rm
DEMOG
RAT
THE DEMOCRAT PUBLISHING CO., PUBLISHERS.
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE $1.50 PER YEAR.
VOLUME I.
SCOTLAND NECK, HALIFAX CO., N. C. THURSDAY, JUNE 11, 1885.
NUMBER 29.
THE FOUNDRY FIRES.
Bee the foundry fires s'eanlinf
With a strange ami ld h3ht
Listen to the anvils ringing
Measured music on the night;
Clanking, clinking, never shrinking
Strike the iron, mold it well;
On the progress of the nations
Each persistent stroke shall tea.
gbowers of fiery sparks are falling
Thick about the workmen's feet;
gome are carried by the night wind
Par along the winding street
Clanking, clinking, never shrinking,
Labor lifts her arms on high.
And the sparks fly from her anvils
Out upon the darkened sky.
In the lurid glow of teeling,
AVith the anvil strokes of thought,
Men are shaping creeds, and welding
Single truths the age has wrought
Clanking, clinking, never shrinking
Strike the truth and mold it well;
On the progress of the nations
Each persistent stroke shall tell.
Let the sparks fiy from your anvils
In tbe way whsre thought is rife;
Each shall Iijrht soma friendly fire
On the waiting forge of life;
Clanking, clinking, never shrinking.
Work till stars fade, and the morn
Of a wider faith and knowledge
From the radiant East is born.
Crude the mass the sweating forgemea
At your eager fret have hurled'
Centuries of toil must follow
Ere ye shape a perfect world;
Vet with clanking, clanking, clinking,
Strike tha iron, shapj the truth,
Scien-.-e is but now beginning.
Thought is in its early youth.
Think each one his arm the strongest
Each believe that God to him
Has revealed the fairest treasures
Hidden in His storehouse dim;
Hanking, clinking, never shrinking,
Ring your sharp strokes.age and youth.
Each must hold himself the prophet
Of a perfect form of truth.
Arthur W. Eaton, in Youth's Companion
ROMANCE OF ECUADOR.
THE WOSDERS OF A STRANGE LAND.
The landlord at the hotel here says a
letter from Quito, the capital of Ecuador,
to the New York Sun, requires you to
mv your board in advance, because he
las no money tc buy food and no credit
with the market men; the muleteers ask
for their fees before starting, because
their experiance teaches them wisdom;
and there is scarcely a building iu the
whole republic in process cf construc
tion, or even undergoing repairs. Death
seems to have settled upon everything
artificial, but nature is in her grandest
glory.
The population of Ecuador is about a
million, and the nation owes twenty gold
dollars per capita for every one of the
inhabitants. The president is compelled
to live at Guayaquil so as to see that the
customs duties, the only source of reve
nue, reach the government, and to quell
tne revolutions that are constantly aris
ing, three hundred thousand of the
population are of Spanish descent, 100,
000 arc foreigners, and 600,000 native
Indians or persons of mixed b'ood. The
commerce is in the hands of the
foreigners entirely, and they have a
mortgage upon the entire country. The
Indians are the only people who work.
Over the doors of the residences or
the business houses, and both are usually
under the same roof, are signs reading.
"This is the property of a citizen of
Germany," and so on, a necessary warn
ing to revolutionists, who are thus
notified to keep their hands off.
The bpamards are the aristocracy. poor
but proud, very proud. The mixed race
luinishes the mechanics and artisans,
while the Indians till the soil and do the
drudgery. A cook gets two dollars a
month in a depreciated currency, but the
employer is expected to board her entire
family. A laborer gets four or six dol
lars a month and boards himself, except
when lie is fortunate enough to have a
wife out at service. The Indians never
marry, because they cannot afford to.
The law compels him to pay the priest a
iee oi six dollars, more money than most
of them can ever accumulate. . When a
lan;ard marries, the fee is paid by con
tributions from his relatives.
It is a peculiarity of the Indian that he
will sell nothing at wholesale, nor wi'l
he trade with von anvwliprn hut in ihn
market place, on the snot whnrfi hf nnrl
iliis forefathers have sold garden truck
iunnret; centuries. Although travelers
on the highways meet whole armies of In-F'-at
s. bearinf unnn their bnrlrn nonuv
, o i "
iximens of vegetables and other sup
plies, they can purchase nothing of
'nim, as the native will not sell his
Kooda i until he gets to the place where
-; ' in ine habit ot selling them. He
vil carry them ten miles and dispose
r" mem lor less than he was offered for
p'm at home.
ihe same rule exists in Guatemala.
A g'-'otleman who lives some distance
ro'n town said that for the
I3st four Timrl . Tl linrl lionn
to net the Indians, who
Fsed everv norninT with nnoks of
flfa (the trot leal clover), to 6ell him
pome i
it his crate, but they invariably
refused to
do so; consequently he was
til rrr intu tnurn tt ttfiir
Fuelled
1
. ' . V " V. VUJ
at Was Parrimt lr liic nwn rlnnr
T t j u y jug T II v w t.
or will the natives sell at wholesale.
yney win give you a gourd full of pota
Fps f,r a penny as often as vou like,
r1 will not sell their stock in a lump.
Pney will ; , A '
to
l 1 Ven cents), but will not sell you
Ml
j, ior a- aoiiar. mis aosttea
terence
to custom cannot be ac-
lhat ti P on the supposition
'An.. "I .
: """Prions are excited by
an
lu "epart lrom it.
1. W Ecuador thorn - n
than ,1. cut. mi Diumiui uuiiis
kde i?.erarti,1- chan therefore
r-iue by the ns nr., n 1.:
akerl J Purchaser 8toP3 at the
Preakfnof ,,Ket8 a aozea or twenty
lenrJ1 ro11?. hich cost about one
A, an the market
women
cueinand eive them as chan- r,.-
re
Imall ,u Sive tnemas chan
UV of anything and ffr
1 cent's
quartil-
ErthPaTnt yo 6et a breakfast roll
rTrTcedue you.
hnitiea live in illagea and com
i .1- ,' wnicn are nreaidprl
ricald:
by
e. or fiovernor. The
native
women all wear black. One never finds
a glimpse of color upon a descendant of
the ancient race. They are in perpetual
mourning for A.tahuallpa, the last of the
Incas, who was cruelly murdered by
PizaTO. Their costume is a short black
skirt and a square robe or mantle of
black, which they wear over their heads
and hold in place by a large pin or thorn
between the shoulders. They look like
nuns, and walk the streets vith bur
dens upon their backs or heads in
processions as solemn as a funeral. They
never laugh, and scarcely ever smile;
they have no songs and no amusements.
Their only semblance to music is a
mournful chant which they give in uni
son at the feasts which are intended to
keep alive the memories of the Incas.
They cling to their traditions and the
customs of their ancestors. They
remember the ancient glory of
their race, and look to its restoration
as the Aztecs of Mexico look for the
coming of Montezuma. They have rel
ics which they guard with the most
sacred care, a?d two great secrets no
amount of tortire at the hands of the
Spaniards has been able to wring from
them. These are the art of tempering
copper so as to give it as keen and en
during an edge as steel, aud the burial
place of the Incarial treasures.
It will be remembered that Pizarro of
fered to release Atahuallpa if the Indians
would till with gold the room in which
he was kept a prisoner. They did it.
Pizarro thought there must be more
where this came from, and demanded
that the ransom be doubled. llunhers
Were sent over the country to collect the
treasure of the kingdom, and were on
their way to Caxaniarca, where the Inca
was a prisoner, loaded down with gold
to buy his freedom, when they, heard
that Pizarro had strangled him. v This
treasure was buried somewhere in the
mountains of Llanganati, northwest of
Quito, and has been searched for ever
since.
A Spauiard named Valve rde married
an Inca girl, and from poverty became
suddenly rich. To escape persecution
from those who wished to know the se
cret of his sudden accumulation of gold
he fled to Spain, aud upon his deathbed
made a confession to the effect that
through his wife he had discovered the
Inca treasures, and left a guide to the
p'.ace of their deposit as a legacy to his
king. This guide has been followed by
the government and by private indi
viduals; fortunes have been wasted iu
the search, hundreds of men have per
ished in the mountains while engaged in
it, and, while the gold of the Incas will
never cease to haunt the memories of the
avaricious, no man has been able to reach
the spot designated by the confession of
Valverde.
The last to attempt it was an English
botanist, who wrote a pamphlet giving
h:s experience. He says that no one
who was not familiar Avith every inch of
the Llanganati mountains could have
written the Valverde document, for the
land marks are all minutely described;
but the path indicated leads to a ravine
which is impassable, and in attempting
to cross which so many people have lost
their lives. It is his opinion that the
condition of this gorge has been so
changed by volcanic eruptions and earth
quakes as to obliterate the landmarks
which Valverde describes, and per
manently obstruct a path which he is said
to have followed.
The capital and productive regions of
Ecuador are ICO miles from its only sea
port, Guayaquil, and are accessible only
by a mule path, which is impassable for
six months in the year, during the rainy
season, and in the dry season it requires
eight or nine days to traverse it, with
no resting p'.aces where a man can find a
decent bed or food fit for human con
sumption. This is the only mcan3 of
communication between Quito and the
outside world, except along the moun
tains southward into Bolivia and Peru,
where the Incas constructed beautiful
highways, which the Spaniards have per
mitted to decay, until they arc now
practically useless. They were so well
built, however, as to stand the wear and
tear of three centuries, and the slightest
attempt at repair would have kept them
in order. ,
Although the journey from Guayaquil
to Quito takes nine days, Garcia Moreno,
the former president of Ecuador, once
made it in thirty -six hours. He heard
of a revolution, and, springing upon his
horse, went to the capital, had twenty
two conspirators shot, and was back at
Guayaquil in less than a week. Moreno
was president for twelve years, and was
one of the fiercest and most cruel rulers
South America has ever seen. He shot
men who would not take off their hats to
him in the streets, and had a drunken
priest impaled in the principal plaza of
Quito as a warning to the clergy to ob
serve tabits of sobriety or conceal their
intemperance. There was nothing too
brutal for this man to do, and nothing
too sacred to escape his grasp. He died
in 1875 by assassination, and the country
has been in a state of political eruption
ever since.
Although the road to Quito is over an
almost untrodden wilderness, it presents
the grandest scenic panorama in the
world. Directly beneath the equator,
surrounding the city whose origin is lost
in the mist of centuries, rise twenty vol
canoes, presided over by the piincely
Chimborazo, the lowest being 15,
922 feet in height, and the
highest reaching an altitude of
22,500 feet. Three of these volcanoes
are active, five are dormant, and twelve
extinct. ' Nowhere else on the earth's
surface is such a cluster of peaks, such
a grand assemblage of giants" Eighteen
of the twenty are covered with perpetual
snow, and the summits of e'even have
never been reached by a living creature
except the condor, whose flight surpasses
that of any other bird. At noon the
vertical sun throws a profusion of light
upon the snow crowned summits, where
they appear like a group of pyramids
cut in spotless marble.
Cotopaxi is the loftiest of active vol
canoes, but it is slumbering now. The
only evidence of action is the frequent
rumblings which can be heard for a hun
dred miles, and the cloud of smoke by
day and the pillar of fire by night which
constantly arises from a crater that is
more than three thousand feet beyond
the reach of man. Many have attempted
to scale it, but the walls are so steep
and the Enow is so deep that ascent is
impossible, even with scaling ladders.
On the south side of Cotopaxi is a great
rock, more shan 2,000 feet high, called
the "Inca's Head." Tradition saja
that it was once the summit of the
volcano, and fell on the day
when Atahuallpa was strangled by
the Spaniards. Those who have seen
Vesuviin can judge of the grandeur of
Cotopaxi, if they can imagine a volcano
15,000 feet higher, shooting forth its
fire from a crest covered by 3,000 feet of
snow, with a voice that has been heard
six hundred miles. And one can judge
of the grandeur of the road to Quito if
he can imagine twenty of the highest
mountains in America, three of them
active volcanoes, standing along tho
road from Washington to New York.
Here in these mountains, until the
Spaniards came in 1531, existed a civil
ization that was old when Chtist was
crucified ; a civilization whose arts were
equal to those of Egypt; which had
temples four times the size of the capitol
at Washington, from a single one of
which the Spaniards drew out twenty
two thousand ounces of solid silver
nails; whose rulers had palaces
from which the Spaniards gathered
90,000 ounces of gold and an unmeas
ured quanity of silver. Here was an em
pire stretching from the e.quator to the
antarctic circle, walled in by the grandest
groups of mountains in the world, whose
people knew a'l the arts of their time
but those of war, and were conquered by
213 men under the leadership of a Span
ish swineherd who could neither read
nor writc!
A Persian Doctor.
In the East all Europeans arc supposed
to be deeply versed in the healing art,
and there is no surer way of gaining fa
vor and consideration than either to
make some cure or to attempt to do so
with as much formality as possible.
When Mr. O'Donovan, the London News
correspondent was exploring the Caspian,
near northern Persia, he paid a visit to
the camp of Veli Khan, whose secretary
spoke a little French. After sonic con
versatiou on general topics, the khan
told Mr. O'Donovan that he had badly
spriined his ankle some time before, and
asked if he could prescribe for him. I
recommended (says O'Donovan) a band
age moistened with cold water and vin
egar, and cold water poured from a
height on the ailing joint every morning.
"Ve have an excellent surgeon .attached
to the brigade," said the general, when
I had done speaking.
"Then,'' said I to myself, "why do
you consult me?"
"He is coming directly," said, the
general; "he will be glad to see you."
Shortly after, a tall, handsome, intellectual-looking
man. with coal-black
beard and piercing eyes, made hi3 ap
pearance. He was the surgeon. A con
versation about European politics fol
lowed. After a pause, the subject of
the sprained ankle again came up. J
repeated my prescription.
"On what scientific grounds do yoi
base your remedy?" said the doctor.
I explained.
"What would you say to a dozen
leeches?" he asked.
Glad to get but of the subject, I said
that the remedy was excellent. Not at
all. No chance of getting off so easily.
"1 presume you are an astronomer V
went on my interlocutor.
"Well," I said, not exactly understand
ing the sudden transition from sprained
ankles and leeches to the stars, "I know
something about the science."
"I presume you can foretell a favorable
conjunction for the application of the
leeches, and drawing the blood of his
excellency?"
My gravity was put to a severe test ;
but taking a long pull of a water-pipe,
which, having gone the rounds of the
company, was in turn handed to me, I
uttered the usual prolonged sigh after
such an indulgence, and gasped out, be
tweeu suppressed laughter and half-suffocation,
that I regretted my science was
not of so profound a nature.
Upon this, the hakin, casting a tri
umphant glance around, sank back upon
his heels and fingered his chaplet of
amber beads. He felt that he had com
pletely floored me, and need not say more
in order to show up my utter ignorance
of medical science. I, for one, blessed
the stars that had rescued me from the
chirurgico-astronomical discussion.
The Heat In India.
The excessive dryness of the air,
sometimes the humidity being as low aa
eight degrees out of a possible 100 de
grees, makes it feel like the blast of a
furnace; it heats any ironwork in the
shade till you can hardly bear your hand
on it, and it heats the bath towels till
they make me gasp as I dry my face!
Everything possible is done to keep our
house cool. It i3 almost hermetically
closed and only thrown open during the
coolest hours of the night. But though
in this way we kept it down to ninety
two degrees in the day, we cannot get it
cooler even at night; and that is what
makes it so wearing, that you never get
any respite from the heat. The deaths
from heat apoplexy have been many ; but
that is the case every year. At the great
railway stations they have coffins in
readiness for the dead bodies which are
sure to be found daily in the trains, dead
not from nun heat but from sheer air
heat. My head often feels as if it wero
being fried, and all night long I keep it
and my pillow well sopped with cold
water. We are having a punkah' rigged
up out of doors, and mean to dine and
sit out of doors at night, as the temper
ature is always some degrees lower then
in the open air than in the house. You,
thinking of a hot English summer night,
will think how delightfully cool and
pleasant it must be; but I can assure you
it ia only mitigating misery; the ther
mometer stands at 100 degrees. Diary
of a Civilian's Wife in India.
Treatment of Beggars In England.
For an able-bodied man to be caught a
third time begging was considered a
cvime deserving death, according to an
old law in England, which remained in
force for sixty years. The poor man
might not change his master at his will
or wander from place to rjlace. , If out of
employment, preferring to be idle, he
might be demanded for, work by any
master of the "craft" to which he be
longed, aud compelled to work whether
he would or no. If caught begging
once, being neither aged nor infirm, he
was whipped at the cart's tail. If caught
a second time his ear was slit or bored
through 'with a hot iron. If caught a
third time, being thereby proved to be
of no use upon this earth, but to live
upon it only to his own hurt and to that
of otheis, he suffered death as a felon.
TIMELY TOPICS
The moss croD of Florida in siurl tn 1m
worth more than the cotton crop, and it j
can oc piacea on the market at less ex
pense. The demand exceeds the sup
ply, and there is not a county in the
State in which the product is not going
to waste.
The city of Los Angeles, Cal., nas a
population of about 35,000. Its streets
are lined with eucalyptus and pepper
trees and with handsome business blocks,
which are more numerous and costly
than in most American cities of five times
the population.
It is officially announced that the epi
demic of trichinosis prevailing from
September to December last in the dis
trict of Magdeburg, Germany, resulted
in 403 cases of sickness, of which sixty
six proved fatal, was caused by a single
pig. Careful investigation proved that
death was in every case due to eating
the flesh raw.
A local government inquiry was held
recently in Manchester, Englaud, to in
quire among other things into an appli
cation of the corporation to impose regu
lations on the sale of horse-flesh. Evi
dence was given that horse-flesh was
largely sold iu the poorer neighborhoods
of the city, dressed like beef, cut up into
steaks and sold at rive pence and six
pence per pound. Much of the horse
flesh sold was unsound. The corpora
tion, who were supported by the butch
ers' association, desired to impose regu
lations on the sale.
The Fuegians are the lowest human
beings in the scale of existence. Their
language contains no word for any num
ber above three; they are unable to dis
tinguish one color from another; they
have no religion and no funeral rite?,
and they possess neither chiefs nor
slaves. Their only weapons are bone
pointed spcar3, and, as they grow neither
fruits nor vegetables and their country
is naturally barren, they arc obliged to
live entirely on animal food. Even these
savages possess, however, sonic social
virtues. They are not cannibals; they
ill treat neither women nor the old, and
they are monogamous, t
In Cuba two hours before a paper is
distributed on the street a copy must be
sent, with the editor's name, to tht gov
ernment and one to the censor. When
tbe paper is returned with the censor's
indorsement the paper may go out to the
public. . One of the newspapers in Ha
vana disregards the law, publishes what
it pleases and when it gets ready. Every
few weeks the government tines the
editor and suppresses the paper. The
next day the paper appears under a new
name. Its frequent brushes with the
government advertise it, and people buy
it to see what new indiscretion it has
committed. The subscription price is
$24 a year.
Near Astoria, Ore., there is a deposit
of clam-shells which covers an area ol
over four acres, and is piled in places to
a depth of over four feet. The amount
of shells is incalculable. Over 1,000
loads have been hauled away to make
roads, but that amount is hardly noticed
in the diminution of the immense heap.
From time to time relics of the eld clam
eating tribes that made that place their
headquarters are found A party recent
ly found a clam-opener. It was made
from a whale's tooth, is about eight
inches long, and is ground sharp at the
end. There are some sixteen inches of
soil on top of these immense clam b -Is,
on which grow fir trees, some of tn
400 years old.
An elephant attached to an itinerant
circus at Bridge water, England, recently
managed to get loose during the nig.1.,
and thievishly entered a bar-room. He
had evidently been accustomed to know
what was worth eating and what was not,
for on its way to the public house tb
animal "emptied a barrel of pig's was, "
that stood in the way of its getting at
victuals. Everything that was eatable
in the bar-room was devoured, "inclucV
ing," as the local report has it, "
quintity of potatoes, several loaves ot
bread, and about a couple of pounds ol
butter." The sage animal vas on tho
point of attacking the bar, when "the
inmates and a policeman gave the alarm,
and the elephant was secured after much
rouble."
A New York company which manu
factures every day 1,800 bustles stuffed
with renovated antelope hair has begun
the manufacture of life-preservers stuffeu
with the same material. A test of lbs
comparative value of different life-preservers
has just been made. It requires
only ten pounds of buoyancy to keep a
live person's head above, water. A cork
buoy weighing nine pounds was thrown
overboard, and was found to support
thirty-three pounds; a buoy of California
tule held up fifty -pounds, and an Alaska
down buoy of five pounds held up sixty
four pounds. The company recently
fitted out several yachts with antelop
hair or Alaska down cushions, which can
be thrown overboard, and each will sup
port a dozen persons.
The schemes of a "Small Farm Com
pany" in England is already assuming
detiniFe shape. The general scope o'
the company will be to buy up land
and re-Bell it in small parcels by a sys
tem of annual payments. In so doing
tbe company will, it is hoped, meet the
particular wants of several classes of peo
ple such, for instance, as the following:
(1) Communities of agricultural laborers,
each of whom would own separate
plots, but who would be able to use
horses, plows, e'e, in common. (2)
Small farmers, willing to farm holdings
of not more than thirty acres. (3)
Tradesmen and other immigrants from
neighboring towns wishing to add to
their resources by various kinds of
petite culture, market gardening, bee
keeping, poultry breeding, and the like.
It is an excellent scheme, and its prog
ress deserves to be watched with close
and practical interest.
There is a remarkable absence of pau
perism in Japan, but a man with an in
come of $1,000 a year is considered
wealthy, and a peasant or farmer who has
$100 laid by for a rainy day is ranked
with capitalists. It is estimated that
there are less than 10,000 paupers in the '
wnoie empire.
POPULAR SCIENCE.
The new process of toughening timber,
by which white wood is rendered so
tough as to require a cold chisel to split
it, consists in steaming the wood and sub
mitting it to an end pressure.
In the last volume issued by the Geo
graphical survey of India is an account
of a fiery eruption from one of the mud
volcanoes on Cheduba island. A body
of flame 600 feet in circumference is said
to have at one time reached an elevation
of 2,400 feet, petroleum being the
cause.
From some experiments made at the
university of Kansas it appears that the
average person can taste the bitter of
quinine when one part is dissolved in
152,000 parts of water. Salt was de
tected with one part in 640 of water,
sugar in 238 of water, baking soda in 48
of water. In nearly all cases females
could detect a smaller quantity than
males.
Rhcem, of the Smithsonian institute,
has contradicted much of the popular
belief concerning snakes. The veno
mous hoop snake, which takes its tail in
its mouth and rolls along like a hoop,
and the blow snake, the breath of which
is deadly, exist only in the imagination.
The idea that serpents sting with the
tongue is erroneous. An impression pre
vails that the number of poisonous snakes
is great, but in North America there are
but three species the rattlesnake, the
copperhead or moccasin, and the coral.
Snakes do not jump; they reach sud
denly forward, perhaps half the length
of their bodies.
The use of water In connection with
blasting in mines and quarries is rapidly
extending in this country and in Europe.
A tube tilled with water is inserted in
the bore hole next the powder cartridge,
the tube being of thin plate, or even of
paper. 1 he usual tamping follows, and
when the explosion occurs the tube con
taining the water is burst, the explosive
violence being increased by the presence
of water and extended over the enlarged
interior of the bore hole,due to the space
occupied by the water-tube. A much
larger quantity cf the material to be
mined or quarried is thereby brought
down or loosened with a smaller quantity
of explosive used, while the heat of the
explosion converts a portion of the water
into steam, which, with the remaining
water, "extinguishes the flame and ab
sorbs and neutralizes the gasca and
smoke' generated.
The disappearance of animal life from
earth must always be regarded with in
terest and concern. Apprehension is now
beginning to be felt that we are now
looking upon the final struggle for exis
tence of all the larger mammalia the
elephant, the giraffe, the bison, the
whale, the seal, and many others which
must soon be extirpated unless protected
from being hunted to death. An inter
esting case of animal extinction is found
in "Steller's sea-cow," lately referred to
by Mr. Henry Woodward " before the
London Geological 'society. This great
animal, which has been variously classed
with the whales, with walruses and seals,
and with elephants, was a toothless
vegetable -feeder, living along the shore
in shallow water, and often weighing
three or four tons. It was seen alive and
described in 1741, but in1780 it ap
peared to have become entirely extinct,
This creature belonged to the order
"Sirenia," and Mr. Woodward looks
upon it as a last surviving species of tht
great group of Sirenians which lived is
the tertiary age of geology.
Elephant Quotations.
The skill now displayed in teaching
elephants, says -a New York letter to the
Troy Times, is certainly wonderful, and
a herd of these animals is now necessary
to any first-class caravan. This has led
to an extensive traffic, and the London
importer sends the following advertise
ment to one of our leading dailies:
Burmese Elephants. Healthy young
Burmese elephants for sale 4 1-2 feet antl
under at 175 each; over 4 1-2 to 5 feet, at
300 each; delivered in London or Liverpool;
prices of animals from 5 feet to full grown
on application. Address Burmah, 22 Upper
Baker street, Regent's park.
The price is certainly reasonable, be
ing equal to $875 for the small size and
$1,000 for the large. When one con
siders that this is not one-tenth the
price often paid for a fine horse, one can
but acknowledge that it is cheap
enough. Barnum has invested more
money in elephants than any other indi
vidual, and he has made it highly re
munerative. At one time he had one of
these animals harnessed before a plow
and kept busy in his fields at Ivaniston.
The Boston cars passed tho place daily,
and the elephant became a good adver
tisement. Barnum has probably put a quarter
of a million in this kind of stock,
including Jumbo, whose cost has been
advertised at $50,000. It is not proba
ble that it was one-half of that sum. A
well trained performing elephant is
worth $10,000 that is, it will attract
enough to make such an investment re
munerative, but show pioperty is entirely
"fancy stock," and there is no fixed val
uation. Adam Forepaugh, Jr., is one
of the best elephant trainers in the coun
try, and his skill has enabled him to rival
Barnum. The latter, with all his genius,
never trained anything. He pays good
salaries, however,. to experts, and before
he purchased J umbo he made an engage
ment with his keeper to accompany him
to America. - This man has been with
the famous elephant for nearly twenty
years, and controls him as easily he would
a child.
An Assyrian Statue of 850 B. C.
About twenty-five years ago there was
shipped to a gentleman in Philadelphia,
from a missionary to Syria, a life-size
statue of a king, taken from the ruins of
Nineveh at the time of Sir Henry Lay
ard's explorations. It had been lost by a
caravan in the desert, and when received
was stored and neglected, until a few
days since. It represents a king clad in
royal robes, bearing in one hand a
basket and in the other a fir cone, a por
tion of the stone being covered with
sharply cut hieroglyphics, which Assyr
ian scholars are endeavoring to trans
late, ine statue came from the temple
of King Assur-nazir-pal, a famous con
queror who reigned from 883 to 859 B.
C, and who was, theretore, sleeping in
his grave when Nebuchadnezzar, King of
Babylon, was yet an infant. Scientifi.
American. -
The last war between England and
Russia began in 1854.
fUCATAN.
Peculiarities ot ttio Natives Strange
I'larringe Rites.
In a lecture before the Long Island
Historical society, Mrs. Le Plong related
the following: interesting facts about Yu
catan and its people : The ancient mar
riage rites are very interesting. On her
wedding day the Indian maiden, like her
fair sister, dons the best she can procure,
sometimes hiring or borrowing a dress,
as well as plenty of laces and baubles.
After the ceremony of the church is over,
she returns to the house of her child
hood. Eight days having elapsed, those
who gave her iu marriage take her to the
house of her husband, whose father then
scatters cocoa beans over the floor for the
numerous guests to gather. They seem
to have forgotten the meaning of this,
but it may be symbolical of the hospi
tality that the young couple should offer
to all friends, for cocoa was current even
before the Spaniards arrived, while choc
olate made from cocoa was in ancient
times, as it is now, the favorite beverage
throughout the country. When the cocoa
is gathered the young couple kneel on a
mat, and the mother of the bridegroom
blesses them, the father repeating tbe
blessing. This does not consist of laying
the hands on the head, but ia sprinkling
water on them with a twig of rue. After
the blessing more cocoa is scattered, then
they put in the mouth of the bride and
groom a mixture of toasted corn, quite
bitter, and honey. The mixture is called
"kux," and its use is symbolical. Kux
means disgust, annoyance, anger, from
which no one in any state of life can hope
to be altogether exempt, and the honey
represents tho sweetness of a happy
union. The use of the rue has also its
meaning, for the Indians are well aware
of the medical property of the p!ant.
But. the Indians now hide themselves to
observe old rites, and those who wish to
have a chance of seeing them must, po to
remote places, where travelers tire like
wise attracted by the temples and palaces,
remains of once flourishing cities thatarc
scattered over the peninsula and hidden
beneath dense forests. During the past
four years two or three railroads have
been constructed in Yucatan. Much
traveling, however, has yet to be accom
plished over excessively bad roads,
and the conveyance in use, though
strong and safet is far from comfort
able. It is called bolan koche and
is a kind of paiaquin supported on
leather straps. The bottom is a net
work of ropes, on which a thin mattress
is spread, large enough to accommodate
six persons, sitting Turkish fashion, or
two lying full length, the way gener
erally preferred. The bolan koche is
drawn by three mules, small but strong
They go just as they please, for tne
driver seldom guides them, he is too
busy smoking cigarettes, snd they have
a trick of choosing the worst places. If
but one stone is in sight they are sure to
jump the wheel over it. Leaving Mcrida
early in the mornintf we meet groups of
Indians on the way to the city market
with fruits, fowls, jars, sacks of char
coal, loads of wood, and many other
things. Loads are carried on the back,
the strap being put across the forehead
for heavy loads and for light ones across
the chest. Some plod along the road
half hidden beneath a lot of fodder.
Weary women drag themselves from
door to door crying "Manachuch"
"Buy charcoal" in anything but pleas
ant tones. The profits of the
day generally amount to ten
or" twelve cents. These people
are remarkable pedestrians, six miles an
hour being an easy gait for them, and
they are so polite that they ncvei
fail to salute the passing white man. Not
even 350 years of slavery have destroyed
the innate good manners of the race.
The woods and hedges are covered with
brilliant colors. Brilliantplumed song
sters nestle among the green foliage, but
flutter away at the approach of man.
The woods abound with deer, timid rab
bits, gaudy turkeys, treacherous tigers,
and, venomous snakes, glistening and
gliding among the blossoms. Some ot
the villages arc very picturesque, with
Indian huts, above whose roofs the palm
trees tower like sentinels, while duskj
little urchins and half starved dogs frolic
together under the scorching sunrays.
Many parts of the country arc cutirely
undermined by extensive caverns, that
formed delightfully cool retreats during
the heat of the day. There arc lony
winding passages and roomy
chambers following one after an
other long distances, with here jind
there some chink in the slony vault
above through which a sunbeam pene
trates, enabling us to see right openings
leading to untrodden places in the bow
els of the earth. In these caverns arc
small pools of water of medicinal quali
ties! In the west of Yucatan there is a
village called Boloncher, meaning nine
wells, because in the public square
there arc nine circular openings cut
through the strata of rock. They are
all mouths of one immense cistern (nat
ural or made by hand is not known.) In
times of drought they are empty, which
shows they are not supplied by any sub
terranean spring. In such times the
pcopie depend entirely on the watei
found in a cave a mile and a half from
the village. This is perhaps the most
remarkable cavern in the whole peninsu
la. The entrance is magnificent, wild,
and picturesque, beneath an overhanging
rock.
Skill With the Lasso.
It is no credit to a cowboy to catch a
bull by the horns, says a Forty Keogh
letter, for he cannot be thrown by them
and is simply held as a prisoner, but the
skill in throwing a lasso is to pitch the
noose in front of an animal when he is
going at full gallop, so that the next
step he treads into it. The cowboy
tried it on a bull while both of our
ponies were jumping along on a dead
run. The old fellow was going about as
fast as we were, but the fatal loop shot
through the air at a tangent and fell,
wide open, just in front of him on the
ground. The left fore foot plunged
square into the circle, the rope was
tightened with a sudden jerk and the
steer rolled over in the dust, as cleverly
caught as anything I ever saw. The
broncho, too, understood his part of the
business thoroughly, for he bore at the
right moment in the opposite direction,
else he might have been thrown instead
of the bull, to which he was much in
ferior in weight. -
The United States sends four iron
bridges a month to Brazil.
A THOUSAND CHEERS,
A thousand cheers for the blighted life,
The lonely one we daily meet.
The sad, sad lot a knight in strife
Is trodden down by rapid feet.
He needs our hand in the heartless race,
The voice of love might calm his fears.
Oar smile might brighten his careworn fae
Inspire liis life with a thousand cheers.
A thousand eheors for the S3wing girll
With her tired Lands and her heavy hearts
Though pure in soul unknown in the whirl
Of money-makers in city mart.
Oh, beautiful llowor on the toilsome patn,
Oh, jewel rare for tho weary eyes,
Oh, thought sublime that her toiling hath
A thousand cheers from the starry skies
A thousand cheers for the honest boy,
Unlearned in schemes of fame and wealth.
Whose steps are heralds of restless joy
The restless joy of rugge 1 health.
The clouds may shadow, some sunny day,
This picture gilt with morning light,
But honor on earth still finds a way
And room enough for a deed of right.
A thousand cheers for the man of might!
Who bravely strives when others fail,
Who marches oil t- the losing fight
When rights go down and wrongs prevail.
The man who hears the scorn and the frown
And Censure's bitter blasting breath,
Receives, at Inst, a dear-bought crown,
A thousand cheers at tho gates of death.
I!. If. Callahan, in the Current.
PUNGENT PARAGRAPHS.
A warm purr-suit. The cat's skin.
One legged orators are always success
ful on the stump.
It's a smart child after a shingle inter
view with its lather.
A soft answer turnethaway wrath, but
a club keeps it turned away.
The way to make an overcoat last is to
make the undercoat first. Lynn Union.
AY hen boarder meets spring chicken
then comes the tug of jaw. lJtiladcl
vhia Call.
AVhen a man sees double, it is evident
that his glasses are too strong for him.
IJuslon Transcript.
Some one says that liquor strengthens
the voice. This ia a mistake, it only
makes the breath strong.
A successful architect may not be an
honorable man, but he certainly has
good designs. Sifting.
What 13 joy? To count your money
and know that it does not belong to
your creditors. Chicago Ledger.
Ca'sar conquered Gaul after ten years
of steady fighting, but he was afterward
"downed" in ten minutes by a book
agent. Nei.cman Independent.
The girl who said "I dote on tho sea"
the day she sailed, was yelling for an an
t dote before the steamer was out , of
sight of land. New York Journal
Atmospherical knowledge is not
thoroughly distributed in our schools.
A boy, being asked: "AVhat is mist?"
vaguely responded: "An umbrella."
If a barber could only hold his own
chin as well as he does that of his vic
tim he would soon be able to use real
bay rum. New York Morning Journal.
Friend You don't mean to say you
understand French, Tommy? Tommy
Oh, ye , I do ; for when pa and ma speak
French at tea I know I'm to have a pow
der. Reverend Gentleman "My child, you
should pray God to make you a new
heart." Youthful sinner "So I did,
papa, four days ago; guess it isn't done
yet." Life.
"Trifles light as air may sometimes
change the current of a man's life."
Yes, yes, they may, and biscuit heavy
as lead will sometimes do the same
thing. Chicago Ledger.
"A Los Angeles rancher has raised a
pumpkin so large that his twin children
use each a half section for a cradle.
That's nothiin'. In this city four full
grown policemen have been found asleep
on a single beat. San Franehcnn.
Che Boston girl never says, "It's a cold
day when I get left." She removes her
glasses, carefully wipes them with her
lace bordered hand kerchief, and observes,
"The day is extremely frigid when I'm
abandoned. " llmton Courier.
In Patagonia they fine a man two
goats for killing his wife. . The law is
very strict on the subject, too, and if
the tine isn't promptly paid he is com
pelled to marry again. That makes him
hustle around for the goats. Mnghamton
Jlgpitblican.
The fishing season is "ton." "AVhat
did you catch yesterday?" asked a Peoria
urchin, with a pole and an oyster can,
to another boy. "Just, what you'll
catch when you get home," said the
other, morosely, rubbing his shoulders.
And then each smiled a sickly smile, and
the convention slowly and solemnly ad
journed without date. Peoria I'ran
cript. A New York Sunday-school teacher
told her pupils that when they put their
pennies into the contribution box she
wanted each one to repeat a Bible verso
suitable for the occasion. The first boy
dropped in his cent, saying: "The Lord
loveth a cheerful giver." The next boy
dropped his penny into the box, saying:
"He that giveth to the poor lendcth to
the Lord." The third and youngest boy
dropped in his penny, saying: "A fool
and his money are soon parted." Detroit
Journal.
Putting It to Use.
The petrified wood that is so abundant
in the United States Territories of Ari
zona, AVyoming, and Rocky mountain
regions, is rapidly becoming utilized.
In San Francisco there is now a factory
for cutting and polishing the petrifica
tions into mantel-pieces, tiles, tablets
and other architectural parts for which
marble or slate is commonly used. Pet
rified wood is said to be susceptible of a
finer polish than marble, or even onyx,
the latter of which it is driving from the
market.
The raw material employed comes
mostly from the forejla of petrified wood
along the line of the Atlantic and Pacific
railroad. Several other companies have
also been formed to obtain concessions
of different portions of these forests.
Geologists will regret the destruction of
such interesting primeval remains, and
some steps ought to be taken to preserve
certain tracts in their original state.
Blacksmith and Wheclvright, '