The Project Gutenberg eBook of Harper's Round Table, January 12, 1897, by Various.

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[Pg 258] 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:

"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[Pg 259] 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.

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."

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.)

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?"

"Very well, then. The station-master will come to make his salaam; then I shall know it 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.[Pg 260] "If I had not let him fire first, for old friendship's sake, I should have killed him."

"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.

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.

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.

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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[Pg 261] 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."

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

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

"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."

"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.'

"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.'

"'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."

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.

"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.

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 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.

"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[Pg 263] 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."

"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?"

"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."

"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."

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[Pg 264] 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."

"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.

"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.

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.

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.

[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."

"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?"

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,[Pg 266] 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."

"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.

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

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.

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

"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.

"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.

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

"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.

"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.

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

"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.

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

"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.

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:

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

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[Pg 268] 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.

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 hὁ, hἡ, τó 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[Pg 269] 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.

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.

The punishment masters give for small offences is pœnas—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[Pg 270] 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[Pg 271] 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.

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.

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.

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,[Pg 274] 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 16½ 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.

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.

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.

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.

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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:

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:

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

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

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.

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.

Two Popular Writers!

KIRK MUNROE

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

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.

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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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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	¾	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.

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.

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.

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FREE

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

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STAMPS

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

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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.

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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

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CARDS

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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.

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

"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.

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.

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.

"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?"

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

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