North Carolina Newspapers

-V H. A. LONDON, Jr., JUHTOB AND PBOrBISTOK. BATES OT v.vvy Ay AyA ADVERTISING. TERNS OF SUBSCRIPTION One square, one Insertion. ... Oae square, tw Insertions,- . - One square, one mouth, ' IM Oncor7t wyr, -Oaaeopf ,slxiuouUia -OM copy, thre aiuatUi, -i VOL.111 PITTSBOKO', CHATHAM CO., N. C, JUNE 16, 1881. NO. 40. Pur larger adTertUamente liberal contracts T. Jl - 2.oo - Comfort One Another. Comfort oue another; For the way is growing dreary, The feet are often weary, Aud the heart is very sad. There is heavy burden-bearing, Whou it twins that none are caring, Aud we half forget that ever we were glad. Comfort on' another; With the hand-clasp close and tender, With the bweetneas lovo can render, And the looks of friendly eyes. Do not wait with grace unspoken, While life's daily bread is broken, Qentle speech is oft like manna from the skies Comfort one another; There are words of music ringing Town the ages, sweet as singing Ot the happy choirs above. liaiwomed saint and mighty angel, Lift the grand deep-voiced evangel, Where forever they are praising the Eterna Love. Comfort one another; By the hope of Iliui who sought us In our peril Him who bought os, Paying with His precious Mood; By the faith that will not alter, Trusting strength thai shall not falter, Leaning on the One Divinely Good. Comfort one another; Let the grave-gloom lie behind you, While the Spirit's words remind yo Of the youth beyond the tomb. Where no more is pain or parting, Fever's flush or tear-drop starting, Bat the presence of the Lord, and for all HL people room. Mrs. Margaret K Sangster. DISENCHANTED What a lovely picture she made, witl the warm flush of the sunset light all around her I a tall, slender creature, with grace in every motion ; with hei small head so royally poised on the fair, white throat, and its bright liaii crowning it like a golden glory ; with her clear complexion of fine pale olive and a delicious pink tint, like the coloi of an oleander in her satiny cheeks and with her lovely dark-brown eyes, soft as velvet. And Ross Wycherly was madly in love with her, and only waiting in feverish impatience for the time when he might dare tell her. From a luxurious enshioned-chair at the same window where Jessica was standing in the 6unset -glory Mrs. Rob erts, her aunt, and only living female relative, looked coldly at her. " I am tired of the delay in the accom plishment of your plans, Jessica. You promised me you would settle them tc my satisfaction in three months at furthest." Jessica turned away from the lace draped window, and indolently seated herself in a gold-colored plush chair, that suited her lovely beauty as a throne does a queen. Then she laughed, one of her low, delicious little laughs, that, while Ross Wycherly swore it was the sweetest music in all the world, never failed to irritate Aunt Theodosia. "I don'f see what there is to be amused at," she saiQ, fretfully, i am eure if you had all the frightful expense on your hands that I have assumed in taking this big, handsome house, fully furnished, wholly for your opportunity to secure Ross Jessica interrupted her by a sudden, little haughty motion of her head. " Spare me the customary recital of four household annoyance, auntie, You are impatient too impatient. You ion't suppose I can tell Mr. Wycherly that my Aunt Roberts thinks it high time he should propose because she finds Uer funds running alarmingly low?" " Don't talk like an idiot, Jessica I" " But that is the way you feel about it. You must be reasonable as I am, I told you I would guarantee to bring Mr. Wycherly to my feet in three months' ;ime, if you would adopt the role of the wealthy, elderly lady, and I your heiress aiece. You have done it so far, and so aave I. In less than a week I will tell you I am the betrothed wife of the richest, handsomest man in the State, the prospective mistress of Wycherly Park." Mrs. Roberts caught a spark from the nrl's quiet enthusiasm. "Do you really think so, Jessica? Mistress of Wycherly Park it doesn't eem possible ! It means so much for fou luxury and elegance, riches unlimited all the rest of your life, and stated income to me for all I have lone for you. It has cost me thou anus of dollars, Jessica." "I suppose it has," she answered, :oolly. But you may set your heart t rest. Ross Wycherly is as desperately a love with me as ever man was with tfoman, and I might have had him at my feet weeks ago, only that I would ot permit him to think I could be so tightly won. Wait another week, wntie; you'll see." And she smiled so bewitchingly, showing her little milk-white teeth, that it was a pity her lover was not there to see her. The next morning a letter was handed tar, addressed in an illiterate scrag ging hand to Miss Jessica Heath, that brought the scarlet blushes to ber cheeks, and made her bite her lovely carlet lips angrily. "Again," she thought, as she tore it open impatiently. "What can be the now? It Btmj M SI Margaret takes pleasure in thrusting herself upon me on every occasion." And the displeasure in her face did not lessen when she read the ill-spelled, ill-written, but urgent note. "Deab Jessie," it said, "Mother is much worse, and you must come right away. If you don't I will have to send her to you and Aunt Doshy. You haven't paid your share of expenses for four months. Please bring it; we are in need of it. Maboaset." "It is just Margaret over again, to send for me to come under the one threat she knows will only take me to her. And I shall have to take the twenty dollars I have ' scrimped out' to buy those lovely pink-and-blue silk stockings, to keep her mouth shut. Just suppose if she should send mother here now, of all times! I'd better take the first train to Hillborough and see wLat is the matter. And I was to drive with Mr. Wycherly to-night, too ! " She looked at the cuckoo clock high up on the wall. She had just time, and none to spare, to dress and catch the train, and write a message of apology and explanation to Ross Wycherly, to be delivered by a servant after she had gone. But, by some curious fatality, Mr. Wycherly called at the house before the careless servant had delivered the note, and the maid who had answered his summons at the door very frankly told him where Miss Heath had gone to Hillborough, to Mrs. Beden's. He looked, as he felt, very much dis appointed. "How unfortunate! I suppose she left some special message for me ? Ah, I thought so," lie aided, ms u&ndsome face lighting with pleasure as the tardy servant hearing his voice stepped up with his note, the very contact with which sent delightful thrills all along his veins. . It was an exquisite little message, in Jessica's sweetest style, and most charm ingly vague as to lier going and destina tion, but promised to be home by the latest train that same evening, and bade him not forget her for a few hours. He read the note as though it had been written by angel hands, and he was wonderfully made worthy to re ceive it, and put it reverently away in his vest pocket, and then made up his mind to take the next train for Hill borough and surprise his darling and escort her home. "It will please her so, my lovely, bright-eyed Jessie ! I can see her face light up, in imagination, as it will when I walk in this Mrs. Belden's parlor and take her by surprise. And then, when I am bringing her home and have her all to myself, I will tell her what she must already know how madly I love her, and how eager I am to have her for my wife my beautiful, peerless queen 1" For Mr. Ross Wycherly was desper ately in love, and knew how to be a most pallant, devoted, impatient lover. Three hours after Jessica had entered the front door of Mrs. Belden's house and been escorted to the little back room that served as a parlor and sitting room during the season when fires were necessary, Mr. Wycherly stopped at the front gate of the same house, piloted by an ambitious young urchin, who grin ned with satisfaction at the quarter he received for his services. "That 'ere's the house Mrs. Bel den's. I know 'em all Jim and Gus and little .Mag, and the crazy old gran' mother. Ye better pile right in, 'cause that 'ere door-bell's broke." Wycherly, conscious of a feeling of astonishment as to what could have brought his lady-love to a place so for lorn and desolate as this, suddenly un derstood as he heard young Tim's words. " She has come on an errand of mercy and charity, my darling ! When she is my wife she shall have no limit to her mercy and benevolent fund ; and I love her better than ever for this evidence of her quiet goodness so carefully hidder from me." He went up through the shabby front yard And on the little porch, to find that the boy's prophesy regarding the door bell was true. It was indeed silent and useless, nor did one, or two or three knocks on the door bring any answer. "I suppose I may as well go in," he thought. And so he tried the door-knob, and found it readily admitted him into a for lorn little hall, dim and dusty, from which a door, standing open, entered into a plain-furnished, chilly little room that was evidently the parlor. A rap at the parlor door failing to bring any one Wycherly sat resignedly down to wait until some one did come; and five minutes afterward he heard the emphatic opening rnd closing of dis tant doors, and then the sound of foot steps in the room directly overhead, between which room and the one he oc cupied was an open stove-hole in the ceiling, down which came a voice sharp, vexatious, resolute, that pronounced the name of his beloved. " I want to know what you're going to do about it, Jessica. Two dollars and a half a week for her keep and clothes is pittance enough when it comes regularly, but when it don't come at all well, I can't stand it no longer ! She's your mother as well as mine, and if I have all the trouble you've got to pay for her board !" If a thunderbolt had fallen at Wych erly s feet he would not have been more astonished. Jessica's low, silver-sweet voi.e an swered: " She must be quite useful to you, Margaret. She can sew and mend, when she's not very bad and really, it is a great expense, ten dollars a month year in and year out." "A great expense to you, Jessica Heath, living in luxury and hav ing all in the world you want ! And your own mother suffering for nourish ing 9 food and the jellies the doctors say she must have." "That's nonsense! Doctors always do oidtor ttie most ridiculous extrava gances, and mother can do without them. It's a perfect nuisance, at the best; if she'd die we'd all be better off!" Wycherly arose from his chair, a look of agony on his face, a feeling in his heart as if all the world were crumbling over his head. "I thank God I haven't got your heart in my body !' Margaret Belden said. "Ever sence you was a child you've been selfish and heartless you'd always get the best agoin', no matte who went without. And now, for fiv9 years, ever sence Aunt Doshy took you and has brung you up like herself you've been worse'n ever. Go your gait, Jessica Heath, and let your poor, crazy old mother, who lost her senses in bringing you into the world, die, or starve, or suffer, as you choose !" And Wycherly distinctly heard Jes sica's low, sarcastic laugh. "Your too homely to be dramatic, Margaret. Leave that to me; and don't -envy my worldly prosperity, when you see that poor and in debt everywhere, as auntie and I are, we have, nevertheless, contrived to secure a glorious future for myself. I am to marry one of the rich est men in the State, for all I am so mean, and treacherous, and heartless, and selfish as you say!" Somehow Wycherly got out of the house as nnsnspected as he got in; but what an awful difference in the man 1 Hope, love, joy, trust all had gone crashing down under the ruin of his idol, and from henceforth his one duty was to bear his pitiful pain until disciplined into thankfulness that the blow had not come later. At home Jessica Heath found a note awaiting her on her dressing-table from Ross Wycherly, and her beautiful face wore a proud smile as she opened it. When she finished the page she threw herself upon the lounge, and cried and cursed by turns at the same hour that Margaret Belden opened a letter that contained a hundred-dollar bill for Mrs. Heath's sole use a letter that was un dated, unsigned. And while Mrs Roberts retired into deepest, poverty stricken retirement, lamenting her mad folly, and Jessica Heath was glad to do anything to earn her daily bread a wan, worn, soured woman Ross Wych erly was abroad, hourly growing more coontented and happy, and ready to be consoled by a fair girl he had met in la belle France. The Sulphur Slaves of Sicily. The sulphur is extracted and brought to the surface by human beings, and, indeed, chiefly by children. Mrs. Browning's "Cry of the Children'' might have been written in the sulphur mines of Sicily. Hundreds and hun dreds of children who have scarcely the form of human beings, are sent down the steep, slippery stairs into the muddy, watery depths. Here they are laden with as much material as they can sus tain, and they must reascend with it on their backs, stumbling at every step, often falling back into the bottom of the pit with broken limbs, or even dead. The elder ones, writes an eye-witness, arrive at the pit's mouth shrieking the little ones crying and sobbing. The mortality exceeds that of any other province of Italy; the statistics of the leva show an incredible number of lame and deformed, and of young men of one-and-twenty totally unfit for military service. A imre tor Drunkenness. Under the heading " A Radical Cure for Drunkenness," a Hungarian paper tells the following Russian story: A workman brought a complaint against four of his fellows tha they hid given him twenty-five blows with a stick. The accused, on being asked for their de fense, produced an agreement in writing, one clause of which expressly stipu lated that if one of their number drank to such an extent as not to be able to work, the others were to measure out to him twenty-five blows, and that they had merely carried out the agreement. Upon this the magistrate discharged them, remarking that they were not deserving of blame for what they had done, but rather of praise. A lady physician says: "The prime cause of weakness and disease among our women and girls is owing to errors in dress and lack of physical exercise, in fact, utter laziness," T11E FAMILY DOCTOtt. If a child has a bad earache, dip a plug of cotton wool in oil, warm it and place it in the ear. Wrap up the head and keep out of draughts. The following is said to be cure for hoarseness : A piece of flannel, dipped in brandy and applied to the chest, and covered with a dry flannel, is to be worn at night. Four or six small onions boiled and put on buttered toast and eaten for supper are likewise good for a cold in the chest. To cure corns, take one measure of coal or gas tar, one of saltpeter and one of brown sugar; mix welL Take a .piece of an old kid glove and spread a plaster on it the size of the corn and apply to the part affected ; bind on and leave two or three days and then re move, and the corn will come with it. Each inhalation of pure air is returned loaded with poison ; 150 grains of it added to the atmosphere of a bedroom every hour, or 1,200 grains during the night. Unless the poison-laden atmos phere is diluted or removed by a con stant current of air passing through the rooms, the blood becomes impure, then circulates sluggishly, accumulating and pressing on the brain, causing frightful dreams. To cure ingrowing toe nails, one au thority says: Put a small piece of tallow in a spoon, heat it until it becomes very hot, and pour on the granulations. Pain and tenderness are relieved at once, and in a few days the granulations are all gone, the diseased parts dry and grow destitute of all feeling, and the edge of the nail exposed so as to admit of being pared away without any in convenience. Snbjects for Tnonght, Faith saves ourselves, but love bene fits others. Men may be ungrateful, but the hu- man race is not so. The best navigation steering clear of the rocks of contention. Affection is the organizing force in the human constitution. Our striving against nature is like holding a weathercock with one's hand ; as soon as the force is taken off it veers again with the wind. We are sowing seeds of truth or er ror, of dishonesty or integrity, every day we live and everywhere we go, that will take root in somebody's life. The business of life is to go, forward he who sees evil in prospect meets it on the way ; but he who catches it by re trospection, turns back to find it. A man who helps to circulate a piece of gossip is as bad as the one who origi nated it To put your fist into a tar barrel and then go round shaking hands with somebody is what some people like to do. Man too easily cheats himself with talking repentance for reformation, reso lutions for actions, blossoms for fruits, as on the naked twig of the fig-tree fruits sprout forth which are only the fleshy rinds of the blossoms. Time will yet read to the living an unpublished story of the dead. Time may explain silences which shall make strong men weep. Time may teach our hands to be quiet or our voices to be tender and low. Time may lead up out of the valley of humiliation a troop of penitents to weep at every grave. Some happy talent and some fortun ate opportunity may form the two sides of the ladder on which some men mount, but the rounds of that ladder must be made of stuff to stand the wear and tear; and there is no substitute for thorough-going, ardent and sincere earnestness. Facts for the Cnrions. The Chinese physician receives no fee until the patient is cured. Profile pictures, it is stated, originat ed with Philip of Macedon, who had but one eye. White alligators found in Brazil travel far and well on land. Their skull and bones are frequently seen in the forests, and they deposit their eggs in the woods. In the year 1900 February will have but twenty-eight days, although a leap year. This phenomenon occurs once only in two hundred years, and always in the odd one hundred. By the introduction of the telephone into water containing fish, it has been discovered that fish utter singular vocal sounds. There is even said to be a large bivalve in the East which "sings loudly in concert." The grave of Emanuel Seigel, an old and respected farmer of the village of Donovan, 111., who died three years ago, was opened on Saturday. The body was gone, and the coffin occupied by sixteen torpid bull snakes. A piece of linen has been found at Memphis containing 540 picks to. the inch, and it is recorded that one of the Pharaohs sent to the Lydian king, Croe sus, a corselet made of linen and wrought with gold, each fine thread of which was composed of ' 360 smaller threes twisted, together. THE WHITE HOUSE. How the Routine Work of the Presidential Office Is Performed. The routine office work of the White House constantly increases. The early Presidents were not even allowed a pri vate secretary by law. They had to pay for all clerical assistance out of their own salary. Afterward one secretary was provided for ; then an assistant was added. From administration to admin istration the working force grew by the addition of clerks, or the detail of army officers, until what is practically a bureau of appointments has grown up. Includ ing the private secretary, there are now seven persons attached to this bureau, and their positions are no sinecures. Often they are busy until late at night bringing up the day's work. If they al low it to get behind it is next to impos sible to deal with it satisfactorily. Per haps a description of the current office duties of the President's personal staff may interest some readers. An enor mous mail is received every day. The private secretary, Mr. Brown, and Mr. Headley, the executive clerk, open and classify them. Of course it is impos sible for the President to read all the letters addressed to him. li he should undertake the job he would have little time for anything else. But it is im portant that he should be able to select from the mass such letters as he wants to read. So there is a system of brief ing the correspondence, letter by letter, on broad sheets of paper and making a sort of unbound volume of the sheets each day. By glancing over these ab stracts the President can see in a few minutes what letters there are requiring his attention among the hundreds that daily arrive. Such of the letters as are applications for office, and more than nine-tenths are of this class, arc each put into a long envelope, which has a printed form on its back for indorse ment, with name, date, office applied for and remarks. Most of these letters are distributed each day to the several de partments and go upon their files. There are, however, several files in the White Honse one of official letters, to which the President may wish to refer, another of applications and recommendations in cases pending for his decision, one of personal letters and one which would furnish curious reading to students of human nature, called the eccentric file. An hour spent in looking over the con tents of this file would make the least misanthropic man believe that half the world had gone crazy, or cause him to apply to America the bitter remark of Carlyle, who said that England was in habited by 30,000,000 of people, princi pally fools. I must not forget to mention in con nection with the office work of the White House, the fact that there is a post simi lar to that of an exchange reader in a daily newspaper office. The place is filled by Mr. Morton, who served under President Hayes. He goes through two or three hundred papers a day, cuts out everything he thinks the President ought to see, arranges his clippings in topical scrap-books and takes the books in once a day for the President's inspec tion. By this system a President can, if he gives sufficient time to the matter, keep almost as well posted on public opinion as the chief editor of a great daily In length of service the oldest member of the White House staff is W. L. Crook, the executive agent and disbursing clerk, who dates back to the end of President Lincoln's administration ; but there is among the servants of the house a man who was appointed by President Fillmore. He is the fireman,' and his name is Herbert; and the principal door keeper, Mr. Loeffi'er, was put in his place by President Grant in 1869. The exchange reader does his work behind a big screen in the general re ception room. The private secretary, Mr. Brown, and Mr. Headley have a room to themselves, with two bay win dows looking out on the Potomac and the Virginia hills, and a door leading to the President's room. Adjoining is a smaller room, where Mr. Prudon, the assistant private secretary, keeps, with the aid of two clerks, the records of ap pointments and removals in formidable leather-bound volumes like the ledgers in a counting-house. Besides the staff of secretaries and clerks, there is what might be called an official staff of ser vants, who are appointed by the Presi dent and whose salaries are provided for by Congress in the annual appropria tions. It consists of a steward, door keeper, four assistant doorkeepers, a messenger, four assistant messengers, two of whom are mounted, a watchman and a fireman. There is also a telegraph operator detailed from the signal service corps. Tne otner servants of tne nouse- hold, such as the coachman, the cooks and the waiters, are paid by the Presi dent. The repairs and the general good order of the house, its furniture and its conservatory and grounds, are attended to by the Commissioner of Public Build ings and Grounds. A new floral device for weddings is a bouquet rope of fern leaves and rose buds twined - with 'sprays of ground pine, Don't Marry a Man to Save Him. In these days of degeneracy on the part of our youth, while so many young men are going to ruin throughhabits of intemperance and kindred vices, it behooves us ,to sound the note of warn ing in the ears of the fair sex. Very often the alternative of either marrying a man who is addicted to vice or the prospect of old maidenhood, is presented to the fair girl in society ; she must accept the one or stand the chance of the other. Now if marrying were a mere business transaction, the matter might be much more readily disposed of ; but, unfortunately, hearts are con cerned in the affair. The girl loves the man, notwithstand ing his propensity, and is ready to ac cept him, trusting to his love for her to overcome everything after they are married. Never was there a sadder mis take ; for in nine cases out of ten if a man does not reform for his loved one's sake before marriage, he never will af ter; and any girl who marries a man who drinks or gambles may consider her fate sealed by the act. "But," says some one, "what am I to do? If I reject my lover on these grounds he will drink harder and harder until he fills a drunkard's grave." This may be true; but better, far better, that he only ruin himself than that he bring a wife and perhaps innocent little children down to the depths of poverty and misery. Oh, girls, take warning, and trust no man who drinks ! For if he has not the manhood to give up the habit for your sake he is not worth having, and your whole future life may be embittered by an alliance with him. 11 the persuasions of a sweetheart will not win, the chances are that the prayers and tears of a wife will be of no avail to save a man from ruin. Let me tell a short story whose warn ing, though often heard, is seldom heeded. A sweet, loving girl became attached to a very promising young man ; he was good-looking, came of a highly re spectable family, and was prosperous in business; but, alas! he was fond of drink. Frequently when he called upon his betrothed his hand was unsteady and the bright eye dimmed. One night he came very much intoxicated, and caused great sorrow to his dear one and all the family by his conduct. The next time they met Clara gently reproved him, and he promised to cease drinking. For a while he kept his pro mise, but he was tempted and fell; again he promised, and Clara trusted him. The time was drawing near for the wedding, and the parents were very much distressed for the welfare of their only daughter ; they tried to persuade her not to marry Louis until he re formed entirely; but Clara said that after they were once married and home influence thrown around him, he would be different. Trustingly she gave her self into the care of a man who loved his glass more than he loved his sweet bride. For a time he did welL The wife's heart beat high with hope ; but in a fatal moment he yielded to temptation, and the first cloud fell on theirpeaceful home. Gradually he became worse and worse, until he returned home more or less intoxicated every night. The prayers and pleadings of his wife fell on a deaf ear, and the kind husband became brutal and wicked. In three years the demon's work was accomplished, and Clara was left a widow, her husband filling a suicide's grave, her whole life blighted and ruined. Once more I would say to all who are contemplating matrimony: Test well your intended husband, and if he loves anything too much to resign it for your sake, refuse him, although your heart may ache ; and if he is worthy of you he will prove it by reforming from vice. Warerly Magazine. Nearly Killed by Flowers. Two aristocratic beauties of the Span ish Colony in Paris, Senoitta Penedo and the Countess Multedo, had a narrow escape from being suffocated by natural flowers in their hair and the trimming of their ball-dresses, as they were re turning home from Queen Isabella's last soiree in a closely shut-up carriage. The flowers were profusely employed in garlands. The ladies for some time chatted gayly. One of them then be came silent, and then the other. Count Multedo, who was with them, grew alarmed when neither of them replied to observations he made and questions he put, and all the more so that he felt oppressed by the perfume of the flowers. When he caused the carriage to stop, and opened the window, he found them insensible, but they loon recovered when taken into the air. They, how ever, caught a severe cold from the sudden exposure. Waverly Magazine. A school-teacher, discharged for using the rod too freely, applied for employ ment in a dressmaker's establishment. "Have you had any experience in sew ing?" asked the dressmaker. "No," was the reply, "but I have a thorough knowl edge of lmiin"$omertilU Journal, ITEMS OF INTEREST. Mrs. Bayard Taylor is to publish Ther husband's biography. Women who have not fine teeth laugh only with their eyes. Washington ladies visit the races on horseback in large numbers. New York women wear tea gowns made in the style of the First Empire. Women like balls and assemblies as a hunter likes a place where game abounds The movement is being made in Lon don to bring Booth, Irving and McCul- lough together in the same play. The Toronto Globe truthfully asserts that "ignorance is not the mother of all crime, nor is education a remedy for all." Mayor Grace, of New York, was once employed as a waiter in one of the city restaurants. He did his work grace fully. A Nebraska journalist, Wm. B. Sweet, has just come into the possession of $40, 000 by a lucky Colorado mining invest ment. On the'steamship Italy, which lately arrived in New York City, was a Chinese dwarf who is 44 years old and only two feet high. Mr. Shakespeare is Mayor of New Orleans and he is making truoble for the gamblers. They are not overly fond of Shakspeare's works. If we had not in our j outh pulled down a hornet's nest we would be una ble to. appreciate the miseries of the Czar of Russia. It is said that at her last drawing room Victoria very noticeably "snubbed the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. What are snubs to her ? she has a husband. The man who can see sermons in run ning brooks is most apt to go and look for them on Sundays when trout are biting. Curious vYorks of Ants. At the recent Southboro' session of the Massachusetts State Board of Agri culture, Prof. E. S. Morse gave the fol lowing curious particulars about ants : The ant belongs to a family of insects such as wasps, bees,hornets, but is the superior of them all, as are the elephant, the horse and the dog in other lines of ani mal life. Ants are constructed with the "back" bone in front, and the heart and other internal organs on the opposite side are put together upside down as we might think. Their mouth is for biting and swallowing food only, not for breathing. Their bite is so determined and lasting that they are used in some countries for confining the edges of wounds and cuts. Ants' heads are pre sented to the cut surface, wliich they grasp with the nippers, when their bodies are cut off, leaving a whole row of them to hold the flesh. They are cheaper than sticking plaster in some countries. As an illustration of their ingenuity and intelligence, it was stated that they sometimes excavate tunnels under rivers of considerable depth and width, and use the tunnels for transporting supplies. They dig wells twenty feet deep and a foot in diameter for drinking water. The harvesting ants plant seeds on farms, which they cultivate with great skill and neatness, keeping every weed down and harvesting the grain, curing and storing it safely in weatherproof cavities in the soil. They also organize into divisions with commanders, each individual doing a certain kind of work. Some ants are smart enough for engin eers, while others only know enough to do as they are told. They can count and make correct estimates of the mag nitude of an undertaking, as proved by observers. Eight chrysalides (often called the eggs of ants,) were placed in a path where ants travel. A single individual found. them and undertook to carry them to their home. Several were car ried by the single ant patiently enough, but when twenty chrysolides were placed in the heap, another ant was found engaged in the work. The pile was increased at intervals till eighty ants engaged in the undertaking, show ing that workers were detailed accor ding to the demands of the cases. Ant a battles sometimes last many days, in one case seven weeks, the victors finally taking the stores and removing them to their own houses. Their wars are quite as justifiable as those of men, when the object pillage is the same. They have the power, too, of knowing members of their own communities even after six months absence. Strangers are always driven off or killed. They are very helpful to each other, and show sympathy in case of accident or sickneHs. Some families of ants build arched roads covered by an arch of clay or mortar for protection against enemies, and show great skill in the work, which is under the supervision of trained engineers, who order a rebuilding if the work is not perfect. Some kinds of ants keep cows, build cow-yards, and milk their cows regularly, and don't throw milking stools at them either to make them "give down," but stroke and pat their backs very tenderly. Of course these cows are the plant aphides, so familiar to all farmen and gardeners.