms. I have the steam-ploughs to put rights. I said to Stefanos, 'Go
away, you and your ransoms--_pezziwinkbashi_ (it is a very strong
Turkish words)! but he would not go away. He puts a pistol to my ear,
and so did the rest. 'Oh yes, you will comes, my little mans.' And so,"
ingenuously added Oscar, "I comes."

"And then?"

"The villagers come round with some screams. Stefanos (he was such a
nice mans, Stefanos. That is Stefanos, with the hole in his fronts," and
he pointed to the photograph) "puts his gun to the backs of my necks.
'Tell the villagers to go away.' I tell them to go away. When you have
guns down the smalls of your backs you are very anxious to do what you
are said," continued Oscar. "They shakes their fists at the brigands,
but I am marched off to the mountains, and we are soon great friends."

"Friends?"

"Yes, friends! If some ransoms not come they threaten to send my father
small bits of me to make him not forgets. First my ears and my fingers
and my toes; and then, if no ransoms, my trunks."

"You don't mean portmanteaus?" I interrupted. "Do you mean to say they'd
cut off your limbs and send your body home?"

"Yes, of course," said Oscar. "I mean my trunks--my chests, my bellies.
We wander about all night and steal sheeps for food. In the daytime we
sleeps or sing Greek songs, and I dance on a big stone till they call me
their brother."

"Did you never--eh--wash?" I asked.

Oscar mournfully shook his head. "What for? It was no goods."

I shuddered, but thought it well not to ask for further details.

"One day I did write a letter to my father," said Oscar. "Stefanos was a
little angry; for the soldiers come after us, and he has much exercise
with me in the mountains. 'My dear father,' I write, 'send me one big
Bibles and seventeen pairs of leather trousers. The Bibles is for my
soul; one trousers is for my body; and the others two each for my
friends. If some ransoms do not come in one weeks I shall be all in
little pieces. Take care of my dogs, and do not blame Stefanos, for it
is all businesses.' And the trousers and the Bibles and some ransoms
comes all in one heap. Stefanos embraces me; I kiss all the others; they
take me to the plains, and I find myself running homes. Then one old
woman sees me far off. She screams. Another old woman sees me. She
screams. Another old woman sees me. She screams. Whilst I did run home
the air was full of old womans and screams," continued Oscar,
meditatively. "And when I get to the ford, the old womans they all kiss
me. That was very painfuls; I do not like to kiss old womans. The old
womans takes me by the legs and the arms and the trunks to carry me over
the ford and up the hill, and whenever I tried to get downs they did
kiss me, so I did not try much more. Oh, it was very terribles, and I
had never so much before been kissed by anybodies. They take me home,
and my father comes to the door and he say, 'Welcome, my sons, which is
some more alives.' And more old womans kiss me, and I embrace my father,
and they asked me where the soldiers could find Stefanos and his brother
and his uncles and his nephews, but I would not tells."

"Why?"

"He was my friends," said Oscar, indignantly. "That is why. It was all
businesses, like some other businesses. Ah, those soldiers! Cowards!
Assassins!"

"What did they do?"

"Oh, it was very painfuls," said Oscar, with regretful melancholy. "Very
painfuls!"

"What was?"

"It was very painfuls. For three months the soldiers did hunt poor
Stefanos and his brother, and killed all the others. One day I was
sitting on a divan after shooting boars, and the Greek priest of the
village and his friends came in with the head of Stefanos in a bundle.
The brother of Stefanos had escaped. The Greek priest wore a purple
robe, which was some presents from the Governor of Smyrna."

"Well?"

"Oh, there is nothing more. They all sit round the floor, and I say,
'Who is this?' The Greek priest, he say: 'Effendi, I am a great man, a
very great man. I killed Stefanos.'

"They say: 'This is a great man, a very great man. He killed Stefanos.'

"The Greek priest say: 'I went up the hill in the heat of the sun, and
Stefanos sleeps himself in the vineyard. I took my gun, my very great
gun, and crept close to Stefanos.'

"They say, 'He took his gun, his very great gun, and crept close to
Stefanos.'

"'I put the muzzle to his ear, but he did not wake.'

"They say, 'He put the muzzle to his ear, but he did not wake.'

"'I shut my eyes and pull the triggers, for I am a great man, a very
brave man.'

"They say, 'He shut his eyes and pulled the triggers, for he is a great,
a very great man.'

"And that was the end of poor Stefanos. I did give the Greek priest some
kicks," said Oscar, reminiscently. "Oh yes, many kicks, but they did not
bring back poor Stefanos."

As Van Heidsteyn kicked an imaginary Greek priest, two shots rang out
almost simultaneously, and a bullet buried itself harmlessly in the
trunk of the tree.

"Sit still," said Van Heidsteyn, with a nonchalance I was far from
feeling. "Sit still, unless you are afraid, O Little Yellow One. Tomasso
will be here directly."

[Illustration: PRESENTLY TOMASSO APPEARED CARRYING A BUNDLE IN A
HANDKERCHIEF.]

Presently Tomasso appeared from the shelter of some out-buildings,
carrying a bundle in a handkerchief. The handkerchief was carelessly
tied up at the corners, and held something round. Tomasso came up to Van
Heidsteyn, made the customary salutation, and with his usual placid
smile, laid the bundle on the ground before us.

"Open the bundles, Little Yellow One," said Van Heidsteyn.

I did so, and out rolled the bleeding head of a man.

"Now we can go without any more pot shots. I will make a photographs of
him to put with the others. It is the brother of Stefanos," said Van
Heidsteyn, complacently rolling a cigarette.




THE MIDDLETON BOWL.

BY ELLEN DOUGLAS DELAND.


CHAPTER I.

"It is shocking--positively shocking!"

The five Misses Middleton crowded about the window, if ladies so
punctilious, so precise, so ceremonious as were the five Misses
Middleton could be said to crowd.

"See her now, running as fast as any one of those boys," said Miss
Middleton the eldest.

"And without her hat!" said Miss Joanna, settling her spectacles.

"And her hair streaming!" added Miss Dorcas, as she clutched her
knitting-needles.

"And--and--I hardly like to say it, but, my dear sisters, do you notice
how she--well, how she thrusts out her feet?" murmured Miss Melissa,
with a look of embarrassment.

"But how happy she looks!" said Miss Thomasine, though in so low a voice
that it almost seemed as if she must be hoping that her sisters would
not hear her. But they did, and immediately they turned upon her in a
body.

"Thomasine, I am astonished! In the first place, you cannot possibly
tell whether she looks happy or not, and in the second place--" But no
one ever heard what came in the second place, for Miss Middleton's
sentence was broken short by an exclamation of added horror from her
four sisters.

"Oh, she has fallen down!"

A profound silence while they all looked.

"There, she is up again! Oh, my dear sisters, she is going to start
again! What shall we do with her, and why did this come upon us?"

The four elder Misses Middleton sank again into their chairs. Miss
Thomasine remained at the window until the subject of their remarks had
disappeared among the trees at the farther end of the lawn. Then she too
resumed her seat.

"Something must be done," said Miss Joanna, for at least the eleventh
time that morning.

The five Misses Middleton lived in Alden, in a large old-fashioned house
on the outskirts of the town. Here their grandfather had bought an
extensive tract of land and had built a stately mansion in the days when
rooms were made of spacious breadth and depth and ceilings were lofty.
The town at that time was busy and bustling enough. A large number of
the inhabitants were seafaring men, and not only commanded their ships,
but owned them too, and foreign vessels touching at the port brought
much stir of life and commerce, now long since passed away.

Old Captain Middleton sailed many a voyage in his own good ships, and
brought home not only plenty of money, but treasures from China and
Japan, and even from India. Among other things there was a quaintly
shaped yellow porcelain bowl decorated with odd Oriental colors, which
was made in China. It was not large, but its texture and workmanship
were exquisite, and it was said that there was no other like it in
America. In fact, there was but one other in the world, and that was in
the possession of a rich mandarin of Peking. This bowl had been
presented by old Captain Middleton to his daughter-in-law upon his son's
marriage, and it now belonged to their five daughters. It was always to
remain in the family, and it was known as the Middleton bowl.

Times had changed in Alden, as the saying is, and it was no longer a
commercial town, but a sleepy, slow-going place as far as business was
concerned. Its present inhabitants, however, most of whose ancestors had
lived there for generations, endeavored to keep up with modern life and
thought. There were reading-clubs and intellectual societies of all
sorts for the serious-minded, and balls, assemblies, and teas for the
more frivolous, but the five Misses Middleton were beyond it all. Behind
the massive stone walls which surrounded their grandfather's acres, now
their own, they lived in seclusion, as remote from outside life and
outside ideas as though they dwelt in some lonely castle in an enchanted
wood.

To be sure, they had frequent callers, for they were greatly respected
by their fellow-townspeople, and these calls were returned after the
proper interval of time had elapsed.

Into this quiet household of five maiden ladies was suddenly
precipitated a twelve-year-old niece. Their only brother, Theodore by
name, who was very much younger than themselves, had early in life left
the quiet old home in Alden, and gone to one of the large cities, where
he married and became a prosperous business man. Circumstances now
obliged him to go to South America for six or eight months, and rather
than subject their only daughter Theodora to the dangers of the climate,
Mr. and Mrs. Middleton had asked her aunts to take charge of her until
their return.

The five aunts were somewhat aghast at this proposition. Since Miss
Thomasine had given up her dolls and packed them tenderly away in the
attic many, many years ago, childhood was unknown to them, for
Theodora's home was far away, and she had never visited them before.

However, it was a girl--a boy would have been absolutely impossible--and
next to Theodore she was their nearest of kin. And Mrs. Middleton
herself had suggested a means of relief should her daughter prove to be
too much care for them.

"If you grow tired of her, or if she gives you any trouble, send her to
boarding-school. She will be happy at Miss Ford's, where I went, and I
have made every arrangement for her to go if she should be too much for
you. But I am sure no one could grow tired of my Teddy!"

At first all went well. The aunts felt so sorry for poor little Theodora
when she was left for the first time in her life without her parents
that they vied with one another in their efforts to make her happy. Miss
Thomasine unpacked her dolls and carried them carefully downstairs,
smelling strongly of camphor, and seeming to blink their round, unseeing
black eyes in the unaccustomed glare of day.

But Theodora only looked at them with a languid curiosity, spoke of
their being so "funny and old-fashioned," and then sneezed from the
fumes of the camphor, and turned away.

Miss Joanna unlocked the corner cupboard and brought out her own china
tea-set, unplayed with now these fifty years. But Theodora almost
laughed at the clumsy shape of the sugar-bowl, and then accidentally
broke it, upon which Miss Joanna locked them all up again with an air
which showed that Theodora had handled them for the last time.

Miss Melissa then produced some books, which her niece seized upon with
avidity. But she soon declared that she did not care for that kind of
story (they were some of Miss Edgeworth's tales), that Rosamond was a
perfect goose to think the purple vase was worth having. She, Theodora,
would have known better the moment she saw it. _She_ would have
discovered at once that it was filled with a purple powder, and was
really nothing but plain glass.

Had not her aunts any boys' stories? She liked them best. Upon which the
five Misses Middleton looked at one another, and mentally held up their
hands in horror and dismay. And soon, all too soon, was it discovered
that the only things which really made Theodora happy were boys and
boys' games and boys' books.

Miss Middleton herself, in the solemn conclave which took place upon the
morning when this story opens, was courageous enough to put the matter
into words.

"I verily believe," said she, "that our niece Theodora is what is called
a--a tomboy!"

"Sister!" cried they all, while four pairs of hands were uplifted and
then dropped into four silk laps; and Miss Middleton, having made this
statement, looked distinctly relieved.

"And the worst of it," said Miss Joanna, "is that I strongly suspect we
have brought it upon ourselves. In order to save ourselves the trouble
of providing entertainment for Theodora, we actually suggested--one of
us did--that she should be allowed to play with the Hoyt children."

Here she glanced severely at her sister Dorcas. Miss Dorcas made no
reply, but she looked guilty, and dropped a stitch in her knitting.

"Dorcas forgot that they were all boys, I have no doubt," said Miss
Thomasine, in her gentle voice. "We knew Ellen Hoyt when she was young,
Joanna, you remember. As gentle a girl as ever lived."

"Yes," rejoined Miss Dorcas, her courage returning when she found that
she had a champion. "It was natural that we should suppose her children
should be quiet and gentle too. I am sure I never dreamed that they were
all boys."

"It has been most disastrous," continued Miss Joanna.

"But there is one resource left," suggested Miss Melissa. "You know,
sisters, what Theodore's wife said--she spoke of it herself--I am sure
we should never have thought of it."

Miss Melissa had a vague, hurried manner which never failed to irritate
her sister Joanna, who was brisk, and in other conditions of life would
have been businesslike.

"If you mean the boarding-school plan, Melissa;" she said, "why do you
not say so in plain words? For my part, I think it would be the best
place for the child."

"Not if we can help it," pleaded Miss Thomasine. "She is our niece, you
know, and I do not like the idea of closing our doors against her."

"Thomasine, you are so extreme in your language," said Miss Middleton.
"I am sure no one dreams of closing our doors against Theodora; but if
we cannot control her, I quite agree with Joanna that it would be the
best place for her."

It was just at this point in the conversation that a startling clamor
was heard from downstairs. The ladies were sitting in the "spare
chamber" on the second floor, as they were apt to do of a morning. The
noise drew nearer. It was unmistakably a cry of mingled wrath and pain,
and it was accompanied by the sound of hurrying feet. Children's shoes
were scuffling up the old oak staircase. It sounded as if at least a
dozen pairs of feet were hurrying toward the live Misses Middleton.

The door opened with a burst, and into the room came Theodora. Blood was
streaming from her nose, tears from her eyes, and in her arms she
carried--was it? could it be? The five Misses Middleton looked, and
looked again. Their niece was bringing into their presence a dead
kitten! She was accompanied by two of her friends the Hoyt boys, but
they, dismayed by the sight of a circle of five ladies, retreated into
the hall, and peered through the crack of the half-open door. Still
another was at the foot of the stairs, not daring to come up higher.

"Theodora, what is it?" cried Miss Middleton, while Miss Melissa
shuddered and felt for her smelling-salts. She was afraid of cats, even
of dead ones.

"It's a dear little kitten, Aunt Adaline, and it is dead. It will never
breathe again. Oh, that horrible boy, that Andy Morse! I wish I had
killed _him_ dead! But I gave him a black eye, I know I did."

"A black eye! Theodora, I insist upon knowing the cause of this uproar.
And the blood! Have you been hurt?"

"Let me wash it away from your face," said Miss Thomasine; "but first,
if it is possible, Theodora, I think you had better get rid of
that--that cat."

"Poor little kitten! We are going to have a nice funeral to make up to
it for all its sufferings. And I am not really much hurt, Aunt Tom. It's
a nose-bleed, so it looks as if I were. The boy punched me right in the
nose. But I kicked and scratched him well, I can tell you."

The five aunts rose to their feet as one woman. They looked at Theodora,
and then they looked at one another. Finally they all sat down again.

"Give that animal to those boys in the hall to take away, and then give
an account of yourself," commanded Miss Middleton.

Theodora hesitated for a moment, and then she retired to the hall, where
she held a whispered conference with her waiting friends.

"As nice a box as you can find," were her last words, "and loads of
flowers. Dig it pretty deep. I'll be there as soon as I can."

Again there was the sound of clattering shoes upon the stairs, and
Theodora returned to her aunts. A maid was sent for, and the marks of
her recent conflict were washed away, to which proceedings she submitted
quietly, and then in a clean white apron she came back once more. She
closed the door into the hall at her aunts' request, and opened the
conversation at once.

"I'll tell you how it was," she said. "You see, I was playing 'I spy'
with the Hoyts, having the best time you ever heard of; and do you know,
I can run as fast as Arthur and Clem, and almost as fast as Ray! We were
playing the kind of 'I spy' where you have to hide, and then run in to
goal when It is not looking. Did you ever play that way, Aunt Tom?"

"No," murmured Miss Thomasine.

"Do not stop for such questions," said Miss Middleton; "and do not
address your aunt so disrespectfully."

"Why, I didn't mean to be disrespectful, Aunt Adaline. I call her that
because I love her, and I asked her last night, when she came to kiss me
good-night, if I might call her 'Aunt Tom,'and if she would please call
me 'Teddy' instead of hateful long Theodora, and she said I might, and
she would. Of course I shouldn't dream of calling you 'Aunt Ad,' or Aunt
Joanna 'Aunt Jo'; but Aunt Tom is different. She seems younger, and as
if she might be sort of jolly if you would only let her, so that is the
reason I asked her if she ever played that kind of 'I spy.' Of course I
don't suppose the rest of you ever played 'I spy' at all."

And she looked about upon the group with some scorn. Teddy spoke very
rapidly, so this speech did not consume much time.

"No, we never did," replied Miss Middleton, "and now we should be glad
to hear the remainder of your story."

"Oh yes, I'm going to tell you. I got away from the others somehow, and
I thought I'd reach goal by a shorter way if I climbed the stone wall
and went by the road a little way."

"Theodora!"

"What, Aunt Joanna?"

"Surely you did not climb the stone wall?"

"Why, yes; it is as easy as anything! I'm sure you could yourself, Aunt
Joanna, just in that place. You put your foot right on a stone that juts
out, and if I were there to give you a boost, you would go over as easy
as anything."

"Oh, my dear niece!" cried Miss Melissa; "I do hope, I really do hope
that your aunt Joanna-- She could not-- I am sure--"

"Melissa," exclaimed her sister, "if you think over the matter for a
moment you will realize that no power on earth could tempt me to climb
the stone wall."

"I hoped not, but--"

Awed by a wrathful glance from behind Miss Joanna's spectacles, Miss
Melissa subsided, and again sniffed her salts.

"Again I must ask you to continue," said Miss Middleton to her niece. "I
suppose you fell, which caused your nose to bleed?"

"No, I didn't. I didn't fall at all. But who do you suppose I found in
the road? That horrible Andy Morse! You know he is a great big
fellow--bigger than Ray Hoyt. You've seen him about, probably. And he
was throwing stones at that poor dear kitten." Theodora's eyes grew big,
and her words came more slowly now, and with great emphasis. "He had it
tied to a stump, and he was throwing stones at it, and the last one,
just as I came up, killed the kitten." She paused, and looked about for
sympathy. "I suppose you all feel just as I did," she said, presently.
"As if your throats were all choked up, and you couldn't speak, and your
hearts were going to fly right out of your bodies, and your heads were
going to burst. That is the way I felt, and I am sure you would have
done just as I did. I walked right up to that boy, and before he even
knew I was there, I kicked him and scratched him, and banged my fist
right in his eye. 'There, Andy Morse,' I said, 'that's what you get for
stoning a kitten! How do you like that?' And he banged back, and that's
what made my nose bleed. Then he ran off as hard as he Could. Great
coward!" she added, contemptuously. "Think of stoning a kitten and
being driven off by a girl! If there were not a commandment about
killing people, I should really be almost sorry I hadn't killed him. Why
isn't it just as wicked to kill a cat as to kill a bad boy, Aunt
Adaline?"

"I--I really cannot answer such a question, Theodora. You do not realize
what you are saying, I am sure. But you have done very wrong. I scarcely
know how to express my feelings at such conduct. I beg you will not do
so again. It was most unladylike, to say the least."

"But he was hurting that poor kitten, Aunt Adaline! How could I help it?
Don't you think I did right, Aunt Tom?" she asked, turning in despair to
her favorite aunt.

Miss Thomasine hesitated beneath the glare of eight sisterly eyes while
they awaited her reply. Theodora hoped for support, but she was
disappointed.

"No, Teddy, I do not think you did right," said her aunt. "The boy was
very cruel, I admit, and I do not wonder at your indignation; but it was
not for you to inflict pain upon a fellow-creature. I think you were as
cruel to the boy as he was to the cat. Besides, it was not the proper
thing for a lady to do. Would your mother do such a thing?"

Theodora was silent for a moment. "I don't suppose she would," she said,
presently; "and perhaps I ought not to have attacked Andy Morse the way
I did. I am not sorry yet about it, though, but perhaps I will be by
to-night. I will tell you if I am. And now may I go? They are waiting
for me to have the funeral."

"My dear Theodora, what do you mean?" exclaimed Miss Middleton.

"Why, you know what a funeral is, Aunt Adaline, don't you? We are going
to give the kitten a pleasant funeral to make up for its sad death."

"Do you think they ought?" asked Miss Middleton, looking helplessly
about upon her companions.

"It sounds very shocking, and I for one do not approve," said Miss
Joanna, with her customary decision.

"I do not like the idea," murmured Miss Dorcas.

"It seems--really, it seems--as if something ought to be done--to
correct. But I do not know--" faltered Miss Melissa.

"Suppose I go with her to the place and see what they intend to do?"
suggested Miss Thomasine.

"Do, sister!" said Miss Middleton. "It will ease my mind greatly if you
will."

So Miss Thomasine went to her room, and with much deliberation dressed
herself for a walk to the garden with her niece. She put on her head a
large sun-hat drawn down on both sides with a broad white ribbon. This
ribbon she crossed beneath her chin and tied on top of the hat, which
was unadorned with other trimming. She placed upon her shoulders a black
silk mantilla, and drew on her brown thread gloves, the fingers of which
were very long and remained empty at the tips. Then she took her
sunshade and descended the stairs, calling to her niece as she went.

[Illustration: ON THE WAY TO THE CAT'S FUNERAL.]

The door of the great drawing-room was slowly opened, and Theodora came
out. Her face was much flushed, and she held one hand concealed beneath
her apron. Together they walked out the side door and down the gravelled
path to the garden.

They had scarcely left the house before Miss Joanna went down to the
parlor to attend to her task of dusting the foreign treasures. They were
not intrusted to the house-maids, for the five sisters did it each in
turn. In a few moments she returned to the spare chamber and carefully
closed the door behind her.

"Sisters," she exclaimed, "look at this!"

She held up for their inspection a small piece of yellow Chinese
porcelain.

"This," said she, "is all that is left of the Middleton bowl."

[TO BE CONTINUED.]




A LOYAL TRAITOR.

A STORY OF THE WAR OF 1812 BETWEEN AMERICA AND ENGLAND.

BY JAMES BARNES.


CHAPTER XII.

A PRISONER OF WAR.

I suppose that a man who has been almost drowned--to the limit that all
sense leaves him, at least--has drunk as deep of death as a person can
and talk of it afterwards. With a shifting light before my eyes, a
throbbing pain in my temples, and a sickness all through me, I found
myself knowing that I was breathing once more; but I was water-logged,
and when I attempted to move, I could feel that I was filled to the
throat with some gallons of brine. All at once I doubled up with a spasm
of choking, and in a minute I felt better.

I was lying in the bow of a boat, whose motion I could feel distinctly,
but owing to the thwart being immediately over my head, I could see
nothing but a succession of sturdy legs and bare feet pushing against
the stretchers as the men rowed.

Such an attack of hiccoughs racked me that it called attention to my
having regained my senses.

"'Ullo, Bill, 'ere's another one come back from Davy Jones," said a
black-whiskered man, leaning over with his face close to mine. "He's
swallowed a bloomin' volcano, from the looks of him."

"Where am I?" I murmured.

"Wot a question!" was the answer. "This is the same old world, and full
of trouble. Did ye take us for angels and me for St. Peter?"

"Help me up," I answered.

The man bent down and hauled me out by the shoulders to a sitting
position; then I saw how it was. _Prisonnier!_ I was captured, and here
was a fine ending to the glorious life that I had been anticipating.

I suppose now that if I had spoken all my thoughts since I had left
Belair, and asked even only a few of the many questions that my
common-sense prompted me to keep to myself, I should have been
considered stark, staring mad, let alone being a simpleton. It is almost
ridiculous to look back at it and think that I did not know certainly
who was the President of the United States, or anything about the
history of the last two years. If any one had told me that the British
killed their prisoners, I should not have doubted it, and what was to
become of me I had not the least idea, but I saw that I was not alone in
the strait. Out of the crew of nineteen men that were in the long-boat,
ten, including the wounded seaman, were sitting dejectedly in the bow
and stern-sheets. Together with the Englishmen, we crowded the barge
uncomfortably, but not dangerously.

The British sailors appeared to be rather a beefy set, and they were in
high spirits over their capture. An officer, with his hair standing up
in tall curls over his forehead, sat in the stern-sheets bareheaded. He
was nursing a wounded hip carefully, and half leaning against a little
midshipman, who had his arm thrown about his shoulder.

Raising my eyes from the boat, I perceived that the frigate was drifting
with her topsail against the mast only a few hundred yards from us. I
began to feel a bitter hatred of her, and it gave me pleasure to see the
long white gashes in her sides, and to notice the effect of the gunnery
of the _Young Eagle_ plainly apparent.

"Halloa, Johnny Bull!" said some one behind me with a laugh, "I guess
you run against something, didn't you, a short while ago? Ship looks
kind of unhealthy, like a man's face with the small-pox."

I turned. It was Sutton, the foretopman, speaking. He did not appear to
be very much depressed by his surroundings, nor did he fear the result
of his impudence, to judge of his expression.

"Stow your jaw," answered one of the Englishmen. "There are worse things
than small-pox."

I noticed that the man's face was pitted deeply.

"That's so," Sutton replied; "there's the cat, for instance. I beg your
pardon for not thinking of it; I shouldn't slight an acquaintance of
yours for anything."

There was some more coarse badinage, not worth recording, and we were
under the shadow of the ship. Many faces lined her bulwarks, and a rope
being thrown to us, soon we were fending the boat off from the side.
Then a rope-ladder rattled down, and not without some difficulty those
in the bow began to clamber up.

Soon it was my turn. It was not until I reached the deck that I had any
idea of the effect of shot and splinter, but the dark stains, hastily
mopped up, had a reddish tinge that was suggestive, and the loose
running-gear that had fallen from aloft showed that Captain Temple must
have used some of the missiles condemned by the English--and here, let
me state, afterwards used by them, to which I can make oath.

As we were being hastened below many were the looks of hatred thrown at
us, and cutting taunts also in plenty. To all of these Sutton kept a
running fire of replying, in which he was ably seconded by one or two
others.

"Why, my old boiled lobster," he replied to a marine who thrust his
great face over the hatch-combing as we descended, "if I hadn't ketched
a crab, I believe we'd 'a' took you with the long-boat!"

A young officer was directing our guards where to stow us, and under his
orders we were huddled together in the fore-hold, near the cable tier,
where the only light and air that reached us came down through the
chain-hatch.

I looked about and saw that there were in our party six sailormen and
four landsmen who had been enrolled in our marine force. We presented a
sorry appearance sitting there in the dim light on a lot of spare cable,
the most uncomfortable thing to rest on that one can imagine.

What had become of the rest of us in the long-boat I did not know then,
but as I found out afterwards, I might as well tell of it here. There
had been nineteen in all when we started; seven reached the shore
safely, two were drowned--one of them, alas! the brave cockswain who had
been wounded, as I have stated. Now as there is no report of this action
to be found in the naval chronicles of Great Britain--at least I do not
know of any--it may be of interest to put down what we heard of it,
although it cannot be vouched for. From the talk we heard, I make out
that there were nine killed on board the _Acastra_ (for this was the
name of the vessel), and upwards of twenty wounded. There were two
killed on board the _Young Eagle_, and two wounded. In this, I think, I
am correct.

The groaning of the poor lad with the bloody head caused me to wonder
whether this was going to be our prison cell, or whether we were placed
there temporarily before moving to a better or a worse one. Sutton took
off his jacket, and we made Mackie, the man I had saved from drowning,
the wounded one, as comfortable as we possibly could; but it was not
long before he was wandering in his mind, and this depressed us all, for
there is nothing so apt to cut one's spirits as the watching of
suffering beyond the power of alievement.

We were sitting in silence when a voice broke upon us.

"Is there an officer down there?" it questioned. "I hear that one of you
is an officer."

"Yes," said Sutton, "there is."

Then he whispered to me, placing one hand on my shoulder, "Speak up,
lad; it will do no harm to play it so, and you may get a chance to speak
to some one higher than these hulk-scuttlers. Make a plea for Mackie, if
you can, or the boy will die down here in this rat-hole."

So I stood up on my feet, and gazing up at the circle of light through
which came the cable, I said, loudly, "What do you want of me?"

For an instant I thought that I was going to be made the victim of a
joke, as the man did not reply, but talked to some one evidently
standing over him.

"Yes, sir," he said, "there's an officer, a midshipman, I dare say, down
there with them."

In a few minutes we heard the drawing of the heavy bolts that held the
door through the bulkhead into the mid-hold, and some one said, "Let
that young man who spoke come here."

I stepped out. The door was closed behind me, and I saw it was guarded
by two marines with muskets. Stumbling over barrels and boxes, I
followed the three figures ahead of me up the ladder at an order from
one of them, and soon I found myself on the berth-deck. We were
evidently crowding on all sail, for the frigate heeled over to such an
angle that the half-ports had been closed for comfort, but the water
dashed in through several rents in her top sides. A shiver passed over
me, for the idea suddenly came that I was going to be hanged or thrown
overboard, and this was emphasized by the sight I caught of four sailors
carrying a limp dead Englishman up from the cockpit--that he had died
under the surgeon's knife was evident.

From the deck above came the sound of shouting and hurrying. The frigate
came up into the wind, that must have freshened, and swung off on the
other tack. As soon as this had occurred, I noticed that some one was
coming down the ladder near where I stood. As he stooped under a beam
and approached us, I perceived that the man was in a handsome uniform,
with great epaulets and much gilt braid.

"One of the Yankee pirates, eh?" he said, but despite the import of the
words his voice had a fine ring to it, and at one glance into his face I
saw here was a man who would stoop to no mean revenge. His light blue
eyes were almost kindly were it not for the bent brows above them; his
face was extremely handsome and well moulded.

"Are you an officer of that brig?" questioned the tall man, who I now
made out must be the Captain of the frigate.

"I am," I replied, drawing myself up, and making a salute with my elbow
at right angles and my fingers at my forehead.

With a quick glance at my position the Captain made this statement:

"An officer, eh? But _you_ are no sailor; you may be a soldier, though."

I almost faltered in my reply.

"I am instructor in cutlass drill and small arms," I said.

The Englishman half smiled at this.

"A nautical maitre d'armes?" he asked.

"Oui, monsieur," I returned.

"And speaks French in the bargain, by St. George! Well, well! What is
the name of that vessel you belonged to?"

"The _Young Eagle_."

"Privateer, eh? I thought as much."

At this he called up the ladder to the spar-deck.

"Oh, Mr. Vyse!" he said. "It was a Yankee privateer, and not the _Wasp_
or the _Hornet_, or any of their navy."

I was tempted to reply something about _stinging_, nevertheless, but I
held my tongue.

"What's your Captain's name?" was the next question.

I gave it, and the names of the three other officers, but I was
interrupted.

"Well, you can tell Captain Temple, with Captain Hilton's compliments,
that he is the most impudent and most reckless scamp unhanged," said the
tall man, quietly.

"When shall I see him, sir?" I asked.

"Lord knows. Not for some time, I judge," was the answer. Then Captain
Hilton turned. "Take him below again," he ordered to my guards.

They stepped forward, and each laid a hand on my shoulders. I pushed
them off.

"One moment, sir," I began. "There is a member of our crew badly wounded
below with us. He will surely die unless something is done for him."

As I was speaking an officer had descended the ladder from above. I had
seen the heels of his boots as he stood on the top step for some time.
He was short and thick-set, with a mottled reddish face.

"Mr. Vyse, you heard what this lad said. Pray see that this wounded man
is attended to in accordance with his hurt, and his place of confinement
changed if necessary."

"Very good, sir," the short man answered, but he had such a mean look on
his face that I took a distrust against him.

When I reached the hold again and was thrust in once more among my
companions, there was a deal of questioning.

"You should have said you were a Lieutenant," said Sutton.

"It would have made no difference with a privateer officer," put in
another seaman, Edward Brown, a Long-Islander. "They'd hang us all if
they dared; and, mark me, they won't pamper us."

I did not tell of my military salute, that was so involuntary, having
betrayed me, but of course I can see it was the reason of the Captain's
quick statement.

It was pitch-dark down in our dank, bilge-smelling hole, and long after
we stopped talking I could not fall asleep. The ridges of the cable
worked into my flesh, and the muttered complaints of the others as they
tried to make themselves comfortable and found they could not, mingled
with the light-headed ramblings of poor Mackie, and a sound suspiciously
like weeping from the corner in which lay one of the young landsmen, all
combined to add to the misery.

Mr. Vyse had failed to carry out his superior's instructions, and there
had been no one to look after the wounded man, nor had we been given so
much as a pannikin of water, and we were all suffering from thirst.

Morning came slowly down to us after an apparent year of night, and with
it some relief, for we were given something to eat and drink. Weevilly
bread, greenish salt-horse, and water that smelt unhealthy do not make a
meal that is inviting, but we ate it. After it had been passed in to us
through the entrance we heard a banging and clattering, and found they
were nailing up this mode of ingress. Our next meal was lowered to us
through the circular opening overhead. It was but a foot or so in
diameter, and thus we were bottled up, as it were, like flies in a jug.
On this day Mackie was very low, and we all thought like to die. I doubt
very much if any of us could have lived many days in that foul, close
place, but we had to stand it some time longer, and the way out of it
was like this: The third day, at about noon, we heard the stirring and
trampling of feet and the confused muttering of voices. I swarmed up the
cable until my head was close to the opening, and there I listened. They
were casting loose a gun and dealing out powder and shot--I could make
that clearly out. But now I heard the sounds of conversation close to
me.

"It's the _Constitution_," said a voice; "at least they say so up on
deck."

"Then we're in for it," was the reply. "I've heard tell, messmate, that
she's a sixty-gun ship in disguise."

"How far off is she?" was the question.

"About six miles off the larboard bow. Here, you can see her from the
port."

"What's going on up there?" asked Sutton from below.

"They say we have sighted a ship, the _Constitution_; and they're
clearing decks for action," I answered.

"The _Constitution_!" exclaimed Brown. "Then we're free men. Cheer up,
my hearties!"

Sutton's reply to this startled me so that I almost slid down the cable.
Three roaring huzzas broke from him, in which the others joined. Soon I
felt the swaying of my support, and I saw that the quarter gunner was
climbing up to me. It was a crawl of some ten feet.

"It's a good thing, Debrin, that we are below water if we get to
bandying shot, I tell you. See how she raked the _Guerrière_." Sutton
chuckled.

But we could understand nothing from the confusion of sounds, until all
at once I heard a voice I recognized speaking close to me. I knew the
tones before I caught the words. It was Captain Hilton. In whatever he
was saying I interrupted him.

[Illustration: "OH, CAPTAIN HILTON," I CRIED. "WE'VE A DYING MAN DOWN
HERE."]

"Oh, Captain Hilton," I cried, "for Heaven's sake, help us! We've a
dying man down here."

"Who's that speaking?" questioned the Captain.

"The prisoners in the chain-hold, sir." I heard the answer given in a
gruff tone, but most politely.

"That is no place for them," said Hilton, angrily, "and I thought I gave
orders--"

The rest of his speech I did not catch, for a roller hand-spike rumbled
on deck in such a way as to drown it, but I thought I detected some
expostulation from the other voice.

We slid down, Sutton and I, to the others. Mackie was conscious, but so
weak from his fever and suffering that he could not lift his head. When
we told him the news he drew a long breath.

"It's too late, messmates," he whispered. "I'm done for, I fear me."

We sat there now with courage growing, waiting to cheer at the first
gun-shot; but all was silence from above. This continued for full ten
minutes; then we heard the sound of laughter, and caught the words:

"The signal of the day, eh? I know her; it's the _Pique_."

Sutton, who had understood, struck out with both feet and arms,
muttering to himself.

"It's one of their own vessels," he cried. "Did you ever see such luck?"

But my cry for succor, heard by the English Captain, had done us good,
and that afternoon the barriers were broken down from the entrance, and
we were transferred to a more comfortable place of confinement under the
steerage bulkhead, where at least we could sleep on hard boards, and we
were given a blanket apiece.

Poor Mackie was taken to the sick-bay. It was evident that he was not
long for this world--and alas! and alas! in four days the news was
brought to us that our messmate had died; his skull had been fractured,
and the doctor wondered at his having held to life so long. He was
buried at sea, and I must say this, that Captain Hilton proved himself
to be a magnanimous, big-hearted gentleman, for we were allowed on deck,
and a passage of Scripture was read before they dropped the closed
hammock overboard into the great graveyard of the sailor.

As we went below to our cell, which was a partition of the after-hold,
as I have said, Sutton observed to me:

"We're steering to the eastward. Yes, and we'll see the inside of a
prison where men rot, if tales are true. We're bound for England, lad."

Now the time went by, and even the count of days was lost. We sang
songs, told stories, and played at draughts and other games that we
could manage in our limited room. I wish I had here space to record all
that passed. Some of the yarns spun would be worth the reading, and I
learned a great deal about the condition of affairs between America and
England, and that, as my friend Plummer said, "we had given the lion's
tail a twist, and a good one."

One of the songs that was most popular was "Hull's Victory," and a
rattling good sea song it was. I used to take the tenor, Sutton the
bass, in a way that would make the beams shake, and were it not that we
were on short allowance in the eating line we would have been quite
comfortable. Every day two of us at a time were allowed to take the air,
in charge of a marine. Sometimes it was Sutton and I who walked
together, and sometimes it was Brown or Craig, the landsman, who was my
companion. Poor Craig! His spirit appeared entirely broken. He had
behaved bravely in the long-boat, but now his lack of heart was pitiful.
He contributed little to our enjoyment, and the only person who ever
gave him a kindly word, I really think, was myself. He spoke to me often
of his home and of the sorrow it had given his mother to part with him.
I can vouch for this, that if he ever got back there, he would stay; for
all desire toward adventure and roaming was killed within him.

I have not mentioned the other seamen by name purposely, for, with the
exception of Brown and Sutton, they were an ordinary set of good and bad
who would have done well under competent leadership perhaps, but who
displayed no individuality; but they were all loyal to their flag, and
did not appear much cowed by their confinement. When I walked the deck
with Sutton I enjoyed it most. He was an old man-of-war's man, and
criticised the handling of the _Acastra_ in rather a superior manner.

Some of the foremast hands amongst the Englishmen were rather kindly
disposed toward us, and many bits of tobacco they gave out of sheer
kindheartedness to our forlorn little hand, some of whom had suffered
actually from being deprived of the stimulant.

It happened that Brown and I were walking the deck when the sound of
"land, ho!" came down from the mast-head. During the last day or so we
had sighted a number of sail, all English, but now this created some
excitement. There must have been a mist on the water that had hidden the
land as we approached it, for by the time our recreation was almost
ended we could spy it from the deck as we passed the gangway--tall white
cliffs showing above the horizon.

"That's Land's End," observed Brown, jumping up to look over the
bulwarks, for of course we were not allowed to approach near a port.
"Johnny Cutlass, my son, this voyage is over. In three hours we'll be in
the English Channel, and then for a little sojourn on board the hulks,
or maybe we'll be shipped direct to one of their land prisons, where
we'll find plenty of company, if I don't miss my reckoning; but keep up
courage--things might be worse."

We were the last to go on deck this day, but the news we brought down
with us started a great lot of talking. All showed interest but Craig,
who sat there in his usual position, with his forehead on his knees. But
a great change in our life was destined for the morrow.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]




TYPICAL ENGLISH SCHOOLS.

BY JOHN CORBIN.


ETON.

Fifty years after William of Wykeham founded Winchester, King Henry the
Sixth founded a school at Eton, a little town across the Thames from his
great palace at Windsor. The rules he drew up for governing his
"college" he copied from Wykeham; and in order to give it the best
possible start, he took one-half the college at Winchester--the head
master, five fellows, and thirty-five scholars--and settled them at
Eton. For a hundred years or so Eton was a mere daughter of Winchester;
but as centuries passed it took a different character. Its site, in the
very shadow of Windsor Castle, naturally secured for it royal favor.
George the Third and William the Fourth took a lively personal interest
in its welfare; and in late years members of the royal family, the sons
of the Duke of Connaught and the little Duke of Albany, grandchildren of
Queen Victoria, have come to Eton to prepare for the university. To-day
the school numbers over a thousand--twice as many as Winchester--and its
graduates include far more men of birth or genius than those of any
other public school. Just as Winchester raised the standard of
scholarship at Oxford, so Eton has made Oxford the university of the
English aristocracy.

[Illustration: A GROUP OF "HOUSES," THE CHAPEL IN THE DISTANCE.]

The most interesting part of the buildings are the school-rooms, which
stand to-day almost precisely as they were built. It gives you a queer
feeling to think how many boys and how many generations of boys have sat
on those benches at _Arma virumque cano_, or trying to drum the [Greek:
ho], [Greek: hê], [Greek: tó] into heads that are already overflowing
with dreams of fresh breezes on the river, and of the sound of the
cricket-ball on the playing-fields.

On the wood-work of the rooms you will find the names of the boys who
have studied here. On this post you can read H. Wesley, which, Etonians
will tell you, is the way Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, used to
write his name. Pitt carved his name twice, in modest little italics.
Charles James Fox sprawled his in bold capitals across a high rail of
the panelled wainscot. And here is Shelley. Each letter is quite
plainly, even boldly formed; and yet they all huddle together so
nervously that they seem to shrink from being seen. As you look at them,
you call to mind the courage and independence that made Shelley refuse
to be fagged, and then his pitiful plight when the fag-masters got up
"Shelley baits," and hunted him through the town;--you can almost see
his pale cheeks and his lustrous eyes. Many of these famous names stand
in a group of their school friends--a poet between a banker and a
soldier, all boys together--and among these many another, perhaps the
most popular of all the boys at school, of whom the world has never
heard. Gladstone's name is as correct as an epitaph. And so it is an
epitaph of the ancient custom of carving your own name, for since his
time you have to pay ten shillings when you leave school, and have a
carver do it for you. These carved names are still arranged in groups of
friends; and sometimes you will find a boy's name where his father and
grandfather placed theirs; but they are all as like as so many types in
a font; not one of them tells you a syllable about what kind of a boy
the owner was. It would be so much better to allow each boy a certain
space, and let him carve his own name the day he leaves.

[Illustration: THE LOWER SCHOOL, WITH CARVINGS ON SHUTTERS AND POSTS.]

Eton, like Winchester, has seventy scholars--"King's scholars," or
"collagers," as they are called--who are chosen by competitive
examination, and are supported by the funds of the foundation. Every
year four or five of these are awarded scholarships at King's College,
Cambridge, just as the best boys from Winchester go to New College,
Oxford. The rest of the boys, as at Winchester, live under the care of
masters in houses of about thirty-five boys each, scattered through the
town, and are called "oppidans." The oppidans call the collagers "tugs,"
a word which probably refers to their _togas_--that is, gowns. Not many
years ago the collagers were so poorly fed and housed, and so wretched
generally, that the phrase was "beastly tugs"; but of late this class
prejudice is dying out, and the fact that several of the collagers have
been great athletes and good fellows all round has worked wonders. One
still hears of "beastly tugs," and the prejudice against being supported
by the college is not yet dead; but one finds it mostly among the
younger boys, and even they do not feel it half so much as they pretend.

The government of the school is very like that at Winchester. The
Captain of the College has much the same duties as the Prefect of Hall,
and is aided by the other best scholars. The oppidans have also a
Captain, but he is under the Captain of the College. Besides this, the
houses have each a Captain, as the Winchester houses, have Prefects. Of
course it does not always happen that the man who leads his house in
scholarship is man enough to rule the rest; but if he is not, the
leading athletes step in and take matters into their own hands.

[Illustration: THE QUADRANGLE OF THE "COLLEGE."]

The punishment masters give for small offences is _poenas_--that is,
lines of Latin or Greek to write out. In extreme cases the head master
"swishes" a boy with a lot of birch twigs tied together. In time past
swishing seems to have been about the only means of discipline, and the
head master had a regular block for the purpose. One night a lot of old
Etonians, who had been celebrating a cricket victory, broke into the
room where the block was, and carried it off to London. There they
hired rooms and founded an Eton Block Society, to which no one could
belong who had not been swished on the block at school.

What Wykehamists call _tunding_, Etonians call _smacking_. The only
difference is that instead of standing up, the culprit sometimes has to
put his head under a table, while the Captain rushes across the room
with uplifted rod. Etonians say that though smacking sometimes draws
blood, the worst part of the punishment is the suspense of waiting
between blows with your head under the table. The offences punished by
smacking are disorder and disobedience in the house. On an average, the
head master has only half a dozen boys or so to swish each term, and the
average boy is not smacked more than a dozen times during his six years
at Eton. Many people, of course, think bodily punishment very brutal,
but I never knew a public-school boy or a master who did not approve of
it as practised nowadays. In fact, you could hardly enlist the older
boys on the side of law and order without giving them a means of
discipline which the younger boys respect; and if you didn't do this,
you would have to give up the best parts of the public schools.

The houses at Eton are clustered about the college, and look very
comfortable with their broad, ivy-covered fronts, and window-boxes
blazing with flowers. In the description of Winchester, there was so
much to say about the college that I had no room to speak of the houses;
but at Eton the houses are the more important part. Instead of large
common sleeping-rooms, the boys have each a room of his own. These are
not usually more than ten feet square, and besides a folding-bed,
bath-tub, and wash-stand, they contain not only a fireplace, to cook
meals, and a tea table, but also a study table and chair, and sometimes
a bookcase and ottoman. You wouldn't think there was much space left for
a boy to live in, to say nothing of making a racket, but there is. A
favorite joke in some of the houses is to gather all the bath-tubs in a
hall, and shove them through the transom into some poor fellow's room.
This fills the room so full that the boy who owns it has to get the
care-taker to drag out each separate bath-tub, amid vast sound and
confusion, before he can go to bed. In the winter months the boys play
football up and down the halls, using the doors at either end for goal.
This also makes enough noise. But these are not the only diversions. In
a number of rooms you will find collections of books far larger and more
wisely selected than is usual on the shelves even of American university
men.

A boy enters his house at about twelve years old. From this time on he
is carefully watched by the house-master, with a view to checking his
bad traits and developing his good ones. Most of the masters make it a
point to find out all they can about a boy from his parents, and then
carry on his training as it was begun; or if he thinks his training
unwise, to correct it. The fact that most of the troublesome details of
discipline are in the hands of the elder boys makes a master's relations
with his pupils unusually frank and affectionate. And as the masters are
always well educated, usually sensible, and often famous athletes, they
have a strong and very admirable influence. Much of all this, of course,
the boy never suspects. He simply grows to respect and like his master
without quite knowing why.

A master's best means of bringing out a boy's character is to put him in
the way of having the right sort of comrades. Sometimes the older
boys--perhaps at the master's suggestion--invite new boys to breakfast,
as second-year men at the university invite freshmen; but usually a boy
becomes acquainted with his seniors by fagging for them. His severest
duties as a fag are to cook breakfast and supper in his fag-master's
room; but in many of the houses the boys eat their meals together, so
the fags have a pretty easy time of it. In fact, altogether too much has
been said about the tyranny and brutality of fagging. Most small boys
are glad enough to be with the big boys, and a Senior who plays football
or rows well might have as many youngsters to wait on him as he chose.
Fag-masters are often the fags' best friends, and even at the
universities afterward keep a kindly eye upon them. Sometimes it happens
that a fag turns out a great cricketer or oarsman, in which case his old
fag-master is as proud of him as of a younger brother. Like as not in
after-life a country parson can look back upon the time when he fagged
the bishop of his diocese. Like tunding or smacking, fagging is at
bottom more humane than the neglect which a small boy suffers at an
American school.

The boys are kept very much together in each house by their meals and
the early hour of "lock-up"; while chapel, frequent school-hours, and
"absences"--that is, roll-calls--keep them from spending much time away
from the school. As a result the fellows in a house get to know each
other thoroughly, and to stick together like brothers. Each house has
its debating and literary society, its football and cricket teams, and
its crew. Where there is so much loyalty to the house, it is only
natural that rivalry among the houses should be keen. Ten times as many
boys go into athletic contests as in America. Altogether a house is a
miniature college, and a school a small university. Even if a boy didn't
know a soul outside of his house, he need never become lonesome, and
seldom homesick. This life in the houses is almost all the society boys
have at most public schools.

Eton, however, is so large that it supports several school societies.
The most important of these is the Eton Society, or "Pop," as it is
generally called. When Pop was founded early in the present century, its
aim was purely literary. Mr. Gladstone relates that in his time they
used to elect now and then a solid athletic man, because they believed
in encouraging sports. To-day Pop still holds debates; but it has grown
almost exclusively athletic. One of the younger masters told me that as
a boy he and a few others succeeded in electing a Captain of the College
who, though a good fellow, was not an athlete; but that to do it they
had to blackball everybody else till their man got in. Present members
say that only good athletes are elected. The clever fellows have a
society of their own, which is much what Pop was at first.

The members of Pop are mainly the cricketers who play against Winchester
and Harrow, and the boating-men who row for and often win the Ladies'
Plate at Henley. These together make, say, twenty, and eight more or so
are chosen from the fellows who "get their colors" for playing the Eton
games of football, which are so different from all other Rugby football
that they can play them only among themselves. You must not think,
however, that a man will get on Pop merely for being a great athlete. He
must be a first-rate fellow besides, and as it happens, there are always
a number of clever men and good scholars among the athletes in the
society. In a word, Pop is the best society that can be made up from the
athletic men, and is even more purely athletic than the Dickey at
Harvard or Vincent's at Oxford.

The authority Pop exercises over the school, though so peculiar as to be
difficult to describe, is enormous. It is as great, for instance, as
that of the three Senior societies at Yale, and is shown in much the
same way. Yet such revolts of public opinion as have occurred of late at
Yale, for instance, during the discussion of the undergraduate rule, are
unknown. It would be more just to compare Pop to the Yale Senior
societies at their prime--that is, before the university began to
outgrow them. The most obvious way in which Pop affects Eton life is, of
course, in matters of school discipline. Such offences as do not come
directly within the province of the Captains or the masters, Pop deals
with in no faint-hearted manner. For instance, some years ago a boy who
had gone with the Eton eleven to Winchester sent home bogus telegrams
about the match, and kept the fellows swarming about the bulletin-boards
at Eton in anxious suspense. Now there is nothing an English boy likes
better than a hoax, but not about such serious subjects. When that
youngster got back to Eton, Pop smacked him soundly--or, in the Eton
phrase, he was "Pop-caned." On another occasion, when a number of boys
had been expelled for a very serious offence which had been proved
against them, one of them made an imposing exit in a drag at an hour
when the street in front of the college was swarming with the boys.
Being a popular fellow, he was loudly cheered. For this outbreak against
the action of the masters, numbers of the elder boys were Pop-caned.

Such societies as Pop form almost the entire social life at most
American schools and universities; but in England the members never lose
loyalty for the college or house they belong to. This is the reason why
at Eton Pop has such a strong and good influence over the rest of the
school. In America, when a man gets into a leading society he is
naturally and almost inevitably drawn away from his earlier and less
fortunate friends, so that the school or university is split up into two
parts--those who are in things and those who are not. Very often, too,
as at Harvard, those who are in things are divided among themselves, so
that there is no unity of spirit. Our societies will, of course, always
exist; but their evil influence might be destroyed, and their good
influence strengthened, by forming the school into houses as soon as the
boys arrive, and the universities into something like colleges.

By this time you must have suspected that in spite of a lingering class
prejudice against the tugs, the Eton spirit is really democratic. At
Oxford and Cambridge Lord So-and-so may often find his way where plain
So-and-so could not go; but English schoolboys refuse to give way to
mere lords and earls. A tradesman once told me of the experience of the
little Earl of Blank, who used to present his card when buying things.
The other boys found it out, followed him from shop to shop, and booted
him every time he did it. "All the same," said the tradesman, "it is
awkward when a nobleman tells you his plain name, and you send the goods
to _Blank, Esq._" As often as not one gets to know a fellow pretty well
before finding out that he has a title. The little Princes of Connaught,
and even the Duke of Albany, will boil their own kettles for tea, and
perhaps even fag with the other boys. It was not only on the
playing-fields of Eton that the battle of Waterloo was won. It was in
the school-rooms and houses as well.




THE EVOLUTION OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING.

BY HERBERT LAWS WEBB.


Electrical engineering began with the telegraph, some sixty years ago.
The road for the telegraph was paved by many great experimenters and
discoverers. Under their patient and fostering care the infant showed
its first teeth, so to speak.

In 1837, when Queen Victoria was just beginning her long reign, the
telegraph began to do practical work. Cooke and Wheatstone started a
system in London, with instruments having five little needles bobbing
about, by which the signals were read. Five wires had to be strung
between the two stations, but the system was soon improved so that only
one was required. This telegraph very early in its life received a
splendid advertisement by causing the arrest of a murderer, who
otherwise might have escaped. He was travelling to London after his
crime, and expected to lose himself among the crowds of the city. But it
so happened that a trial of the telegraph was being made along the very
line of railway. His description was telegraphed to London, and he
stepped from the train into the arms of the police.

At the same time that Cooke and Wheatstone were working in England,
Morse was hard at work in America. His system was very complete and
practical, and, once he was able to give it a fair trial in public, it
was received with great enthusiasm in this country and all over the
world. The instrument that makes the furious rattling you hear in the
halls of all the hotels is Morse's instrument.

Morse's first public trial was made in 1844--fifty-three years ago.
After that telegraph lines were built up very quickly in all parts of
the world. Many clever men took up the work, and invented methods and
devices for improving the systems, and to-day the extent of the
telegraph lines of the world and the amount of work done are simply
stupendous. To give just two examples: In the early years of the
telegraph the lines were quite short, and only a few words could be
signalled in a minute. To-day a line is building from Cairo to Cape
Town, the clear length of the African continent, and there are in daily
use automatic instruments which send long press messages at the rate of
450 words a minute. In sending by hand forty words a minute is quite a
common speed.

As soon as land telegraphs were fairly started men said, why not lay
wires under the sea? Why not? So in 1850 they laid a wire under the
English Channel, from Dover to Calais. It was a very short-lived line,
because the day after it was laid a French fisherman picked it up with
his anchor, and knowing nothing about telegraphs, and caring less, cut
it in two to clear his miserable anchor. The next year they laid a
strong cable, sheathed with iron wires, proof against fishermen's
knives. That worked splendidly, and they say that parts of that same
cable are still working under the Channel. Of course it has been often
repaired and pieced out with new, but it shows what sturdy offspring an
infant can have when a submarine wire forty-five years old still does
service.

After that submarine cables were laid down between various countries.
Some of them were costly failures, because, although the men who had
taken the infant in charge had learned a great deal about its little
ways, they had not learned all the refinements necessary to success in
laying and working deep-sea ocean cables. So, in 1857, when Cyrus Field
formed his Atlantic Telegraph Company, the cable that he and his plucky
companions laid under the Atlantic failed completely of its object. But
Field and some of those with him simply would not accept defeat. So they
spent more money, laid more cables, failed again, toiled and moiled and
worked like beavers for years, until at last in 1866 they finished a
cable from Ireland to Nova Scotia that worked like a charm. It was,
without exception, the greatest piece of work ever done in electricity,
and its history is one of the finest of the many tales of engineering
enterprise.

To-day there are about a dozen cables between North America and Europe,
and three between South America and Europe. There are cables in every
sea and ocean in the world, and across every ocean except the Pacific.
In all there are more than 150,000 miles of submarine cable under the
waters of the globe, and there is a fleet of forty ships, large and
small, fitted out solely for the purpose of laying and repairing
submarine cables. Nowadays the laying of an Atlantic cable attracts no
attention, and the fishing up of a slender rope less than an inch thick
from the floor of the ocean, 12,000 or 15,000 feet down, is a thing done
a dozen times a year. In Cyrus Field's time the Atlantic cable was the
topic of the world for years, and the recovery of the broken cable was
for a long time impossible, because no machinery then made could stand
the strain.

In 1866 a telegram from New York to London took hours on the way. For
many years past the merchants of the two cities have been in the habit
of grumbling vigorously if they don't get replies to their messages
within half an hour of despatching. The result of the Derby is known in
New York before the winning horse has slacked his pace after passing the
judge's box, and it is all over the world before the proud owner has had
time to lead him back into the paddock. A cable message goes round the
world in an hour or so, and the sun gets so rattled that people hear of
events that happened to-morrow.

No sooner had the world got fairly settled down to submarine telegraphy
than the dynamo came along. Up to that time electricity had always been
procured from chemical batteries. To obtain it mechanically by moving a
coil of wire in front of a magnet was a great step in advance. The
infant was now striding along lustily. Batteries are expensive,
inconvenient, and of very small power. Once get electricity from a
machine, and there is no limit to the amount to be got. The arc-light
had been produced by means of joining many hundreds of batteries
together, but that was a brilliant experiment--there was nothing
practical or commercial about it. But with an electric machine it was
different, and once the machine was in existence the electric light was
something to think about.

[Illustration: AN ELECTRIC LIGHTING PLANT.]

The evolution of the electric motor followed, as a natural thing, from
the evolution of the dynamo, for a motor is simply a dynamo reversed. In
the dynamo you revolve the armature--as the coils that move between the
magnets are called--and the machine gives out current. In the motor you
feed current into the armature, and it revolves and gives out mechanical
power. There is a very pretty story to the effect that this action was
discovered quite by chance. In some accidental way the wires leading
from a dynamo at work were connected to another dynamo, and this second
one at once began to turn merrily round, as if by magic. However this
may be, the dynamo had been in existence for some time before any
practical work was done in sending power from place to place along a
slender wire. The electric motor, as a commercial machine, is barely ten
years old. Yet now its busy cheerful hum may be heard under thousands of
street cars in hundreds of towns. It is used to work all sorts of
machinery, from the sewing-machine and the dentist's drill (beastly
thing!) to heavy factory machines of all kinds. Ten years ago the
electric motor was in its swaddling-clothes, and was never placed out of
sight of its nurse, the dynamo. Nowadays electrical engineers think
nothing of building motors of several hundreds of horse-power, and of
placing them many miles from the dynamos that supply them with current.
In this way a factory may be run by the power of a waterfall ever so
many miles distant. The waterfall drives the dynamo, the dynamo sends
its current along wires carried on poles up hill and down dale until
they reach the motor, and the motor drives the machinery of the mill. At
Niagara Falls work of this kind will be done on a very large scale, and
many places round about will be supplied with light and power from the
huge dynamos that are to be placed there.

Perhaps the most beautiful and intelligent of this wonderful family of
"infants" was born eighteen years ago--the telephone. Even when it was
the tiniest kind of an infant, and many men, some of them quite clever
in other lines than prophesying, thought it would never be more than a
puny little creature--a sort of scientific freak--the telephone was the
most wonderful thing of the century. It did something absolutely new. It
took your voice, made an electric current of it, and turned it out at
the other end voice again, with all the little quivers and tones that
each voice has of its own. The telephone, more than any other electrical
invention, made people think that anything is possible with electricity.
It was such a marvellous performance to send the voice along a wire from
one end of a city to another, that when people became a little familiar
with it they were prepared for anything. A famous electrician once
raised a laugh at a dinner by relating in his speech that when a friend
had asked him over the telephone if he recognized his voice, he replied,
"Yes, and I can smell your cigar." But you would not be surprised if you
learned to-morrow that you could see the man at the other end of the
wire, or smell his cigar by electricity, or that a line of flying ships
between New York and London was to start skimming next week.

But it was some little time before people got familiar with the
telephone. At first they did not believe in it, though now they will
believe in anything called electrical. For some time there were few
telephones in use, and the lines were very short. Then the exchange
system was started, and telephony began to grow with leaps and bounds.
In 1874 the telephone, as the saying goes, "was not born nor thought of"
outside of the laboratory of Professor Bell. In 1894, there were 250,000
telephone subscribers in the United States. New York and Chicago each
has 10,000. The number of conversations carried on each day by means of
the telephone--well, you might almost as well try to count the grains of
sand on the sea-shore. Not only has this infant learned to talk a great
deal--and, surprising to say, it speaks all languages with equal ease,
even the hopelessly difficult ones--but it has got amazing lung power.
Its voice reaches in a moment farther than you can travel in a day. When
young, it whispered a distance of a mile or two. At six or eight years
of age it talked clearly with a couple of hundred miles between speaker
and listener. For three years or more people in Boston and New York have
talked with people in Chicago, and to-day they think nothing of that,
and want to talk to San Francisco.




[Illustration: INTERSCHOLASTIC SPORT]


The reform in interscholastic athletics in the middle West seems to be
going forward most satisfactorily. We hear fewer complaints of
semi-professionalism among the school teams, and most of these have no
foundation in fact. It seems clear now that most of the breaches of
amateur spirit that we have had to record heretofore were largely the
result of a lack of knowledge and appreciation of the strictness of the
rules which have to govern amateur sport, rather than of a desire to
defeat the ends and purposes of these regulations.

[Illustration: MADISON, WISCONSIN, HIGH-SCHOOL FOOTBALL TEAM.]

As has been chronicled in this Department, Madison High-School at one
time allowed two players on its football team to take courses at the
university while still attending school. The fact that they attended the
university at all should have disqualified these men; but the
Madisonians did not interpret the rules in that way. Now, however, they
have come to see that this sort of thing involves a principle, and that
it cannot be allowed.

The past season, therefore, so far as I am able to find out, the Madison
High-School team has been made up strictly of students of the school,
and the players have taken up football for the sport of the game, rather
than for the sake of the empty honor of a championship. This
"championship" business is getting to be very much overestimated and
exaggerated, and may eventually do much harm to sport; but this is
another subject, and we shall have to come back to that at another time.

The Madison High-School team had a uniformly successful season this
fall, although, because of its reputed strength on the gridiron, its
managers found some difficulty in securing games with other high-school
teams. The Madisonians were therefore compelled to arrange a number of
games with elevens which might not ordinarily be considered in their
class. For the second time they defeated the St. John's Military Academy
team, the only eleven which has ever defeated Madison H.-S.,--barring
the university team.

The strongest opponents they met were the Minneapolis H.-S. eleven. Five
days after this hard game they played a team which came up from Chicago,
representing the Hyde Park High-School, but I have never been able to
find out what percentage of the members of this eleven ever saw the
inside of a Hyde Park school-room. The managers and players of the team
were not above practising deception either, for some of their men played
against Madison under assumed names.

The Madison newspapers, it seems, had some fault to find with the method
of play indulged in by the Chicagoans, and accused several of them of
slugging. Full-back Trude was one of the men who received a raking over
the coals. A few days later, however, the manager of the Madison
High-School team received a letter from Mr. Trude, saying that the
charges made against him were totally false, for the very simple reason
that he was not in Madison on Thanksgiving day. Who the young man was
who masqueraded as Trude and played full-back for the Hyde Park team I
do not know.

This incident goes to show what serious results may come from what young
men at first consider as merely innocent deception--if any deception may
be considered as innocent. Many parents of Chicago school
football-players objected this year to the game, and signified their
unwillingness to have their sons take part in it. A number of these
boys, however, disregarded these wishes, and played football under
assumed names. In fact, it got to be quite a joke among Chicago
high-schools that a number of boys had two names--their real name, and
their "football" name. Of course, a few months of this sort of business
hardened the unscrupulous players, and was no doubt indirectly
responsible for the deception practised by Hyde Park upon Madison
High-School.

Four of the members of the successful Madison High-School team graduate
this year, but a good nucleus is left to start in with next fall. The
average weight of the eleven was 143 pounds, and the average age, I am
told, was 16-1/2 years. This seems very young to us in the East, where
boys remain at school until they are considerably older, or, perhaps, do
not get to school until they are more advanced in age. With teams
averaging between sixteen and seventeen years there is no necessity for
an age-limit rule, apparently; whereas in Boston and New York there is
always an altercation when the age standard has to be decided, a strong
faction regularly demanding that men of twenty-one shall be admitted to
school athletics.

My opinion is, and always has been, that no one twenty-one years of age
has any business being at school, unless he is extraordinarily stupid,
or unless illness or a weak constitution has made it impossible for him
to keep up with his studies. In either case such boys had better keep
out of athletics, except for necessary light exercise, and devote all of
their time to learning enough to get out of school with credit. All this
is aside, and I find that I am again wandering far from the Madison
High-School.

The Madisonians, to take the subject up again, did not meet any team
this fall which was not considerably heavier than their own, and it is
plain therefore that their victories were largely due to their
team-work, and, doubtless, to the agility of their ends and the
swiftness of their backs. Their eleven scored during the season 135
points to their opponents' 46.

[Illustration: GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN, HIGH-SCHOOL FOOTBALL TEAM.]

The interest in football in Michigan has increased greatly of recent
years, and this fall, out of five hundred boys attending the Grand
Rapids High-School (many of these, of course, far too young to be
allowed to play the game), fifty-two were candidates for positions on
the football team. As finally selected, the average weight of the eleven
was 149 pounds. Of nine games played eight were victories for the
High-School, the one defeat being administered by the University of
Michigan eleven.

The Detroit High-School team was likewise a strong one but, as it did
not meet the Grand Rapids H.-S. eleven, the question of State
superiority is left undecided. I hope that the lads of both schools will
come to see that this is a matter of very small moment, so long as they
have derived benefit from their sport; but unfortunately we have to face
the condition that unless one aggregation can write "championship" all
over its record, there is dissatisfaction in every camp.

[Illustration: BANGOR, MAINE, HIGH-SCHOOL FOOTBALL TEAM.]

The football season in Maine has closed in a muddle, the schedule of the
Interscholastic Association not having been properly played out, and two
or three schools are now lifting up their voices to claim that they are
the best the State ever produced. It seems to be largely a case of a
fear of defeat on the part of somebody, and a great lack of that spirit
which should prompt the young men to go out on the field and play for
the sake of playing, and not for the sake of winning the game.

Among the Hudson River teams which played good football this season was
that of the Mohegan Lake School. They closed the season with a record of
four victories and one defeat--losing to Riverview Academy,
Poughkeepsie. The success of the eleven was largely due to the good work
of Captain Kendall, who coached and looked after the eleven without the
assistance of more experienced advisers. The Mohegan team had a very
effective system of offence, but they were not strong in defensive work,
doubtless because their second eleven was too weak to afford them hard
enough practice.

[Illustration: BROOKLYN LATIN SCHOOL FOOTBALL TEAM.]

Further up the river the Albany High-School took the laurels in its
neighborhood. It won the championship of the Northeastern New York
Interscholastic Association, and was the strongest eleven the school
ever put forth. The chief feature of Albany's play was its team-work,
which proved effective against heavier opponents.

Little progress has been made by the managers of the Knickerbocker
Athletic Club Interscholastic Games, which are to be held in the Madison
Square Garden this winter. So far, at the meetings of the executives
many questions have been left undecided, and the events that are to be
contested have not even been announced. Neither is it possible to
announce as yet the names of any of the prominent athletes whom we shall
see come together there, but as soon as there are any developments we
shall take up the subject again, as this meeting will undoubtedly prove
the most important interscholastic athletic event in New York this
winter.

The skating races this year in New York are to be sanctioned by the
Interscholastic Association, although they were not so sanctioned last
year. Arrangements have already been made, and I hope to be able to deal
with the subject more fully next week. It will be remembered that last
season Morgan of De La Salle carried off all the honors. His records
were as follows: 220 yards, 23 sec.; quarter-mile, 50-1/5 sec.; 2 miles,
6 min. 36-2/5 sec. He was also a member of De La Salle's winning team in
the 1-mile relay race. This year undoubtedly there will be a greater
interest in these skating races and surely a larger number of entries,
for a number of skaters are already in training for the several events.
I believe that arrangements have been made to hold the contests at the
St. Nicholas Rink instead of at the 107th Street rink, which is no doubt
a change for the better.

The Cook County League has adopted a schedule for the in-door baseball
season as follows:

  January 9--North Division at Hyde Park.
  January 9--Austin at Lake View.
  January 9--Englewood at Evanston.
  January 16--Austin at Hyde Park.
  January 16--Lake View at Englewood.
  January 16--Evanston at North Division.
  January 23--Hyde Park at Englewood.
  January 23--Evanston at Austin.
  January 23--North Division at Lake View.
  January 30--Hyde Park at Evanston.
  January 30--Austin at North Division.
  February 3--Hyde Park at Lake View.
  February 3--Austin at Englewood.
  February 6--Englewood at North Division.
  February 6--Lake View at Evanston.
  February 13--Lake View at Austin.
  February 13--Hyde Park at North Division.
  February 13--Evanston at Englewood.
  February 20--North Division at Evanston.
  February 20--Hyde Park at Austin.
  February 20--Englewood at Lake View.
  February 27--Austin at Evanston.
  February 27--Englewood at Hyde Park.
  February 27--Lake View at North Division.
  March 6--North Division at Austin.
  March 6--Evanston at Hyde Park.
  March 13--Lake View at Hyde Park.
  March 13--Englewood at Austin.
  March 20--Evanston at Lake View.
  March 20--North Division at Englewood.

In every case the first-named team is scheduled to play against the
last-named at the home of the latter.

It was decided by the managers when they laid out this schedule that it
would not be required of the teams to play on the exact dates specified
if another, earlier, day of the same week proves more convenient. The
only stipulation is that if the managers of any two teams cannot agree
upon an earlier date they must play no later than upon the day
specified.

There is so little interest in this winter sport among the students of
English H.-S. that no team has been entered by that institution, and
South Division will prove a weak contestant on account of its lack of
facilities for the development of athletic material, there being no
gymnasium connected with the school. Englewood and Hyde Park are new
members to the League. The former's team has played some good practice
games, but the latter's has not as yet showed of what material it is
composed. Austin, the champion team of last year, has but two new men on
this year's team, so that the prospects are they will finish near the
top if they do not get the pennant. Lake View's is another strong team
that has been playing excellent ball. North Division has played several
good games, but also several poor ones, and its final make-up is
undetermined. Evanston will undoubtedly send a team that will be the
strongest ever put out by that school. From present indications the
championship seems to lie among Austin, Lake View, Englewood, and
Evanston, their chances being in the order named.

The comment upon the division of spoils in Connecticut, recently made in
these columns, has elicited a number of protests from readers in the
Nutmeg State. Most of my correspondents, however, in their arguments
have seemed to miss the main point of the evil. One argues that it is
necessary to charge admission-fees to football games because the public
interest in high-school athletics is so great in Connecticut that a
stiff admission-fee is the only barrier against a disorderly crowd. He
writes that where no charge is made a rough element lines the ropes, and
frequently creates a disturbance for which the schools are in no way
responsible, but which naturally reflects upon the management.

In support of these contentions he cites the disturbance at New Britain
a year ago, when a number of the town rowdies destroyed a Hartford
banner. If the conditions, therefore, are such that it is necessary to
make the spectators pay an entrance-fee, purely as a means of
protection, I believe by all means in retaining the box-office and the
turnstile. My suggestion to do away with the sale of tickets was offered
merely as a means to cut down the accumulation of an unnecessary
surplus, not because there is any objection to the system. On the
contrary, if the box-office keeps out the undesirable element, by all
means let the box-office remain. But the fact that a rough element
compels the Connecticut schools to charge an admission-fee to their
games has no relation to the subsequent spoliation of the treasury.

Another writer states that some of the schools in the League are unable
to raise money for athletics, and so must depend upon the Association to
help them out financially. There is no objection to this either, so long
as the money drawn from the Association is used strictly for the purpose
of promoting that branch of athletics by which the money was earned. It
is only natural that, in a League whose membership is scattered over so
broad an area, some schools should incur greater expenses than others.
For this very reason, if for no other, there should never be an equal
division of profits.

Those schools that have heavy expenses should put in their bills to the
Association's treasurer, and receive payment for their necessary
expenditures. Thus one school will need $125, perhaps, while another
will find it necessary to spend but $50. The latter should therefore
only receive from the central treasury just that amount, and not a cent
more, "to be devoted to athletics." The root of the evil is the _pro
rata_ division. Aside from any ethical question, this promotes
extravagance, and leads to a loose financial system. Money earned by
athletics should be handled most judiciously, or it will prove a very
insidious and complicating element in the economy of sport.

"FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES."--BY WALTER CAMP.--POST 8VO, PAPER, 75
CENTS.

  THE GRADUATE.




ADVERTISEMENTS.




[Illustration: ROYAL BAKING POWDER]

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ROYAL BAKING POWDER CO., NEW YORK.




QUESTIONS FOR YOUNG MEN.


ON ATHLETICS.

There was a time when the college man who joined an athletic team felt
that he must train hard for a month or two before his great match came
off, and that then his duty to his college and his team ended, and he
could go out of training until the next season. "Training" then meant a
somewhat barbarous plan of eating half-cooked meats, drinking limited
quantities of water, taking physical exercise almost all day long, and
doing little else. Since those days we have all discovered that training
consists in eating normal food that is well cooked and taken at regular
times of the day, going to bed at night by nine or ten o'clock, and
rising to half past seven or eight o'clock breakfast. That part of the
matter has been pretty well settled, but perhaps the most important
defect in the old training system has not been corrected, though every
one will acknowledge that it is a defect the moment he thinks it over.
This is the absurd idea that you can get ready for a big athletic game
in one or two months. A very long time ago it was discovered that if you
want to do anything well you must practise at it day by day for many
more months than can be crowded into one year. Nobody ever made a great
success at anything by working night and day for a month or two. And it
is precisely the same with baseball or rowing or football as it is with
studies or law or the ministry.

You may have been eating all sorts of things during the summer, sitting
up late at night, and getting up late in the morning. Do you fancy that
on the 1st of October you can begin an entirely new life, and make a
good football-player of yourself by Thanksgiving day? Not by any means.
If you want to be the member of some college athletic team, begin before
you get to college. Begin by eating carefully, not by eating food fit
for wild animals, but by eating good meats, and so on, and not filling
up on candies and sweets day after day at meals and between meals. There
is a reason for this. A man whose stomach is weak has no courage, and if
he has no courage he carries himself through a game on his nerves, and
is completely exhausted at the end of that game. No one can give himself
a strong, vigorous digestion in one month, nor in one year if he is at
all weak there. It requires years of normal living to do this, and it is
the most important part of all training. Probably the famous story about
Napoleon is quite true, that he thought more of his soldiers' food and
shoes than of their guns, for he maintained that no man could fight in
pinching shoes and on an empty stomach. In the same way you cannot train
your muscles, to do extraordinary things in a few short weeks. It
requires months and years of gradual work. If you start in late and work
hard every day you will ruin your muscles instead of improving them, and
as a matter of actual record many a good man has been lost to his team
for this reason alone.

What is the most critical time in a baseball match or a football game?
When does the oarsman's great test come? Certainly not at the start, for
we all do well then. But at the very close of the game, when, after all
the players have become exhausted, the real nerve of the contest
arrives. That is the time when the man who has been slowly and carefully
training year by year will find that he is better than all the others,
and that he can put in the extra pound at the oar or the extra speed at
the long football run which carries his team to a closely won victory.

Athletic training, therefore, is nothing sudden, nothing to be "taken
up" at any one time for a short space, but a general self-control and
guard which the boy or man keeps over himself in summer and in winter,
keeping himself healthy, in good hard condition, and ready for anything
he may be called on to do. Any one will tell you this is quite in line
with the best methods of study, of work, or of business in after-life;
that it is the steady, careful man that wins. But as we are not
preaching here, this must be left for fathers and older brothers to do.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE COST OF ROYALTY.

Here are a few statistics lately published that will doubtless prove
interesting to the reader. The royal family of England costs the British
government, in round numbers, $3,000,000 annually. Of this sum the Queen
receives nearly $2,000,000 a year, besides the revenue from the Duchy of
Lancaster, which amounts to a quarter of a million. The Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland receives $100,000 a year for his services and expenses, and
the Prince of Wales $200,000 a year. The President of France receives
$240,000 a year for salary and expenses, an enormous salary when it is
remembered that the republic is sweating under a stupendous national
debt of over $6,000,000,000--the largest debt ever incurred by any
nation in the world. Italy can have ten thousand men slaughtered in
Abyssinia and still pay her King $2,600,000 a year. The civil list of
the German Emperor is about $4,000,000 a year, besides large revenues
from vast estates belonging to the royal family. The Czar of all the
Russias owns in fee simple 1,000,000 square miles of cultivated land,
and enjoys an income of $12,000,000. The King of Spain, little Alfonso
XIII., if he is of a saving disposition, will be one of the richest
sovereigns in Europe when he comes of age. The state allows him
$1,400,000 a year, with an additional $600,000 for family expenses. We
are said to be the richest nation on earth, yet our President's salary
is only $50,000 a year. It was only $25,000 from 1789 to 1873.

       *       *       *       *       *

NEW USE FOR A WATER-CART.

Two countrymen were paying a visit to the city of Edinburgh recently,
when for the first time in their experience they saw a water-cart
employed in laying the dust after the orthodox fashion. They had been
warned by their friends before leaving home not to be surprised if they
saw many wonderful things, and, above all, not to give expression to
their astonishment, as they would probably only be laughed at for their
ignorance. Hitherto the clodhoppers had attended fairly well to these
instructions, and so far at least had not made fools of themselves. But,
alas! a water-cart was too much for them. No sooner did their eyes
alight on it than Jock, the more enthusiastic of the two, rushed off
towards it, shouting to the driver:

"Hey, mon! hey, mon! stop, for guidness' sake; yer scaling a' yer
watter!"

Jim, his companion, was not so easily deceived, however, and, vexed to
see Jock make such an exhibition of his ignorance, ran after him, and
seizing him by the coat tails, reprimanded him as follows:

"What for are you makin' such a fule o' yersel' for, Jock? The man ken's
brawly that the watter's scaling. Lo'd, man, if ye had ony sense you
could easily ken that it was only a dodge tae keep the laddies aff the
back o' the cart."

       *       *       *       *       *

A neat little correspondence took place between David Roberts, the
artist, and a friendly art critic with whom he was in the habit of
hobnobbing. Roberts had painted a number of pictures into which he put
all his genius, and upon placing them on exhibition, much to his
surprise and mortification his friend the critic severely attacked them.
In due time, however, a note arrived, addressed:

     "MY DEAR ROBERTS,--You have doubtless read my remarks upon your
     pictures. I hope they will make no difference in our friendship.
     Yours, etc., ----."

This had a tendency to slightly increase the painter's wrath, and he
couched the following:

     "MY DEAR ----,--The next time I meet you I shall pull your nose. I
     hope it will make no difference in our friendship. Yours, etc., D.
     ROBERTS."

It is not recorded whether they met afterwards, but it is safe to say
those erstwhile friends hobnobbed no more.




[Illustration: STAMPS]

     This Department is conducted in the interest of stamp and coin
     collectors, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question
     on these subjects so far as possible. Correspondents should address
     Editor Stamp Department.


Three important measures have just been agreed upon by the House of
Representatives, and probably will be accepted by the Senate. The first
bill introduces the principle of responsibility on the part of the
government for the delivery of registered letters and parcels.

The proposed law provides that senders or owners of registered matter
lost in the mails may be indemnified to an extent not exceeding $10 for
any one letter or package. This will do as a beginning, but the American
public is entitled to at least as much as is given to the citizens of
European nations by their respective post-office departments. For
instance, we pay 10c. for a registered letter, and by the proposed law
may collect up to $10 if the letter or parcel is lost. In England a
registered letter costs 6c., and if lost the owner can collect up to
$25; if 10c. is paid, the indemnity is raised to $75.

The second measure is one permitting the use of private postal cards to
which a 1c. stamp is affixed, provided the same be approximately of the
same size and weight as the officially made card. If passed, there will
be some very handsome and many very humorous cards sent through the
mail, and interesting collections could be made at a very little cost.

The third measure is one providing for the appointment of
letter-carriers in small places, who shall collect 1c. for each letter
or parcel delivered. This is practically applying to small villages the
system which fifty years ago was common in New York, Philadelphia, and
other large cities. If the charges are collected by stamps, it will
revive the collecting of U. S. Locals.

     B. J. JONES.--The old Anti-Surcharge Society was organized about
     six years ago through the efforts of Mr. C. B. Corwin, but it soon
     went to pieces, as the great body of collectors refused to
     discontinue the collection of the innumerable and uncalled-for
     varieties. The evil has abated of late years, from the fact that
     the burden grew too heavy for all philatelists excepting a small
     body of very rich men. The "Seebecks" are declining in price
     rapidly.

     J. LEARNED.--The collecting of entire U. S. envelopes should be
     followed where possible. Discard all varieties of water-mark paper,
     shapes, sizes, gums, etc., collecting simply by dies and papers.

     A. A. WEILMAN.--It is claimed that the first envelope in modern
     times used for prepayment of postage was the New South Wales for
     1838. A genuine copy would probably bring $250.

     W. H. CARR, JUN.--You can buy the Philatelic button of C. W.
     Kissinger, Reading, Pa.

     H. F. KING.--The Japanese wedding stamps were issued in 1894. The
     red is sold at 4c., the blue at 5c.

     O. LEWIS.--You do not state the paper, or whether used or unused.
     On white paper it is worth 20c.; on amber paper, 25c.; on blue
     paper, $5; on fawn paper, $15.

     % %.--The half-dime, 1856, can be bought for 15c.

     J. P. WILTON.--The stamp-dealers are offering $2 Columbian stamps
     at $1.75. They are used for postage by the large banking houses,
     chiefly for prepayment of postage on packages of bonds, stocks,
     etc., sent to Europe.

     G. R. D.--I do not know what dealers pay for stamps. Their selling
     prices are quoted in the stamp catalogues. Your Agricultural
     Department envelope bears the seal of the department. No commercial
     value.

     C. C. RANSOM.--It is impossible to give values for long lists of
     stamps. Any catalogue will price the stamps both used and unused,
     give the date of issue, and much other information. The standard
     1897 catalogue costs 58c., but good catalogues can be bought at
     5c., 10c., or 25c. each.

  PHILATUS.




[Illustration]

  The price of good things oft is high,
    But wise housekeepers tell
  That Ivory Soap is cheap to buy
    And best to use, as well.

Copyright, 1896, by The Procter & Gamble Co., Cin'ti.




Two Popular Writers!

       *       *       *       *       *

KIRK MUNROE

=RICK DALE.= A Story of the Northwest Coast. Illustrated by W. A. ROGERS.
Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.25.

     Lively and exciting, and has, incidentally, much first-hand
     information about the far Northwest.--_Outlook_, N. Y.

     Capital story of adventure..--_Philadelphia Evening Bulletin._

=SNOW-SHOES AND SLEDGES.= A Sequel to "The Fur-Seal's Tooth."--=THE
FUR-SEAL'S TOOTH.--RAFTMATES.--CANOE-MATES.--CAMPMATES.--DORYMATES.= Post
8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.25 each. The Four "Mates" Volumes in a Box,
$5.00.

=WAKULLA.--FLAMINGO FEATHER.--DERRICK STERLING.--CHRYSTAL, JACK & CO.=,
and =DELTA BIXBY=. Illustrated. Square 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.00
each.

       *       *       *       *       *

JAMES BARNES

=NAVAL ACTIONS OF THE WAR OF 1812.= With 21 Full-page Illustrations by
CARLTON T. CHAPMAN, printed in color, and 12 Reproductions of Medals.
8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, Deckel Edges and Gilt Top, $4.50.

     Unquestionably both the most lifelike and the most artistic
     renderings of these encounters ever attempted.--_Boston Journal._

     Brimful of adventure, hardihood, and patriotism.--_Philadelphia
     Ledger._

=FOR KING OR COUNTRY.= A Story of the American Revolution. Illustrated.
Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.50.

     A capital story for boys, both young and old; full of adventure and
     movement, thoroughly patriotic in tone, throwing luminous
     sidelights upon the main events of the Revolution.--_Brooklyn
     Standard-Union._

       *       *       *       *       *

HARPER & BROTHERS, Publishers, New York




Clever Puzzle-Solvers.

Answers and Awards in that "Land of Shades" Contest.


A very great number of people took interest in that quaint story from
the "Land of Shades" about an election held in that country. The answers
sent in competition for the $40 offered in prizes showed an unusually
high average in penmanship, neatness, and intelligence. In deciding
which answers were the correct ones some standard had to be taken. That
standard was "Harper's Book of Facts." It should, however, be explained
that the effort was made, when the story was written, to put in no
questions on the correct answers to which there is a conflict of
authorities. But these contests often bring to light conflicts
heretofore unknown. It happened so in this one. The question was about
the "Father of Tractarianism." The answer had in advance was Dr. E. B.
Pusey. Keble and Newman were prominent, but the title, so far as could
be found, had been applied only to Pusey. But several solvers in this
contest found authorities for others besides Pusey. So the question was
dropped, and played no part in deciding the awards. In passing judgment
upon other answers exact spelling of names was not required, nor was it
held essential that first names, dates, etc., be given. If the solver
showed that he or she had found the correct answers, such showing was
excepted. A very great number gave Wöhler as the discoverer of
aluminium. Wöhler's employment of the metal was in 1827. Marggraff
discovered it and used it, as a toy it is true, in 1754. A slight
misunderstanding existed about the large ship recently built. Both
answers given were accepted as correct--the Pennsylvania at Belfast, and
the Kaiser Wilhelm I., at Glasgow. The hardest question was No. 29.
About a dozen guessed it, but they missed other questions in so great
number that none of them are among the prize-winners. All prize-winners
failed on it. "Clouds," "snow," "sole-soul" were oftenest given, but any
one can see that they poorly answer the riddle. Many gave "flamingo" as
the answer to the last question but one. Others gave "blackbird."
Neither was accepted, because not so good as "flicker."

Following are answers allowed: 1. John Kinzie. 2. Pompey. 3. Abraham
Lincoln. 4. Constantine the Great. 5. Robert Cavalier La Salle. 6. G.
Wilhelm von Leibnitz. 7. Sir Christopher Wren. 8. St. Vincent de Paul.
9. Rouget de Lisle. 10. Eric the Red. 11. Edward III. of England. 12.
John C. Fremont. 13. Schouten. 14. Robert Barker. 15. Praxiteles. 16.
Socrates. 17. Tarquin the Elder. 18. Joseph Hopkinson. 19. Andrew
Jackson. 20. Queen Elizabeth of England. 21. Dr. E. B. Pusey. 22.
Marggraff. 23. H. H. Richardson. 24. F. P. Blair. 25. Kaiser Wilhelm der
Grosse and Pennsylvania. 26. Helvetii. 27. Knickerbockers of New York.
28. Egyptians. 29. The green cheese of which the moon is said to be
made. 30. Ink. 31. North Pole. 32. Butcher-bird or Razor-bird. 33. Jay.
34. Flicker. 35. Chattering Fly-Catcher.

One contestant answered correctly every question save two--29 and 34.
His name is Archer O. Yeames, and he lives in Jamaica Plain, Mass. He is
given $15 of the $40 prize-money and the highest honor of the contest.
Three others tied for second honor, and $4 is given to each. Their
names, mentioned in an order that gives a little the highest credit to
the first, the next to the second, and so on in the order in which all
ties are named, are: Raymond Tilley, Pittsburg, Pa.; Edwin F. Killin,
Stevens Point, Wis.; and Mary H. Eastman, Wilmington, Del. The next in
order of merit was the answer of Esther Neilson, Philadelphia, and $3 is
awarded her. Two tied for fourth place, and are given $2.50 each. Both
live in Pittsburg--Thomas S. Jacobs and Pearl Coyle. For fifth place the
prizes decrease rapidly--more rapidly than they would had it not proved
necessary to admit five instead of three contestants, since five stood
exactly alike. That is, they missed the same number of questions, but
not always the same questions. They are given $1 each. They are: J.
Lawrence Hyde, Washington; Joseph T. England, Baltimore; Paul F. Case,
Fairport, N. Y.; Elizabeth C. Drake, Chicago; and Walter Collins,
Glenfield, Pa. The Messrs. Harper & Brothers, New York, will forward
checks for the sums named as soon as these awards shall have had time to
be read by all contestants. The desire is that winners first learn of
their success in the printed announcement. To notify them by mail, by
sending them money, is to favor them, in time, over other contestants.
It was a hot contest. Congratulations are extended to the victors, and
the losers are urged to try again. For the information of the latter it
may be stated that in this contest scarcely any two were alike; all who
failed missed at least five of the thirty-five questions.

       *       *       *       *       *

More Signs and Omens.

     I live in the "Sunny South," where there is a sign for everything
     that happens. Among the commonest of these, many are of negro
     origin.

     1. Clear in the night, rain again in three days.

     2. "Katydids'" arrival, sign of frost in six weeks.

     3. Sign of a wedding if a cat washes her face and then looks at
     you.

     4. If the husks on the corn are thick, sign of a cold winter.

     5. If the rooster crows before the door, look out for company.

     6. If you drop your apron, you have lost your lover.

     7. If your hair-pin is about to come out of your hair, your lover
     is thinking of you.

     8. Bad luck for any article of your clothing to burn, either on you
     or off.

     9. Bad luck to have a rainy wedding-day.

     10. Sign of a death if a bird comes in the house.

     11. Bad luck if a hooting owl comes near the house.

     12. Sign of a death if a "screech-owl" comes near the house. (This
     is considered a terrible thing, and causes great fear among the
     negroes.)

     13. Whippoorwills are considered birds of ill omen.

     14. Sign of a death if the dog howls at night.

     I think it would be interesting to continue this, and have the
     members send in different local superstitions.

  MAY INMAN MAGUIRE.
  HENDERSONVILLE, N. C.

       *       *       *       *       *

Going Out on a Risky Errand.

A government Indian agent who has seen years of service tells some
stories about Indians. Here is one:

"A ranch near the town of Beaver, in Utah, was attacked by Indians, and
one man who was visiting the ranchman's family was killed. The house was
surrounded by the Indians, and the people within defended themselves as
best they could; but the ranchman, watching his opportunity, lowered his
little boy and his daughter, aged eight and twelve, from the back
window, and told them to try to make their way to the cañon and follow
it down to Beaver, where they could obtain help. The two children
succeeded in reaching the cañon unobserved, and with rare presence of
mind the boy told his sister to follow down one side of the cañon, and
he would follow the other, so that in case the Indians should find one
of them the other might not be observed.

"The children succeeded in reaching Beaver, where a relief party was
organized, which hastened to the rescue of the besieged party. At the
beginning of the siege the Indians had heard the children in the house,
and missing their voices, the alert savages discovered that they had
gone, and endeavored to overtake them, but being unsuccessful, and
knowing that help would soon arrive, withdrew before the rescuers could
reach the ranch."

       *       *       *       *       *

Blind Boys and Baseball.

Blind boys can play baseball. It is not the baseball of the League, but
it answers--blind boys. Only one man in the game must have good
eyes--the umpire. The diamond is like the regular ones, save that bases
are forty instead of ninety feet apart. Players are stationed the same
as in a League game, but there is a second short stop, or ten men on
each side.

The catcher sits on the ground. Think of it--sits on the ground! He
stays well back from the home-plate, and wears a mask and breastplate.
The pitcher aims, first, to enable the batter to hit the ball, and,
second, to have the ball, if not batted, to strike the ground just in
front of the catcher and be taken on the bound. The batsman uses a bat
much like a cricket bat. Taking his position, the umpire says, "One,
two, three," and on the instant the "three" is spoken the pitcher
delivers the ball. The batter has to guess at the time the ball will
reach him, and he guesses rightly in more cases than one would think
possible. If the ball is missed it lands in the catcher's lap. Beginners
at the bat strike ludicrously wide of the ball, but as all the players
are blind, they miss the place to laugh. If the ball is batted, the
umpire calls out the name of the player toward whom the ball is going.
This player hears it, and if he fails to catch it, chases it into the
grass. It is his if he gets it, no matter on what bound it may be.

When the batter runs, the first-base man calls out, "First," and keeps
calling, so the runner may know in what direction to go. The second-base
man does the same, calling, "Second." Six outs put a side out. These
blind boys get a wonderful amount of fun out of the play, and become
expert at it.

       *       *       *       *       *

Life in Our Soldiers' Orphans' Home.

     No one but a member of a home like this can know enough of the
     every-day life to fully understand the spirit in which the children
     take their confinement; for confinement it is in the end. Owing to
     a peculiar training received here, the average child knows more
     about the history of our country than any other class of children
     in the United States. We have good times among ourselves, and
     originate many plays and jokes. We have a band of sixteen pieces, a
     debating club, and several minor clubs. On going to school each boy
     salutes "Old Glory" as he passes it. To show that the boys are
     poetical (?), for instance, when cold slaw is being passed at the
     table, the first boy says, "Slaw"; if the next boy doesn't want
     any, he says, "Naw."

     At present all thoughts are centred on Christmas. Ask a boy the day
     before Christmas or Thanksgiving what he intends to do next day; he
     will say, "Eat turkey, of course." We are always glad to get a
     letter, and to be certain of having one in the mail we get our
     relatives to mark the envelope, so we can tell it before the mail
     is distributed.

     One of the Board of Trustees, who lives in Canton, O., recently
     visited William McKinley, and told him he was coming to the home
     next day. Then the President-elect of the United States, with tears
     coming to his eyes, said, "Give my love to every child there. God
     bless them!" When the board member told the children this in our
     chapel, every patriotic son of America raised his handkerchief and
     shook it, after the manner of the Chautauqua salute, and in his
     heart said, "Long live our next President!" The boys and girls over
     fourteen years of age learn a trade, devoting one-half of each day
     to it. But in every case a half-day pupil has better lessons than a
     whole-day one. Many children leave here in June next, and have no
     place to go. If any persons could put these in the way of
     employment they will find them faithful and true in every sense of
     the word.

  JOSEPH L. GILL, Cottage 18.
  XENIA, O.

       *       *       *       *       *

A Great Man Facing Defeat.

Mr. Gladstone, one of the greatest of Englishmen, and a man who has seen
comparatively few of his plans of state succeed, is said to be
personally disliked by Queen Victoria. For years he had worked hard upon
a plan having for its object the benefit of Ireland and Irish farmers
and tenants. Seven years ago all of his plans were frustrated. While his
great policy was being wrecked, he sat in the library of the House of
Commons and read the words of a famous opera. Some friends finding him
there, expressed amazement. But this act of the great minister did not
indicate indifference. It showed, rather, a tension that sought relief
in order to avoid worse effects. For when spoken to he said, with a
voice full of pathos, "For the past five years I have rolled this stone
patiently up hill, and it has now rolled to the bottom again; and I am
eighty-one years old."

       *       *       *       *       *

At Least one Faithful Hearer.

A famous Church of England bishop had a dog named Watch. Once, as Watch
lay by the open door, the prelate read the Bible passage, "What I say
unto you I say unto you all--Watch!" The dog sprang up, and coming
forward, lay down by the reading-desk.

"One hearer attends my words, at least," mused the bishop.




[Illustration: THE CAMERA CLUB]

     Any questions in regard to photograph matters will be willingly
     answered by the Editor of this column, and we should be glad to
     hear from any of our club who can make helpful suggestions.

HINTS ON RETOUCHING.


III.--TREATING THE NEGATIVES FROM THE GLASS SIDE.

While this picture does not come exactly under the head of retouching,
it describes how to treat a negative from the glass side so that a good
print may be made from a negative in which the contrasts between the
high lights and shadows are too strong.

Take a piece of best quality white tissue-paper, moisten it slightly,
and paste it at the edges to the glass side of the negative. Moistening
the paper before attaching it to the negative causes it to adhere
closely to the glass without wrinkles.

Put the negative in the retouching-frame with the glass side uppermost,
and with a pencil go over the negative, softening the high lights,
working up detail in the shadows--in fact, making a drawing of the
negative on the piece of tissue-paper with which it is covered. When the
drawing or pencilling is finished, take a crayon stump and blend the
lines and lighten the edges of the shadows. It is a good plan to have a
print of the picture pinned to the board as a guide to working on the
negative. When finished and ready for printing, place a piece of
tissue-paper or a sheet of ground glass over the frame, and print in the
shade. If the first work is not successful, the paper can be removed and
a fresh one substituted.

Instead of using tissue-paper the back of the negative may be coated
with ground-glass substitute, tinted with red or purple aniline dye.
Ground-glass varnish may be made by the following formula, or may be
bought ready prepared:

  Gum-sandarach         45 grains.
  Gum-mastic            10 grains.
  Ether                  1 fluid ounce.
  Benzole              3/4 fluid ounce.

Flow this over the back of the negative, and when dry it may be worked
on with a pencil in the same manner as described for the tissue-paper.
Where the solution covers the high lights it can be removed either by
scraping it away and leaving the glass clear, or it may be removed with
spirits of turpentine. The edges may be softened so as to remove the
harsh contrast between the clear glass and the tinted solution by
rubbing them with a powder made of one part finely powdered resin and
two parts dextrine. A leather stump dipped in the powder is the best
means of applying it.

In landscapes, where in order to obtain prints of the clouds in the sky
the other parts of the picture must be very much over-printed, apply the
ground-glass solution to the back of the negative, and soften the lines
where the horizon meets the sky by the dextrine powder. A few drops of
the aniline dye will be sufficient to give the varnish a tint.

Benzole is highly inflammable, and must not be brought near a light. The
varnish should be kept in a glass-stoppered bottle, as the ether is
volatile, and soon evaporates if not tightly corked.

For blocking out backgrounds use Gihon's opaque, a non-actinic
water-color paint. It costs fifty cents a cake, and one cake will last
for a year or more.

     WILLIAM WALKER PATEN, 937 St. Paul St., Baltimore, Md.; G. EARL
     RAIGNET, 603 North Seventeenth St., Phil., Pa.; ELBERT H. DYER, 62
     Bradford St., Philadelphia, Pa.; LOUISE LEWIS, 1820 Pine St.,
     Philadelphia, Pa.; FRANCIS T. STAINER, Challinack, B. C.; RAYMOND
     E. REYNOLDS, 34 Ripley Place, Buffalo, N. Y.; ARTHUR INKERSLEY, 709
     Hyde St., San Francisco, Cal.; CONANT TAYLOR, 159 South Oxford St.,
     Brooklyn, N. Y., GEORGE D. PORTER, 212 Tulip St., Brooklyn, N. Y.;
     GEORGE FULLER, Pittsfield, Ill.; GILBERT JACKSON, Boonville, Oneida
     Co., N. Y., wish to be enrolled as members of the Camera Club.

     LADY SOPHIE F. MACQUAIDE, 46 Mechlin Street, Germantown, Pa., asks
     if any member of the Camera Club has a No. 2 Bullet Camera for
     sale. She wishes to buy one.

     W. H. writes that the directions for bromide-paper say that it
     should be opened in a dark room, and asks if that means that the
     room must be totally dark; if fixing, clearing, and developing
     solutions can be bought from dealers in photographic supplies; if
     Eastman's developing-powder is good for dry plates; and if
     transparencies can be developed with this powder. By a photographic
     dark room is meant a room in which there is a yellow or ruby light;
     the white light fogs the sensitive plate or paper. Solutions of all
     kinds may be either bought ready prepared, or will be made up at
     the store where photographic supplies are sold. One can buy the
     ingredients and make the solutions at home. It is cheaper to buy
     the hypo and make up the fixing-bath. One ounce of hypo to four
     ounces of water is the proportion for the fixing-bath. Eastman's
     powders may be used with any dry plate, and are also excellent for
     making transparencies.

       *       *       *       *       *

A SHREWD TRICK.

People in general cannot understand the doings of a student of nature.
Especially quite ignorant persons are apt to conclude, when told that
the objects of his search are fossils or minerals, that under this
explanation is concealed the purpose of securing some buried treasure,
for that is the only thing that would induce them to dig. Mr. A. L.
Adams relates an amusing instance of this reasoning.

"While excavating a large cavern on the southern coast of Malta, we had
dug a trench in the soil on its floor some six feet in depth, in quest
of organic remains. The natives in the vicinity, hearing of our
presence, came in numbers daily to witness the proceedings,
interrogating the workmen with reference to the object of our
researches, of which the workmen were about as ignorant as themselves.

"One afternoon three stalwart fellows paid us a visit, and whilst they
sat on the heap of dirt staring down into the dark ditch below, I
dropped a Spanish dollar on a shovelful of earth, and the next moment it
lay with the soil on the heap. Picking it up in a careless manner, I put
it into our luncheon-bag, and a few minutes afterwards our friends
disappeared, muttering to one another as they went.

"Great was our amusement the next morning to find that our trench had
been carried fully four feet below the level we had gained on the
previous evening. Not only that; several other excellent sections of the
floor had been made by the natives in expectation of finding buried
treasure."




Postage Stamps, &c.




[Illustration: STAMP COLLECTORS]

60 dif. U.S. $1, 100 dif. Foreign 8c., 125 dif. Canadian, Natal, etc.
25c., 150 dif. Cape Verde, O. F. States, etc. 50c. Agents wanted. 50
p.c. com. List free. =F. W. Miller, 904 Olive St., St. Louis, Mo.=




[Illustration: STAMPS]

=ALBUM AND LIST FREE!= Also 100 all diff. Venezuela, Bolivia, etc., only
10c. Agts. wanted at 50% Com. =C. A. Stegmann=, 5941 Cote Brilliant Ave.,
St. Louis, Mo.




FREE

Set of Cuban stamps, cat. at 40c., free to all sending for my approval
books at 50% Dis.; 100 Var. 10c.; Stamp hinges 10c. =F. P. GIBBS=, 59
Rowley St., Rochester, N.Y.




500 Mixed, Australian, etc., 10c.; =105 var.= Zululand, etc., and album,
10c.; 12 Africa, 10c.; 15 Asia,10c. Bargain list free.

F. P. VINCENT, Chatham, N.Y.




STAMPS

=All unused.= 20 var. 10c.; 5 Obock 8c.; 10 Cuba 10c.; 4 War Dep't 10c.; 3
Montenegro 6c.; 2 Corea 5c. C. A. TOWNSEND, Akron, O.




=25 VAR.= unused stamps, no Seebecks, cat. value over $1.50, for 50c.
Approval books @ 50%.

D. W. OSGOOD, Pueblo, Colo.




STAMPS

Send for approval sheets. 50% com. G. D. Holt & Co., 155 Pulaski St.,
Brooklyn, N. Y.




U. S.

25 diff U.S. stamps 10c., 100 diff. foreign 10c. Agts w'td @ 50%. List
free! L. B. Dover & Co. 5958 Theodosia, St Louis, Mo.




LAUGHING CAMERA, 10c.

[Illustration: MY! OH MY!!]

The latest invention in Cameras. You look through the lens and your
stout friends will look like living skeletons, your thin friends like
Dime Museum fat men, horses like giraffes and in fact everything appears
as though you were living in another world. Each camera contains two
strong lenses in neatly finished leatherette case. The latest
mirth-maker on the market; creates bushels of sport. Catalogue of 1,000
novelties and sample camera 10c., 3 for 25c., 12 for 90c. mailed
postpaid. Agents wanted.

ROBT. H. INGERSOLL & BRO.,

Dept. No. 62, 65 Cortlandt St., N. Y.




JOSEPH GILLOTT'S

STEEL PENS

Nos. 303, 404, 170, 604 E.F., 601 E.F.

And other styles to suit all hands.

THE MOST PERFECT OF PENS.




HOOPING

COUGH

CROUP

Can be cured

by using

ROCHE'S HERBAL

EMBROCATION

The celebrated and effectual English cure, without internal medicine. W.
EDWARD & SON, Props., London, Eng. =All Druggists.=

E. FOUGERA & CO., NEW YORK.




HOME STUDY.

A thorough and practical Business Education in Book-keeping, Shorthand,
etc., given by =MAIL= at student's home. Low rates. Cat. free. Trial
lesson 10c. Write to

BRYANT & STRATTON, 85 College Bldg., Buffalo, N.Y.




CARDS

FOR 1897. 50 Sample Styles AND LIST OF 400 PREMIUM ARTICLES FREE.
HAVERFIELD PUB CO., CADIZ, OHIO




HARPER & BROTHERS'

Descriptive list of their publications, with _portraits of authors_,
will be sent by mail to any address on receipt of ten cents.

HARPER & BROTHERS, Publishers, New York.




[Illustration: PISO'S CURES FOR CONSUMPTION]

WHERE ALL ELSE FAILS.

Best Cough Syrup. Tastes Good. Use

in time. Sold by druggists.




[Illustration: HOW TOMMY MADE ONE SKATE DO.]

       *       *       *       *       *

A SURPRISE FOR EMPEROR WILLIAM.

Before the many independent states of Germany were united into an empire
by Bismarck and Emperor William I., the Bavarians and the Prussians were
on terms of a none too solid friendship. The old feeling of rivalry has
not been entirely eradicated from the lower classes, as may be gathered
from the following anecdote which is authentic, the incident occurring
only a few weeks ago. The Emperor had just been reviewing a body of
naval recruits brought together from all parts of the Empire, and he had
addressed them briefly upon the glory of a naval career, and had warned
them against the enemies of the nation both at home and abroad. At the
close of his speech the young Prussian Emperor was attracted by the
stalwart appearance of a big bluejacket in the front rank. He called the
man to him and asked him what part of the Empire he came from.

"From Wiesbach, in Bavaria, your Majesty," replied the recruit,
saluting.

"And did you understand all I have said," continued the Emperor. "Do you
know whom I mean when I speak of our foreign enemies?"

"Yes, your Majesty. The Russians."

"And do you know whom I refer to by our enemies at home?" continued the
Emperor, referring, of course, to the socialists and other disturbing
elements of the Empire.

"Yes, your Majesty," replied the Bavarian, promptly. "You mean the
Prussians!"

       *       *       *       *       *

A SMALL BOY'S AMBITION.

  I want to be a newspaper-boy,
    And just as soon, sir, as I can,
  For when I'm grown up 'tis my wish
    To be a big newspaper-man.

       *       *       *       *       *

EXTREME POLITENESS.

Politeness is of course one of the most desirable qualities in a man or
a woman, and particularly in boys or girls. The following story may
teach us something even if we do not necessarily believe it to be true.
It appears that in Japan not long ago three men broke into a dyer's
house while he was away. They were surprised at their work by the dyer's
wife, who asked them what they wanted. One of them replied by gently
asking the wife how much money there was in the place. She answered that
there was just a little in the house. The robber laughed and said:

"You are a good old woman, and we believe you. If you were poor, we
would not rob you at all. Now we only want some money and this," placing
his hand on a fine silk dress.

The old woman replied: "All my husband's money I can give to you, but I
beg you will not take that dress, for it does not belong to my husband,
and was confided to us only for dyeing. What is ours I can give, but I
cannot give what belongs to another."

"That is quite right; we certainly have no wish to deprive you of what
does not belong to you. Be so good as to give us the money, and we will
go," said the robber. The old lady having complied, he immediately
withdrew with his confederates.

       *       *       *       *       *

MR. JOHN BULL (of England). "Why do the boys talk so hexcited?"

MRS. BULL. "They're at sixes an' sevens over some happles they 'ave."

MR. BULL. "Hat sixes an' sevens! They'll soon be at _hates_ if they keep
hon."

       *       *       *       *       *

It is not to be supposed that the missionary's lot is always the
happiest in the world, but there are times when there are incidents in
it so full of humor as to make up for the troubles and trials which are
more common. Among the stories in illustration of this point is one that
comes from a recent British Consul to Samoa, who states that a
missionary there was one day visited by a gentle-looking youth, who
asked, "Please, sir, may I get married?" A day was appointed for the
ceremony, when, at the time named, appeared the youthful bridegroom,
looking neat, shy, and guileless; he was asked to take a seat and did
so, blushing vigorously. A quarter of an hour elapsed, and there were no
fresh arrivals; yet there sat the young man without the slightest show
of that anxiety usually attributed to gentlemen about to take the fatal
plunge. At last the missionary became impatient, and asked him where the
young woman was.

"Who?" said the youth.

"Why, the girl you want to marry!"

"Oh, she's at Safata!"

"What!" cried the minister. "Have you come here for me to marry you to a
woman sixteen miles off on the other side of the island?"

"Yes," replied the innocent; "I didn't think you would want her!"

He was sent away to fetch her, and in the course of a week returned to
go through the marriage ceremony in due form.





End of Project Gutenberg's Harper's Round Table, January 12, 1897, by Various



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