Evening Star Newspaper, January 26, 1895, Page 18

THE EVEN NG STAR, SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 1895-TWENTY PAGES. 4\ CARPENTER’S RETINUE. ACROSS COREA Carpenter’s Tour Through Interior of the Hermit Kingdom. PONIES TAKEN FOR THE KING'S LIN “It is Pronounced to Be the Switz- erland of Asia. FARMING METHODS (Copyrighted, 1805, by Frank G. Carpenter.) T HE OCCUPATION of Corea by Japan is already beginning to change the country. An electric railroad has been planned from the capital to the Han river, which lies three miles away, and it is probable that the machinery for this will be got- ten in the United States. It is twenty six miles from Che- mulpo, which is the main port of the covn- try, to Seoul, and the railroad will be built over the mountains, connecting the cap- {tal with the sea. Sooner or later other roads will be built from Seoul to the west coast, and to Fusan on the south coast, as well as to the north. The northern roads will be fostered by the Russians, and there will probably be @ connection with the ‘Trans-Siberian road, so that we will event- ually be able to go from Paris to within a few hours’ sail of Japan by land. Today no cne knews much about the country of Corea. There is no land in the world out- side of Thibet which has been less ex- plored. Very few travelers have gotten into the interior, ard the letters describig the country have been confined to the capital and the seaports. I am, I belleve, the only American newspaper man who has traveled sh the peninsula from one side r. I doubt whether the trip could possibly be taken today. I made it last summer just on the eve of the rebel- lion, and it was curious in the extreme. My outfit consisted of six men and four horses, and we spent seven days among the Corean mountains, traveling for hours fn the clouds, and being lifted in chairs up hills so steep that the ponies could not Carpenter's Bull. follow. The most of the way was on bridle- paths, and a great part of it was really dangerous on account of the tigers and leopards. It was like going through a new world, and were it not for the notes which I too on the ground, I might think the whole journey a dream. ‘The Snake and the Crown Prince. I had spent a month in Seoul, and had been hobnobbing with the Corean nobles, having had my audience with the king, and I supposed that I would have no trouble in securing an escort across the country. J was mistaken. Just at the time Iwarted to go the King of Corea had or- ered all the horses in Seoul to be brought to his palace city, which Hes at the back of the capital, tn order to enable him to Move to another vast establishment which he has in another part of the city. He has more power, you know, than the czar, and he Ig more superstitious than an African king. There are snakes in nearly all the roofs of the Corean houses, and just be- fore we were ready to go a big black snake about as long as a man’s leg had dropped down out of the roof tnto the erown prince’s face while he was sleeping, and the king thought this was a bad omen, and that the gods wanted hint to move out of the palace for a time. He sent out his orders, and every pony in Seoul was laid hold of by his officials. I had engaged four fast trotters, and the grooms were bring- ing them to my house, when the officials saw them and seized them for the king. Had I or one of the foreigners been with them, we could probably have held them, but we were not, and they were car- ried off to the palace. I was stopping at this time with Mr. Power, the king's elec- trician, and he sent his soldiers outside the city, with orders to lay hold of the first ponied that came. They brought four shaggy beasts out of a party of eight. They tried to catch the whole lot, but the other four suspected their tntentions and galloped away. They brought them Inte our courtyard, and we persuaded them to «0° with us. A high official in Corea, as a Tule, grabs everything he can get, and pays for nothing. On this trip we paid for everything, and it cost me to go from one side of the peninsula to the other three hundred thousand cash, or about $100. Carpenter's Gorgeous Outfit. y consisted of four ponles and ix men, and I traveled I'ke a Corean noble. The king had given me a passport, and this had an envelope almost as big a3 this paper, and the Cerean characters upon it were circled with red in order to keep any ene from changing them. This described me as 2 mighty American who was visit- ing Corea, and it directed the magistrates to entertain me on my way. We had a servant with us, who wore a gorgeous white gown and a hat of black horsehair. This m usually tock the passport ana rode ahead with it to the villages, in or¢ that the magistrates might know that w: were coming, and as we got to the towns met by trumpets and bands, and corted in state to the government in the guest rooms ef which we I bad six Coreans offices, were kept over right. fn my party, and I made the trip alone with them. My old friend, General Pak,of whom I have written before, was with me, and he commanded the outfit. He bad a gor- geous blue suit, which he bought for the trip, and his clothes were spotless and cleap. His horsehalr hat, I venture, cost $15,"and his shoes were of kid with heavy soles of untanred rawhide. Pak spoke very good English, and he acted as my in- terpreter and commander-in-chief. We had four grooms, two of whom were married, and hence had the right to wear hats. The Other two were bare-headed bachelors, and ey were the shabbiest, shoddiest, dirtiest, insiost quartet I have ever seen inside of Corea or out of it. They were perpetually eating, and they stopped at every cook skop on the way. The four grooms walk- ed. General Pak, the servant and myself rede. Pak had a saddle which he had ber- rowed from the prime minister, Min Yung Jun, the man whose oppressions caused the recent rebellion, and I had an American saddle loaned me by Gen. Greathouse. The two other ponies were loaded with our pro- visions and baggage, and the servant sat on the pack. We knew we would be en- tertained by the magistrates, and by Gen- eral Pak’s advice I bought a goodly supply of liquors and cigars. The cigars were very cheap—I think the newsboys would eall them “two-fers"—but they were wrap- ped in tinfoil, and the magistrates handled them as though they were solid gold, and their faces became oily with happiness as they smoked them. I hed a half-dozen bot- tles of champagne, several of claret, and rot a few of Chatireuse and cognac. We were expected to treat every party we met, and as the Journey lasted seven days, our supply was none too large. We lengthened it out considerably, however, by the size ef the glasses. We bought little cognac glasses, holding abcut a thimbleful of liquor, and pessed it around to the gov- ernment clerks in this way. There is no glass in Corea,and the magistrates thought they were gencrously treated, and the higher the man the more glasses he got. As an especially great favor, we gave the empty bottles to them now and then, and we found them greedily grabbed for wher- ever we went. I wish I could show you how we rode in state out of Seoul, with my servant going along in frout and yelling to the common people to get out,of the way for the for- eign Yangban. We wound in and_out among thousands of low thatched huts, now skirting the sewers, which run in open drains through the streets, and again being squeezed agsinst the wall in order that some high, silk-gowned noble might pass by in his chair. We rode for about a nile along one of the main business streets of the city, having to move carefully in order that ‘our horses might not step on the pipes of the merchants, who squatted on the ground in front of their stores and oked as they waited for customers. We went by the great barracks, where the ragged soldiers who make up the King’s army live, and passed a gate of the old palace, which Gen. Fak toll me was the e of Japane: . and has some tra- jon of a ski Japanese connected with it. We passed by chairs containing the fair but frail dancing girls of the kins- de m, and wher we had gone through the at gate of the wall, which leads out in- to the courtry, we found one of these girls sitting with her chair upon the ground. She was not a bashful girl, and when I told Gen. Pak that I wanted her photograph, he asked her to get ont of her chair, and she posed before my camera. We passed scores of coolies coming into the capital, who wore hats of straw as big as umbrellas, and went by caravans of po- nies Joaded with straw and pine branches, which were being brought into the city for sale. Within a few miles of Seoul there is @ great caravan of these queer Corean hucksters, peddlers, travelers end swells, which is always meving in or out of its walls, and the scene is like an ever- changing kaleidoscope, or stranger than ene of Kiralfy’s most gorgeous extrava ganzas. Inside and on the edgo of the city all was dirt and squalor, end it was not | until we hal ridden an hour that we ap- preciated the beauty of our surrcundings. The Switzerland of Asia. Corea may be called the Switzerland of Asia. It is a land of mountains and val- leys, of crystal lakes and trickling streams. We rode for days through one- beautiful valley after another; now going for miles through fields of rice lands, laid cut in ter- races and covered with water, out of whose glassy white surface the emerald grec’ sprouts were just peeping. Such valieys lie right in the mountains, and the hills which rise from them are as ragged and as bare as the silvery mountains of Greece. ‘They change in_ their hues with every change of the heivens, and they now look like silver, and again turn to masses of velvet and gold, spotted here and there with navy blue pines. The clouds nestle in their hollows, and their tops, In the ever- varying air of Corea, assume at the e of the evening all sorts of fantastic shapes. Our first day’s ride was through a valley which was as rich as guano and as black as your hat. It was cut up with creeks, some of which were a half mile wide, and at these we found rongh men clad in white, with their pantaloons pulled up to their thighs. As we came up these men bent their backs and our grooms crawled up them, and clasping them around the neck they were carried throvgh the water. The porters received one cent for each trip, and Gen. Pak told me that this work is sometimes done by men out of charity, and that the gods esteem it a gooé act, and the water which washes their legs at the same time carries away their sins and gives them a clean road to heaven. Other devo- tees stand with cold water in the streets and give drink to all that thirst. Corean Farming. The country scenes of Corea are unlike anything you see in America. The land is not more than half farmed. It takes nine men to do what one man does in America. Trink of putting nine men to one long- handled shovel! One man holds the shovel and presses it into the earth, and four stand on each side and pull the dirt out by a@ rope attached to the blade. The dirt ts carried from one part of the field to anoth- er in packs on the backs of men, and the great part of the land is dug up with a hoe. The farmers spend most of their time His Soul in the Camera. im squatting and smoking. They have small holdings, and the crops seem to be good where they are at all cultivated. I saw much barley and some wheat. It was all planted in rows and the people hoe and weed their wheat.as we do our potatoes. ‘These rows were from one to two feet wide, and between them beans had been planted. I saw some of the crops being put in. The ground was first made fine and the planters then dug the hills for the beans by pressing their heels into the ground. They dropped the beans into the hole and covered them over with a kind of a twist of the same bare foot that made it. There were no fences and no barns. and I saw no houses alone on the fields. The people live in villages, and they keep their livestock under the same roof with their families. Corenn Catile. The Coreans use ponies and bullocks as beasts of burden. The ponies are very small and the bullocks are very large. They are, in fact, as fine cattle as you will see anywhere in the world, and they seem very docile and kind. Nearly all the plow- ing is done by bulls, which are hitched to the plow by a yoke, which rests just over their shoulders. Our oxen have yokes around their necks, and they pull by having the weight of the cart or plow “somewhat evenly distributed about their necks and shoulders, These Corean bullocks push everything along by the tops of their shoulders, holding their heads down as they toil. They seem to plow very well, and though their carts are the rudest, they carry great quantities of all sorts of farm products and merchandise. They are used largely as pack animals, and they have pack saddles of wood, which extend six inches above their backs, and which are heavily loaded. These saddles often gall the backs, and I saw many cattle that had patches of raw flesh as big as your hand, where the saddle had rubbed off the skin. The bullocks are of a beautiful fawn color, and they travel almost as fast as a horse. The second day of our journey one of our pack ponies dropped, wornout, by the wayside, and Gen. Pak hired one of these bullocks to take its place. He car- ried my bag and the cameras and about a bushel or so of money. At first I feared he would keep back the party, but he led the procession, going on a sort of cow trot all the way and climbing up the hills and gal- Icpiny down the valleys to the imminent danger of the baggage. His only harness outside ef his pack was a ring of wood, about as thick as your finger and as big around as a dinner bucket, which had been run through his nose, and to which a rope was fastened. The meat of these animals is very good, and you can get as good beef- steak in Corea as you can in New York. I found none for sale, however, on my trip across the country, and I was surprised to find that the people do not use milk nor butter. Hundreds of Streams, Corea is a well-watered country. We found beautiful streams everywhere. ‘There were no roads, and ovr journey was largely on bridle paths. We crossed the creeks and rivers on bridges, which were made of pine branches with a thin coat- ing of earth. In some places these were very unsafe, and the herses ard the bull went in up to their knees, so we preferred to ford when we could. There is a good system of irrigation throughout the val- leys, and in some places I saw the people building canals in order to keep the wa- ter at high level and cover a greater ex- tent of territory. There were fully one Sey Laztest Men in Coren. thousand men at work, and on inquiry I found that these men were composed of the furmers of the neighborhood, who combined together for mutual advantage, and that the water was free for all of the assa@iation, The Coreans have their trades unions and the planters probably. have a guild of their Gwn. One of the strongest labor unicns of the country fis that of the porters, who are practically the freight cars of Corea, and who carry more than either the bullocks or ponies. I photo- graphed a number of them on my trip, and some of the men whom I took were terribly frightencd. One was loaded down with shoes, and he thought that we were going to capture his soul. This seems to be a general idea among the Chinese and Coreans. They think that if their pictures are taken the man who owns the camera will have control of tieir souls, and will work them evil thereafter. They are su- perstitions in the extreme, and_the stories about foreigners cutiing up Chin b bies for medicine and tearing out the eye of Coreans to, grind up to make photo- graphic materfal been industriou: spread by the Ch Everywhere we went we found the people predisposed to the Chinese, and we heard no good words for Japan. ‘The people have been greatly cppressed, and the men who entertained us in the villag were the officials who had been uee g& the lMfe-blood out of the ce mon people. These villages are Itke no others in the world, and the little petty king: o rule the country under the name of magistrates are so curious that I will Gevote my next letter to them FRANK G. CARPENTER. — WASHINGTON ROMANCES. Writers Who Misrepresent the Movals of This City. Washington Correspondence Brooklyn Just at present there seems to be more than a surfeit of sensational books pub- lished in regard to the so-called fast life of Washington. The writers of these Wash- ington romances, which afe really ro- manees in name as they are in fact, though they strive to create the impression that they are true stories, are simply ‘loing ell they can in their small way to make Wash- ington appear in the same light as their predecessors tried to picture New York years ago. There {s no doubt that Wash- ington is as moral us any city of the kind in the United States, and it will more than favorably compare with the great capitals of Europe, where there is of course al- ways a certain amount of intrigue. There are 23,000 women employed in the public service here in Washington, and writers of this kind cast suspicion upon their char- acters, though the vast majority of them are undoubtedly striving to live decent and honest lives and are probably the support ot aged mothers or relatives who are de- pendent upon them. There is hardly a city in the country where the excise law is more strictly enforced than in Washington. The saloons ciose at midnight, and the Sunday side door system is practically un- known here. Therefore, there is compaca- tively little intemperance, and this alono guarantees the moral tone of the com- munity, for it is night drinking that makes New York, Chicago and most of our large cities hotbeds of dissipation and vice. GIGANTIC G SER OF OIL, Flowed Fouricen and a Half Million Gailons in Twenty-Four Hours. From the Chicago Times. The Kirkbridge No. 1 oil well is located in Madison township, Sandusky county, Ohio. The flow of oil commenced Novem- ber 18. The spectacle is described as one of the most magnificent ever witnessed in that part of the country. First appeared a column of water rising eight or ten feet in the air. This was followed by a black stream of mud and sand, which gradually changed to yellow. Then, with a deafening rour, the gas burst forth in an immense volume, hiding the derrick from view. As this cleared away a solid golden col- umn a foot in diameter shot from the der- rick floor 100 feet in the air, there breaking into fragments and falling in a shower of yellow rain for a quarter of a mile around. For a period of five hours this great col- umn of oil shot upward. In a very few moments the field about the well was cov- ered several jnches deep with petroleum. Within three or four hours the ditches for miles around were overflowing with gil. Dams were constructed in order that the product might be estimated, but these were overflowed and swept away as rapidly as built. Some persons living in the vicinity, alarmed at the spectacle, packed their household goods and fled.| The Buckeye pumping station, a mile distant, was com- pelled to extinguish its fires on account of the gas, and all other fires within the district were put out. It was a literal flood of oll, the estimated production for the first twenty-four hours being 14,560,000 gallons. About 18,000 bar- rels per day have been saved and market- ed since the oil has been brovght under full control. The owner has refused an of- fer of $500,000 for the well, being content with the income of $10,000 per day. Stranger Than Fiction. From the Detroit Free Press. A certain member of the Michigan Iegis- lature has a word that is not nearly as gcod as his bond, albelt his word goes to the miraculous rather than to the malic- fous, so that he really does more good by talking than if he didn’t talk. The other day a fellow-member, who didn’t know his peculiarities, heard him tell something, and shortly after ne met another member who knew him from a long time back. “By the way,” said the imaginative member’s new friend, “Mr. Blank told me astrange thing a while ago.” “Ah,” was the immediate response,"what was it, the.truth?” THE FEBRUARY SKIES le What May Bo Seen! in the Most Splendid Star Region, eee SOMETHING ABOUT WHITE STAR SIRIUS The Pleiades Conipdsed Entirely of Z White, Siars. DIAGRAM OF ZODIAC Written for The Evening Star. ACING THE SOUTH on a February even- ing we have before us the most splendid star region in the heavens—-a region attractive from Siwnatever point of Sview we scan the “skies. It contains Oricn, the finest,and Taurus, one of the most useful of the old constellations; it ccntains the bright- est of the fixed stars, Sirius, the most beautiful of the naked-eye star clusters, the Pleiades; the largest of the nebulae (invisibie co the nuked eye), that in the sword of Orion, and at the present time a magnificent “evening star,” the planet Jupiter. We can spend our evenings profitably within the limits of this region. Sirius, below and to the left of Orion, should easily be identified from its sur- pessing brilllancy, equal to that of five or- dinary stars of the first magnitude. n It is “Three Kings,” The star resembling but less arly in line with the ich form the belt of Orion. en still farther to the left, ‘ius in its bluish-white light, S: brilliant, is Procyon. Among the ancients Sirius was generally regarded as a star of bareful influen The Persians called it Tishtya, and dread ed its malign radiance as a cause of the snmmer droughts and of diseases among men and cattle. Similar notions respecting it were prevalent among the Greeks und Romans. The Exyptans, on the contri regarded it as a beneficent star. It known to them as Sothis, and it was b Heved to he the residence of the Goddess Isis. Its rising, or first appearance above the eastern horizon at daybreak, which oc- curred in July, marked the beginning of the Egyptian year. This event brought with it the annual inundation whch fer- tilized the valley of the Nile, and it was, perhaps, because of the star’s supposed watchful care over the interests of the husbandman that 1t was sometimes called Anubis, the Dog, a name which still clings to it. The Brillant Sirius. Sirius is among the ‘sixty or seventy sters of which the dist&nces frem us are krewn with a greatér or less margin of uncertainty. It ranks;third in the order of distance, not first, as might be supposed from its superior briiliancy, the nearest star, so far as is known, being Alpha Cen- tauri—a first magnitddé star too low in the southern hemisphere to be seen by us and the next in order being pi, a star of only the fitth n in the constellation of the Swan. ‘The tance of Sirius is now ptt at about 600,000 times that of the stin, or, to adopt the unit of measurement now commonly em ing star distances, it Is ten : That is, light which reaches us from the sun is a Jittle over eight min- utes, and from the micon in one and one- requires ten y sh across the space which ween us ard the brilliant Dog Star, The light of Sirius Is estimated to equal that of y suns, placed side by side, Upon thi it can be calculated that its diameter is rather more than eight times that of tho sun. But there are rea- sons for thirking that Sirius is he intrinsi brighter than our luminary, so that this is probably an overesti its size. Its dazzlingly white light is gestive of an intensely high temperature, and the evidence of the spectroscope favors this supposition. The “spectrum” of S! and those of the white stars, generally The Pleiades, show the hydrogen lines strongly and broadly marked, while the metal lines, which characterize the spectra of the sun and the yellow stars are less conspicuous. It is commonly held among astronomers that the yellow stars are in @ more ad- vanced stage of world life than the “Sir- ian” or white stars. Jn common with the rest of the heaventy bodies, the sun included, Sirius has a “proper motion”—is moving in space. In the past 1,400 years it has changed its place among the stars, toward the south- west, by an amount equal to the apparent diameter of the moon. This is the direc- tion of its motion “across the line cf sight.” Within the past few years the spectroscope has been used to detect mo- tion of the stars “‘in the line of sight,” that is, toward or from us. In 1876 Dr. Hug- gins found that Sirius was receding at the rate of twenty-nine miles a second. Subsequently its rate of movement was found to have lessened, and still later it was moving toward us. This strange be- havior of the star still remains unex- plained. Pleiades in History. The Pleiades seem to have caught the eye and to have become a@ subject of specu- lation in the earliest times, and they have fovnd a place in the mythology of all na- tions. Their “sweet influences” were known to others than the ancfent Hebrews. The Berbers and Dyaks believe them to be the center of the world ard the abode of the Deity. Many primitive: people began the year with the day of their midnight transit across the meridian, the:l7th of November, and the feast of Isis/began at Busiris on the occurrence of’ this same event. Throughout the southern hemisphere their last visible rising after sunset is, or has been, celebrated with*¥efoicing, as marking the opening of the agricultural season. In Grecian fable the, Pleiades were the daughters of Atlas andthe ocean nymph Pletone, whom Jupiteg, to rescue them frem Orion, changed into pigeons and placed among the stars. The conceit of the “lost Pleiad”—who, some saidy had wasted away «with weeping over the fall of Troy, or, according to others, had withdrawn her light through shame at having married a mortal—was in explanation of the fact that only six stars could be counted in the clus- ter, while there were seven daughters, and the earlier poets and astronomers bad reckoned seven stars. ‘The question what bevame of the seventh Pleiad is still undeciayé. At the present time but six stars co1 bs seen in the clus- ter by eyes of only ordinary keenness. Yet just below the limit of ordinary vision there are several which have been seen by persons of extraordinary eyesight. Maest- lin, the tutor of Kepler, counted fourteen Pleiads, and mapped eleven, before the in- vention of the telescope, and Miss Airy also saw fourteen with the naked eye and mapped twelve. The brightest Pleiad now is Alcyone, of the third magnitude. But there are rea- sons for thinking that this was not the brightest star in the cluster in the time of Ptolemy, and it is not improbable that others of these stars have changed in bril- liancy in the course cf time, and that the loss of the Pleiad was an actual case of diminution cf splendor. Prof. B. C. Pick- ering has picked out the star now known as Pleione—for both Atlas and Pleione have been placed by astrgnomers in the cluster beside their daughters—as very likely to be the star in question. This star has a peculiar spectrum, indicating that it is largely gaseous, and, it may be assumed, liable to variation in splendor. A two-inch telescope reveals over sixty stars in this cluster, and a large telescope brings Pleiades out by the hundred. Still more astonishing is the revelation of pho- tography. The latest photographs of the Pleiades show not only that the number of the stars in the cluster down to the six- teenth magnitude, inclusive, is between 2,000 and 3,000, but that its central portion is involved in an extensive nebula. This nebulous matter is beautifully shown in a photograph of the cluster taken in January of last year by Prof. H. C. Wilson, at the Goodsell Observatory. It is esp2cially con- densed about the four stars Alcyone, Me- rope, Electra and Maia, and forms a filmy background, somewhat curdled in appear- ance, for the whole of that part of the cluster seen with the naked eye. n The Pleiades are all “Sirian,” or white stars, and the fact that no changes in their relative positions have been detected, although the cluster, as a whole, has @ slow “proper motion’ toward the south- east, is additional evidence that these stars form a real and not a merely optical clus- eet they form a star system by them- selves. The movement of the Pleiades is exactly opposite in direction to that of the sun, and upon the assumption that it is only apparent, not real—that it is simply the re- flex of our own movement in space—ha: been based a calculation of the cluste: distance, which results in figures that tend to heighten very greatly our respect for this tiny constellation. The distance thus Horteon Suan and Planets. estimated comes out, In round numbers, 250 “light years’’—twenty-five times that of Sirius, which, as we have just seen, is 600,000 times that of the sun. The cluster is roughly globular, with an apparent diameter about three times that of the moon, Its distance being known, its act- ual diameter can be calculated. It is such that light requires seven years to speed across the cluster from side to side. Were its central star in the place of the sun the outermost stars of the globular ‘tion of the cluster would be found nearly at the distance of Alpha Centauri, the sun’s near- est stellar neighbor, while its outlying streamers would extend far beyond. The sun at the distance of the Pleiades would dwindle te a star of the tenth magnitude. It would require a telescope of some size to discover it. Alcyone surpasses it in splendor if these figures are correct, 1,000 times. }]n view of a luminary such as this, even Sirius can no longer be called a “giant sun.” Among the attractions for this month may be reckoned a probable “maximum” of the variable star Mira Ceti, The pe- culiarity of this star, to which it owes its name, the ‘‘wonderful,” is this: Ordinarily it is invisible to the naked eye, being, when at its minimum of brilliancy, of between the ninth and tenth magnitudes. After re- maining thus for some weeks it begins to brighten, and after @ while it becomes vis- ible to the naked eye. It continues to brighten for some six weeks longer, when it attains its maximum of brilliancy, which may be anywhere between the fourth and second magnitudes, for the star is some- what capricious in this respect. Then it begins to wane, and at the end of about three months it is again lost to the naked eye. Mira runs the cycle of its changes in an average period of eleven months, from which It may deviate to the extent of thirty days. Its last maximum, when it at- tained very nearly to the second magni- tude, was In March last. Another return to brilliancy is, therefore, due this month. At the time of wnting (January 12) it has not become visible to the naked eye, but it can be seen with an opera glass. The star should be looked for early in the evening. At 0 p.m. on the Ist of Febru- ary it is exactly south. It can be found thus The star Menkar, in the head of Cetus, a star of the second magnitude, forms, with the Pleiades and the pair of rs in the Ram’s Head, an equilateral jangle. A straight line run from Alde- baran through Menkar and continued about one-half as far beyond will end very near Mira. There is no star near it of above the sixth magnitude. Diagram of Zodiac. The diagram showing the positions of the sun and the filanets is set for 9 p.m. on the Ist of the month, its upper half rep- resenting the half of the zodiac which is then above the horizon, Five of the planets — Mercury, Venus, Mars, Neptune and Jupiter—are now east- ward from the sun, the last three being above the horizon at the hour named. Uranus and Saturn are westward from the sun—so far west that both will rise before midnight. All of the planets are now “‘even- ing stars.”” At the close of the month the sun will have advanced one “sign” to the eastward (taking with it Mercury and Venus), and the horizon will then be as indicated by the doited line, the three planets still being above it, but lower in the west. The arrows attached to Mercury and Venus indicate the direction and the amount of their movement with relation to the sun during the month. Mercury will advance from the sun until the 9th, when it will attain its greatest elongation east. For a few days about this time it should be visible after sunset, low in the south- west. It will then draw in toward the sun and will be in conjunction with the sun (inferior) on the 25th, Venus is drawing away from the sun and should become visible by the end of the month, BEATS “CARD SENSE.” In a Big Game of Whist Non-Profes- sional Players Defeat Professionals, From the New York World. Eight men who play cards occasionally for fun played a series of games of dupli- cate whist last night against eight other men who play cards regularly for business. The game was played in the Leland Hotel, Chicago, and was the outcome of the dis- cussions which have often been held wheth- er or not so-called science as applied to whist had really added anything to the game. On the one hand the votaries of Pole, Cavendish and Trist insisted the sys- tem of conventfonal leads and play was a purely scientific development of the game, while their opponents as strenuously insist- ed that good card sense would prove equal- ly as effective in winning tricks, and that professionals who knew the game could play a perfectly square game and win against an equal number of scientific whist players. ‘he game was keenly fought on both sides, and as keenly enjoyed. Both sides were surprised at the skill of their oppo- nents, although the most surprise lay with the professionals, who, it was said, were willing before the match to wager $1,000 to $000 that they would win. The amount of winning, seven tricks, was not so large as to make the defeat a crushing one, but sufficient to settle the question of superior- ity of scientific play as against ‘card sense.” At the close the score stood Total tricks, non-professionals, 631; pro- fessionals, 617. Divide by two to allow for duplicate play shows a win by 7. oo —_____ A Comfortable Bellet. From the Boston Commercial Bulletin. A Uniterian clergyman tells this story of one of his brethren in Chicago: The rev- erend gentleman parted with a servant, giving her a written recommendation. The girl applied for a situation in another part of the city, and when she showed her rec- ommendation she was asked of what de- nomination her former employer was, to which, after a little hesitation, she re- plied: “I don’t rightly know, ma‘am, but it’s one av thim religions that lets you down aisy.” - FOR SLEEPLESSNESS Use Horsford’s Acid Phosphate. It you are a poor sleeper, not only do not forget to put on your nlght-eap, ut on retiring also take a night-cap of Horsford's Acid Phosphate, to make assurance doubly sure, —with plenty of exercise will not give anybody dyspepsia—but plenty to eat and no exercise will give any- body dyspepsia. When you get it— get rid of it as soon as you can be- fore it becomes chronic. Dyspepsia— constipation—biliousness are easily cured in their incipiency—but very slowly cured when they become chronic—in all events the remedy is Ripans - Talbules. 0c. Box, All Druggists. F. A. Tschiffely, Washington, D. C., E. S. Leadbeater & Sons, Alexandria, Va. > ON ‘The Uninitiated Taught How to Keep Track of 'Their Moncey. From the New York World. The woman whose price is above rubies, whose husband rises up and calls her blessed, is she whe knows “where her money goes, too.” She keeps an account book. Most women, by the way, ‘keep account books. They have Russia leather volumes three inches by two and a half, gilt-edged and bearing in gilt letters the legend “Ac- counts.” They usually receive these little gifts at Christmas, and for the next three weeks they make sundry unintelligible jottings in them. But that is not the sort of account book the prudent business wo- man or the thrifty housewife keeps. The regulation account bock makes no boast of beauty. It has stiff board covers, is about ten inches long by eight inches KEEPING ACCOUNTS. broad, and is provided with ruled pages. These pages are not only ruled across, but at each -side they have two vertical lines ruled, making two one-inch spaces at each edge of each page. In these spaces dates and dollars and cents may be kept neatly. Tho left-hand page is devoted to income and the right to expenditures. The date on which a sum of money ts received, the per- son or source from which it is received and the amount are entered in a straight line on the left-hand side. On the opposite side the date of any expenditure, the thing for which money has been expended and the amount spent are entered. At stated times the income and the outgo are balanced. Once a week or once a month is a conve- nient time. Here is a specimen page from the ac- count book of an ordinary woman—Miss Mary A. Smith: Jan., 1895. Credit. )Jan., 1895. Sar‘d from Total. $70.27 Miss Smith will begin next week with a blank page for expenditures and $4.10, representing her assets. As she gains more from Mr. and Mrs. P. O. Smith or any other source, she will duly set them down, and on the page opposite her manner of disposing of her wealth. The account book will serve as a record, a reminder and often as a warning. In fact, it is as a warning that the account book is partic- ularly valuable. ——__+e+—____ Too Late. Stood upon my threshold mild and fair, fo} Wher ites Ta her bair. I bade her ent she turned to go, ‘And she sald, “No. Fortune once halted at my ruined porch, And lit it with her tore! T-asked her fondly, “Have you come to stay?” ‘She answered, ‘Nay.’ Fame robed in spotless white before me cames T longed her kiss to claim; I told her how her presence I revered. She disappeared! Love came at last—how pure, how sweet! With roses at her feet. I begged her all her bounty to bestow— She answered, “‘No.”” Since then joy, fortune, love and fame Have come my soul to claln I see them smiling everywhere, Sees —FRANCIS SALTUS. ———~+res. Family Amenities. From the Indlanapolls Journal. Wife—‘‘Here, I have to talk three hours before you will even let me have a dollar. ‘The Brute—‘Well, isn’t that pretty good pay for doing what you take a delight in? You would talk anyhow, even if you didn’t get a cent.” ——— All the Same in Dutch From Life. Hall in oth Street Wing Center Market FOR RENT. An Important Change of Occupancy At the Center Market. THE NINTH STREET MARKET HALL, x ACCESSIBLE FROM THE NEW HANDSOME EN-* TRANCE, NORTHWEST CORNER NINTI STREET WING, BY AN ELEVATOR, ALSO BY A EROAD OPEN IRON STAIRWAY IN THE SOUTHWEST CORNER, which has been used for meetings and drilting of the District militia, WILL BE OPEN FOR RENTAL OR LEASE ON AND AFTER FEB- RUARY 1, 1895, This fine hall 1s 200 feet in length and about 75 feet in width, with ample light and ventilation, and continually kept comfortably warm by over= head steam pipes, and with vers little expense the erection of stage on the east side; seating ca- pacity can easily be arranged for from two to three thousand persons, to and from which rapid irgress and egress is had by two elevators, and the southwest 10-ft. wide iron stairway, also cut of the northeast front corner over the wide irom veranda, extending along the avenue front above the wholesale stores, known as the “Arcade Build ing,” to the center of this wide iron veranda, and thence by the bridge and stairway through the center of Market Park to Pennsylvania avenue. ‘The central location of THIS NINTH STREET MARKET HALL, where all the lines of steam, clec- tric, cable, horse cars and herdies center, from every section of the city, renders its uses more valusble than most any of the other large Lalis in the city. Applications will be received for leasinz it in tte present or in @ condition refitted for the uses re= suired. The Upper Two Stories Of the Arcade Building, Which have been recently used AS PRIVATE OF- FICE QUARTERS FOR THE VARIOUS OFFICERS OF THE DISTRICT MILITIA, embracing about 50 large rooms, with a wide hallway running through the center fn both stories from east ‘to west, con- necting with the wide iron veranda on the first story and fron passageway and elabor= ate bridge to Pennsylvania avenue through the center of Market Park, also by iron walks to the main market buildings and elevators, will also be for lease on and after February Ist. This very central handsome brick building, bav- ing a frontage towards Pennsylvania avenue and the park of 330 fect, was designed when crected for a “Hotel Cafe,” where rooms could be rented with a Cafe on cach floor for serving meal? as disired, and can be now very easily fitted up inte 100 rooms, with two cafes in the center and with Kitchen and store rooms in the center of third story, where steam heating pipes for cooking are located, and long lines of warming pipes running through overhead, the entire length of the main, east and west hallways. Outside iron stairways connect the east and west ends with 7th and 9th streets and Louisiana and Pennsylvania avenues. ‘At or aboat the time this new building was coms pleted some exterprising gentlemen were negotiat~ ing for this very desirable location and new build- ing to be used as a Grand Bazaar and an adjunct to the great Central Market for the keeping and sale of every class and variety of goods or articles so that any person entering the market grounds from Pennsygania avenue, 7th, 9th or B streets would find WF this Arcade Building, divided into 100 se¢tions, a regular John Wanamaker store and bazaar, for which the building is now admirably adapted. This use, however, was abandoned tem- porarily for the occupancy of the District militia, but could now be carried out by the use of the Arcade Building for a sectional variety store, and twenty sections or rooms could be easily fitted up on the first floor from the avenue, scuth side, next to the market proper, for flowers, with glass fronts, in which cold dir could be introduced from the cold storage pipes below and warm air from the steam pipes above, each to be turned on al- ternately when required, and thus flowers and plants could be kept in this floral section of the bazaar in as fresh and safe condition until sold and delivered as if they had remained in the hot house where they were grown. Parties desiring to rent any portion of the above described centrally located business property con- nected with the Center Ma-ket, where thousands of citizens of Washington secure their marketing daily, can call upon or address, PRESTON 8. SMITH. Clerk of Center Market. $219,21,23,26,28,30-6t Office, 7th st. wing,