Evening Star Newspaper, March 16, 1895, Page 22

THE EVENING STAR, SATURDAY, MARCH 16, 1895-TWENTY-FOUR PAGES. FOR CHILDREN’S WEAR Some Pretty Costumes Suitable for Spring and Summer. SUGGESTIONS VALUABLE T0 MOTHERS The Materials and Styles That Will Be in Vogue. ee ARTISTIC AND USEFUL Written Exclusively for 7 G ROW) 1p MEM- bers of the comimu- nity do not entirely monopolize the pret- ty things of the sea- son. Never were the little ones more gracefully or artis- tically clad. The blouse waist is seen everywhere, devel- oped in all sorts and varieties of material, and for tots whose ages range from two to eight years skirts barely reach to the bend of the knee. Sleeves are large—puff- ed, shirred and rosetted quite as elaborate- ly as those worn by the mammas and big sisters. In hats the Kate Greenaway styles are still in favor. They are always gathered on to wires and trimmed with lace-edged frills or bows of ribbon. Black and red combined are popular for | little girls, and solid colors have almost driven the “mixed effects” from the field. For this season no prettier wraps than those illustrated have been shown, the full-length ones being particularly grace- ful. The first little lady shown above is very chic in a coat of bright crimson crepe cloth, which falls straight from the yoke in accordion pleats, two large box pleats coming down each side from the shoulders, both front and back, and a deep band of smocking across the breast giving a very quaint appearance. Satin ribbon bows are on each shoulder, with long streamers fall- ing from the left one, while the cap is sim- ply made of crepe cloth, with a broad band and full loops of ribbon as its deco- ration. The second figure is gowned in white pique, made in simple princess form, with the pretty circular cape and its edging of white embroidery as its only trimming. This is one of the daintiest little wraps seen, and the simplicity of its construction renders the design of value to home mo- distes. ‘fhe picture hat is made of blue cham- bray, much shirred and puifed, and hav- fng narrow lace edgings wherever it is possible to put them. For short coats, big sleeves, double fronts and full backs strapped across at the waist line are the conspicuous feat- ures. In the jacket shown light blue plque was used, and a sailor collar, edged with a voluminous ruffle of fine white em- broidery, gave an unmistakable air of style. ‘These abbreviated wraps are very jaunty, and are pretty when developed in ‘scarlet cloth, trimmed with very narrow white, black or gold braid. Large pearl buttons are generally used, and whenever possible a picture hat should accompany the little coat. The third drawing illustrates a lovely Uttle gown, the general design of which is used for all qualities of material. In this instance it was developed in pale blye crepe, showing a tiny sille dot, the cir- cular yoke of finely tucked cambric being edged by a full ruffie of point de Paris lace. ‘The front of the gown was trimmed with three bands of rich brown velvet ribbon arranged as shown, and finished with full velvet rosettes. A large rosette was placed at the center of the waistband in the back, and the same decoration was used for the short puffed sleeves. The pattern is a charming one for the dainty mulls, dimities and dotted Swiss, and is also extremely stylish in gingham or lawn. ‘The last sketch shows a charming em- pire gown, which may be easily developed in any quality of material desired. It is especially pretty for the “evening dress” without which no child's wardrobe is com- plete. When thin’goods are used the cir- cular yoke may be made of the same ma- terial, either laid in pleats or drawn in gathers; from this the skirt hangs very full, with one wide box pleat exactly in front. The shoulder frill may be of silk, ghiffon, lace or embroidery, and, as shown in the sketch, must be very deep and full. On the left side, just below the shoulder, is a bow of wide ribbon, which may match or contrast with the general color of the gown. The sleeves have long, full puffs | and a cuff formed by two smaller ones. | from which a ruffle of lace falls over the hand. S ee AND THE PARTY BROKE UP. Talking About the Safety of Their Diamoads They Become Uneasy. From the 10 Daily Tribune. “Burglars got into Emmeline’s house last night while she and her husband were at a receptiol said tne woman with the lace and jet on her cape. “Gracious! Did they monds?” cried the woman bonnet. “No; she was wearing them. They got all the rest of her jewelry, though, as well as her silverware. She said her first thought was that if she hadn’t had them on she'd have lost them, too. And such a time as she had had in persuading her husband to take her.” “Well, this may prove a lesson to him to take her oftener.” “You don’t know him. He said if he had been at home getting his natural sleep and protecting the house they would have lost nothing get all her dia- with the red “Well, well; some people would die sooner But I than confess that they are wrong. do think that Clara is really a little S: s all her valuables in a place in which a burglar would look for them first,” put in the woman with the huge muff. © burglar would ever find my jewels, that I know. I keep a box marked ‘jewels’ on my dressing table with a few atick pins ard things In it, just for v, but—” Vhy, so do I!” cried the woman with the red bonnet, “only I keep my watch in it. My husband gave it to me, and it is so hideous that I only wish somebody would steal it; then I could select a new one my- self. I keep my diamonds in a large en- velope in the bottom of the waste basket. Now, what burglar would ever think of ransacking a waste basket?” “But do you never forget them?” “Once I did. It was before we came to Chicago. Henry’s mother was coming to spend the day, and in tidying up for her I emptied the contents of the waste basket on the ash heap. We were at the lunch table when I happened to think of my dia- monds. I threw up my arms, screamed and ran out of the room. Henry’s mother thought I was crazy, and took refuge in the next house. But by some miracie of good luck I found my diamonds where I had thrown them. “I should think it was luck. Now, I keep my diamonds in the rag bag; who would “I used to keep mine in a little bag under the corner of the rug in my bed room. You see, the rug ran under my bed, and they were perfectly safe. But one day I had my bed moved, and, as I had forgotten my dia- monds, somebody stepped on them and they all had to be reset. Still, that was not as bad as if they had been stolen. I keep them in an old shoe now; the shoe, with its mate, is in the corner of a cupboard, and I am perfectly easy about them.” “Of course. Before I thought of the waste basket I used to keep my jewels rolled up in a bundle of soiled linen. But once, by some mistake, it was sent to the Jaundress. J finally got almost everything back, but I had three new gray hairs as well. But, O dear, here we are talking about our diamonds—just look out of the window at that beggar; her feet are almost bare.” The woman with the huge muff gave a little scream. ‘O, my goodness!” she cried, “a beggar came asking for shoes while we were at breakfast this morning; I told the waitress to hunt a pair out of my cup- beard. What if she got the one with the diamonds? I must go this minute and see!” “And I told Bessie that she could sell all the rags for her little benevolent associa- tion!" cried the woman with the lace and jet on her cape. “Perhaps she has done it today! O, how shall I ever bear the sus- pense until I get home and find out?” And the party broke up in great confu- sion. ——___+e+_____ A Powerful Trip Hammer. From the Boston Transcript. Within a few weeks there will be a new piece of machinery at the Watertown ay- senal, which, when set in motion, will make the earth shake for many yards around it. It is a new trip hammer, capa- ble-of striking a blow equal to a weight of 125 tons, and will be the largest trip ham- mer in New England. Its height is 19 feet 3% inches. It will be supported by two legs, the distance between which will be 8 feet. The stroke will be 4 feet and 6 inch- es. The machine weighs ten tons and the hemmer three tons. When this hammer is in position the Watertown arsenal will be able to forge any piece of steel which will be required by the United States ordnance department, and as all articles of ordnance, with the exception of guns, are now made at Watertown, it is probable that the ham- mer will be in constant vse. = The foundation for the immense machine is now being laid. A hole 9 feet deep has been dug and in it will be laid a number of huge pieces of timber 16 feet long and 24 inches square. The timter used in the foundation cost nearly $1,000, The hammer will be erected in the blacksmith shop un- der the direction of the foreman. ——-—__+e- _____ Curiosity of Hungarian Divorce. From the London Standard. A farmer was arrested in a village in Hungary for firing two shots through the window of an inn at his wife and her father. Fortunately, his aim was bad. On being asked his reason for the attempt, Fe stated that he had already had nine wives, who had all consented, at his request, to be divorced. His tenth and present wife, how- ever, acting on the “injudicious advice” of her father, refused, and consequently he felt annoy —_—--—+e+____ Objected to Smoking. ‘rom the Detroit Free Press, “The landlady objects to smoking, doesn’t she?” asked the new boarder of one of the older inmates. “Yes. Did she tell you so?” “No; but I noticed that nothing ever comes to the table smoking hot.” ORIGINAL OF TRILBY Du Maurier’s Heroine Was a Famous English Prima Donna. HER SVENGALT A NOTED MUSICIAN He Exercised a Strange Control Over Her. | THE NOVELIST KNEW BOTH _———— From the New York World. PECULATIONS AS to the original from which Du Maurier drew his Trilby O’Ferrall and Sven- gali have been rife since the publication of the most popular book that has ap- peared for many years. All sorts of exemplars have been quoted, but none of them bore a suffi- cient resemblance to the heroine of the novel to be worth con- sideration. ‘The musical history of the time in which Trilby’s extraordinary career is dated has been ransacked for the names of singers whose careers, in any way, touched upon the meteoric flight of that extraordinary girl through the upper regions of the musi- eal world. Trilby was indeed a shooting star, coming no one knew whence, shining with rare effulgence for a short time and suddenly losing her brilliance and fading into nothingness. She came from nothing, and to nothing she returned. The lives of the other great prime donne of the period offer no parallel to this ex- traordinary story. The greatest singer of that day, Giulia Grisi, began life as a cho- rus girl, showed remarkable talent and an exceptionally beautiful voice, Studied hard under good masters, was gradually pro- moted on her merits, was for many years the reigning prima donna of Europe, de- clined in popularity with the advance of age and died in retirement, peacefully and quiet! Trilby, on the contrary, leaped to celeb- rity at a bound, blazed forth as a star of the first magnitude and was suddenly ex- tinguished when the magnetic force that controlled her orbit failed to act. So it w with the other great vocalists. Their lives have been written, even to the minutest de- tail. Their history is the common property of the world; there is no mystery about it. Aun Riviere Bishop. One singer, however, whose fame was world-wide, but who now is well-nigh for- gotten, offers In her career a striking re- semblance to that of Trilby. In fact, as far as her professional life is concerned, Ann Riviere, afterward Lady Henry Bishop, } then Mme. Anna Bishop and at last Mrs. Meyer Schultz, stands cut in bold relief as the only artist from whose life it was pos- sible to incarnate the e tric but delight- ful heroine of Du Maurier’s wonderful ro- | mance. Of course, the story previous to her pub- lic appearance as a singer is purely imagin- ary and the product of the brain of Du Maurier. Ann Riviere never was an artist's model, never wore a soldier's coat, never knocked about the streets of Paris as a waif and stray, but was born and bred a lady and maintained through life the re- spect and love of all who knew her. Her father, a musician of talent, was of good descent, being a scion of the ancient and noble French family De Crecy, who had emigrated to England during the reign of terror in the first French revolution. She was well brought up and well taught, and at an early age was married to a man very much her senior, the celebrated Sir Henry Rowley Bishop, the well-known composer, whose name is made familiar by his famous gie ‘The Chough and Crow he popular songs “Should He Upbraid?” “Maid Mar- ion” and “My Pretty Jane,” and the adap- tation from an old Italian air to ‘Home, Sweet Home,” which in the after career of his wife held the same position as a stand- ing musical dish that English’s ballad, “Oh! don't you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt?” held in the vocal repertory of Trilby O'Ferrall. The married life of Sir Henry and Lady Bishop was troubled always by the ambi- tion of her ladyship, who insisted upon be- ing a prima donna, while her husband, a musician of vast experience, always de- clared that, although she had a voice, she had neither talent nor aptitude for that po- sition. Svengali's Prototype. About this time there appeared on the musical horizon of London a strange and eccentric individual, whose genius, though alloyed with the baser metal of charlatanry, was of brilliant, if somewhat tinselly, qual- ity. THis man was a Bohemian by birth, named Nicholas Charles Bochsa. By pro- fession he was a perfermer upon the harp, an instrument he had perfected by the ad- dition of pedals, which gave the performer the power of adding semi-tones to the dia- tonic scale and enabled the performer to | play in many keys which had hitherto been impossible on that instrument. Like Svengali, whose prototype he un- doubtedly was, he was every inch a show- The Original “Trilby.” man. Nothing delighted him so much as to appear in strange and weird costumes. When George I condescended to visit his kingdom of Ireland, Bochsa, who was then giving concerts in Dublin, appeared in the ceremony of the royal reception as an an- cient bard of the Druidic time, with a wreath of shamrocks on his head and wear- ing a wig of long gray hair and a yellow robe. He was seated upon a platform mounted upon a wagon that was drawn by six white horses, and he performed the na- tional airs of Ireland upon the national in- strument—the harp—which, on this occa- sion, was the veritable ‘“Clairscach” said to have been used by the celebrated King Brian Boroihme, king of Ireland, which is now in the museum of Trinity College, Dublin. He Hypnotized Her. This extraordinary personage was chosen by Ann Bishop as her “guide, philosopher and friend,” and under his instructions and influence she became a singer of rare excellence. Her beautiful voice was mod- ulated, her intonation perfected, and, even- tually, she broke away from the restric- tions imposed upon her by Sir Henry Bishop and started on a tour of the world, under the direction and management of her teacher, Bochsa, who from the first estab- lished such com™lete control over his pupil that she became a mere marionette in his hands. She sang, as it were, because he willed her to sing. She left her business as en- tirely in his hands as if she were a child and he her father. Without him she was nothing; with him she was a great prima donna. On the few occasions when her maestro was incapacitated by illness from filling the conductor's chair, and his place was filled by another, her singing lost its style, tone and truth of execution. Though she did not break down so absolutely as Trilby did on Sver jali’s sudden death, she showed plainly thaWner lthspiration came from her conductor and not from herself, Artistically, she was a mere puppet of his will, and, with all this, the connection be- tween the two was purely! platonic and in- nocent. 1 Bochsa was a very aged man, subject to a complication of diseases, and the last person in the world to attract a young and beautiful woman’s fancy, ‘save only in his professional capacity- as a.great musician and a man of such extraordinary will power that with him to order was to be obeyed. She was of weak will, a calm, equable disposition, one of the most amia- ble of women and iutterly: devoid of pas- sion or personal vanity. Even in her at- tempted rivalry to Jenny Lind in this city during that great singer's season of triumph in New York she was never act- uated by jealousy or ambition. She simply sang because Bochsa willed her to sing, and troubled herself not at all about the mat- er. Svengali Bochsa is reputed to have had the same sensational dread of water, ex- ternally and internally, that Trilby’s mas- ter was noted for. “Il ne se baignait jamais.” and his taste in costume led him, as it does most of his ccuntrymen, to furred and braided over- coats with barrel buttons and elaborate frogs. In cther respects, he was exceed- ingly careless in his person. He had also Svengali's aptitude in speaking all lan- guages equally incorrectly. He used to sa: “I vos porn zu Prague, und I cannot spik Cherman! I lif many years zu London and I cannot spik Anglische! In Paris I pass oh fery long tailme und I cannot spik Vrentch! I haf no langvitch I cannot spik, nozzing at all but une deux dhree fower und dam,” and, fhdeed, his instructions to the band when he was conductor were couched in language weird and wonderful. It was a common remark in the orchestra that to look at or listen to the conductor meant ruin. But as a singing master and organizer of musical entertainments he was without a peer and many years be- yond his time. Is not this Svengali to the e? Du Maurier Hears of Her. There was a resort on the Strand, where Terry’s Theater now stands, celebrated by Thackeray as the “Black Kitchen,” in which Jack Sharp, the well-known comic singer of the time, used to sing his own songs, some of them not as savory as they might be. There was and is still the “Cheshire Cheese” in Wine Tavern Court, off Fleet street, where the print of Dr. Johnson's wig can still be seen on_ the parels, and which is still celebrated for its beefsteak pies and toasted cheese. In such places Du Maurier, then a very young man, used to meet with other fellows, and their conversation often ran upon the cx- traordinary influence exercised by Bochsa over Anna Bishop. In fact, it was known to all the world of London. Du Maurier, then a young man-about- town, knew Mme. Bishop well, and was greatly impressed with the strange hyp- notic influence Bochsa had over her. Da Maurier commented on it, and declared that it was an admirable theme for a novel. ————-ree. GAME BIRDS IN THE VELDT. Vale of South African Sport That Will Rouse a Hunter's Envy. From the London Saturday Review. Wagon life in the South African interior has, of course, its drawbacks, yet in a cli- mate where for about seven months abso- lutely settled weather may be relied upon, its pleasures outnumber them fifty to one. To mount one’s pony on a clear, bright morning; to ride forth into the veldt with a friend and a brace of pointers, with the blessed fecling that you have not a care in the world beyond the march of your wagon to the next water; to be absolutely certain of some pretty shooting in a wild country innocent of farms and fences; to return to comp toward evening with perhaps ten or twelve brace of bitds and a small buck— these things, to the average healthy male, seem as near perfection as may be found this vale of tears. q . It is 8 o'clock on a bright April morning in South Bechuanaland. ‘The air is full of light, brisk ard wonderfully exhilarating. Four gunners have just breakfasted under the lee of their wegon.. Now, having mounted their. ponies—the average South African horse is seldom more than fourteen nds—they ride quietly de of the shallow valle; called in these parts, wherein they were cutspanned, and climb the farther rise. It is a picturesque scene. The slopes are clothed with a long growth of waving grass, now greenish-yellow after the rains, amid which great bowlders of dark-red rock erop up. Here and there small patches of blue-green bush start out from the gra veldt. Beyond, crowning the valley, be- gins a thickish woodland of short trees— bastard yelMw-wood, the Boers call them— which extends for some miles in front, till the great open plains are again reached. As the gunners ride up the further siope, their wagon is already in motion behind them, starting upon its day’s trek—seven- teen miles to the next water. Through the clear, nimble air come the crack of the driver's great whip and his shrill cries, hurled at the oxen; and the unwieldy home on wheels crushes slowly through the yielding sand. But now the gunners have spread out in .ine, and the pointers are already busy. Near some bowlders one of the dogs feathers a little, then stands, rigid as a figure of bronze. The two near- est gunners dismount. They already carry their guns and bandoliers, and ride, as men do in the veldt, in their flannel shirts with their sleeves well rolled up the arms. There is little to incumber their movements. Breeches, gaiters and stout boots, a shirt and a shady hat, are all that a man needs in Africa. The reins are thrown over the ponies’ necks and hang in front of them, and the stags will stand quietly for hours. Now the gunners are ciose upon the pointer, still standing with rigid tail and out: stretched neck. These francolin lie close in the long grass. “Where the deuce! on a sudden up spring three brown birds within five feet of the sportsmen. Twenty yards of law, the guns are up, two light reports from smokeless cartridges, and a brace of the birds hit the earth. Almost instantly a third report follows, and the rear gunner has secured his right and left. not a difficult matter with these francolin. But the pointer is not yet content. An- other brace of birds is found and brought to bag within thirty yards. The partridges are now gathered. They prove to be the small Coqul francolin— “N'swimbi” the natives call them—perhaps the most beautiful game birds in the world. As one of them lies in the gunner’s palm for a few moments, the bright nank-in-yellow and orange of the head, the clear, hawk- like markings of the breast, and the beau- tiful shape and feathering, mark this partridge of Africa as a gem among its fellows. The birds are bestowed in a sad- dle bag, and the gunners mount and ride into the forest on the right-hand side of the wagon road. Meanwhile their comrades have entered the woodland more to the left hand, and their guns can be heard already going. For two hours the sportsmen quietly walk their horses through the forest, moving due west. Once their pointer gets into a small trcop of guinea fowl delving for bulbs, and after a smart chase drives three of them into a tree, whence, as they fly off, the gunners secure them easily enough. ‘At length, after pigking up a few butter- flies in the forest cfaarings§ for they carry a net, our gunners emeffe upon broad, rolling, sun-drenc! plains, covered with long pale yellow ‘s. WZhrough these they ride steadily Hur. ater hour, picking in Ufhead or two of up every now and game. Now it is qgbrace ®f big red wing partridge (Orange river, fraycolin); now one of those annoying: yet handsome, game birds, the black and white’ bustard—swart keorhaan, the Boers call him—whose very noisy and chiding Ways are familiar every- where in open veldfiin South Africa. Now, after keenest search, a leash of tiny bush quail are flushed and secured, one after the other having literally to be kicked up. A hare and a solitary ‘“‘dikKop’—thick-knee plover—are added tg the grewing bag. ee Illustrious French Smokers. From the London Dally News. The French Society Against the Abuse of Tobacco notes with regret that for the first time in its history France has a presi- dent who is a confirmed smoker. M. Felix Faure, it is said, smokes several cigars every day. M. Thiers had a detestation of tobacco which was almost fanatical. Marshal MacMahon had been a great smoker, but he entirely gave up smoking after an illness which happened long be- fore he became president. Similarly, M. Grevy, in the days of his youth, had de- yoted himself assiduously to the coloring of meerschaum pipes, but had abandoned the practice before his election. M. Car- not not only did not smoke, but, like M. ‘Theirs, disliked the smell of tobacco. Fi- nally, M. Casimir-Perier was not really a smoker, for at most he would, on rare oc- casions, just light a cigarette, which he would throw away almost immediately, A HAUNIED HOUSE Pauline Pry Spends a Night Trying to See Ghosts. MYSTERIOUS SIGHTS AND SOUNDS Footsteps That Drew Near Still Without Coming. THE STRANGE RAPPINGS Written Exclusively for The Evening Star. z O YOU WANT TO have yzur hair turn white at a sound? hi 3: Thea follow me. s } spent a night the past week 2lone ina haunted house,where all the night through the “sheeted dead did squeak and gib- ber.”” Rats? No sneh thing, and if you think I am the mouthpiece of a distorted and diseased imagination, take up quarters in that house yourself and learn the truth about it. There are any number of haunted housés about Washington, as everybody knows. These, however, have never appealed to my love of the weird and arabesque, be- cause to see specters common to the eyes of everybody, besides having no especial interest for the daring mind, is an un- trustworthy experience, so far as the supernatural element is concerned. If “thoughts are things,” everybody think- ing ghosts about a particular house would tend, if you know anything about up-to- Gate psychology, to create sort of imita- tion ghosts that are not phantasms of the dead, but of the living. When, however, a man with a mystic and mysterious air said to me last week, “Oh, I've got a dandy haunted house that nobody knows any- thing about,” this seemed something re- sponsive to a burning desire I have always had to see a ghost waik—not in the the- atrical but in the psychical sense of the words. The Ghostly Footfalls. The man went on to say: “I found this heuse a couple of years ago quite by chance, and I've kept my eye on it ever since. I had some friends here looking for quarters, and, going with them in answer to ar: advertisement of lodgings to let, 1 entered the uncanny place. We learned nothing then, hcwever, except that the landlady, who had moved into this house only two weeks back, was packed up, ready to move out again. She gave no explana- tion, but, oddly enough, the following week, answering another advertisement, we struck the same landlady, with whom my friends subsequently put up, and to them she divulged the fact that her sudden de- parture from the hous2 in question was be- cause it was haynted. The first night they were in it, just at dusk, her daughter, go- ing up on the top floor, was met by the ghost—the figure of a small woman shroud- ed in black. This specter was afterward seen by every member of the family, and ghostly footfalls followed everybody about the house until there was ro escape but to get out. “Since then, and during the time this house has been under by surveillance,” the man continued, “I have seen families move in, and in a week or two they would move out, which, though I never learned any thing further directly, demorstrated to my satisfaction that the ghost is not laid.” They Want to Be Heard. Directly I knew this, for a two-fold rea- son, I was bound to spend a night in that house—first, as I have said, to satisfy the unholy curiosity concerning ghosts I con- fess to having, and then for strictly altru- istic purposes. You know that ghosts have come to stand very well in scientific circles, but on one foot, so to speak; that is, men of science think they have cause for asserting ghosts to be not personal intelligences, that is to say, not the spirits of dead men, but a single thought of a departed soul, which by virtue of its intense need of expression creates a form that walks the earth until the message it contains has been delivered. You know it is a venerable habit of ghosts to disappear forever after once finding a per- son courageous enough to challenge them, and learn what they want to tell. It seem- ed to me, therefore, that the knowledge of the existence of a ghost carries with it a moral obligation to give the poor thing its opportunity and let it disappear,to sleep or dream, or do whatever is commonly done by ghosts when they are at home. The Haunted House. I journeyed to the house and found it still empty. Nay, more, the assertion of death seemed to extend from it over the entire neighborhood, that in the midst of a busy quarter was strangely apart from the world. The house is one of four great tall, flat-faced houses, without any sort of expression, but lucid of the awfulness with- in as the uncovered glass of a coffin. All are empty except one. In the rear is a church, with its solemn body and inarticu- late, loud-crying beil. A vacant space stretches to one side, leaving a respectful distance between the living and the dead for which the houses across the street show similar regard, being well withdrawn into their back yards, seeming naturally to seek to get as far off as possible from the spectacle of mortality made manifest in front of them. I rang at the bell of the house imme- diately adjoining the haunted one, which is occupied. The door was opened by a wo- man, whose malevolent face explained the choice of her habitation. I saw the incarnation of pestilence once— an old hag of ninety-odd years, who had kept a pest house until, when I entered her hovel, she fell back, sighing with disap- pointment, because the promise of my foot- fall had not realized her hope of the plague. She inquired tenderly after the health ‘of the cholera, and with caressing tones re- called remembrances of the smallpox and yellow fever. No less expressive of her en- vironment, the woman who lives beside my new-found ghost laughed with the sound of rattling bleached bones in her voice when I said timidly, “I am thinking of renting the house next door, and I am told it is haunted; do you know?” The Artist Was Scared. “No,” she answered, “I don’t know, and wouldn’t believe it if I did’—precisely as Mr. Mephistopheles hasn't it in him to know whether the inhabitants of his abode are or are not warm, It’s all the same to im. At the office of the agent renting the house I made another inquiry concerning ghosts. The agent was a good man, and he could not tell a lie, though he tried to. I walked off with the keys to the house feeling that my victorious entrance into the realm of the supernatural was for me to bill on any date I chose to make the venture of a one-night stand. My first plan was to try to get the pho- tograph of the ghost, as well as its auto- graph and a piece of its winding sheet. But when I told the man artist what IL wanted of him, and he turned goose flesh all over, and his hair stood on end, and his teeth chattered, I had to abandon pic- tures. I knew I never could survive a night in a haunted house with a nervous man. There is an eternal something about man in the abstract on which a woman involuntarily depends in case of fire, or flood, or fright. And when she makes a desperate grab for this eternal something and finds it not present in the man at hand in an extremity, she is simply scared silly and all is lost. Where she is at she don’t know and can’t find out, for having looked to Baal to help her out of trouble she has lost sight of heaven and can’t so much as say her accustomed prayers. Thus, the man artist was removed from the program of my evening’s performance before it was everlastingly too late. And Chewing Gum Also. ‘Then there was another man to be dis- posed of—the man who has sworn to love and protect me till I’m dead or divorced. Right here, at the risk of breaking up friendship in the family forever, I must tell you that the instmct of self-preserva- tion is the first law-of a loving man’s pro- tection when it gets as far as ghosts. For, when just for politeness sake, after I had realistically portrayed the chills and fever and queer sounds that are the very pricks and mortar of the haunted house, I said: “Will you not go with me there, my dear.” My dear said manfully that he'd hire a policeman to see me through, but he'd be blessed if he would himself. Deserted, then, and melancholy as my destination, I made ready for my night out—way out from every human thing. The luggage I put up consisted of a bottle of alcohol and some salt with which to exorcise evil spirits; a planchette, with which I hoped to secure an autograph from spirit land; something to eat; a thick rug, a camp stool, a revolver and a candle and a dark lantern. I could get neither a candle nor a lantern large ‘enough to con- vince me that it would not burn out and leave me in the dark, so I fortified myself with both. Yes, and I took some gum along. A cigar was my idea of real com- fort under trying circumstances, such as I was about to face, but I have been told that Madam Blavatsky smoked for occult Purposes—that there is an esoteric some- thing or another about tobacco smoke, the vibrations of which have certain effects upon spirits; so, not wanting by chance in any way to interrupt the hilarity of the occasion at hand, I turned for comfort from tobacco smoke to gum, which, so far as I know, is not related comes to any esoteric A Strange Beginning. After bidding everybody a touching fare- well, and eliciting the assurance that if I did not return in time for breakfast some- body was to go to the Police Court ard get out a writ of habeas corpus to exoncrate me frem the charge of housebreaking, I Was actually under way. The night was worse than dark—it was misty mccnlight, the most beautiful weather in the world for the complexions of ghosts. Familiar objects took on gigan- tie, monstrous for and when I turned my feet into the path leading to the door of the haunted house, the one more ghost inside grew less remarkable among the spectral world, the earth had seemed to grow. The doorway was dark, and a tangle of dark green stuff grew about it. My key sounded ominous in the outer door, the lock of which, for a provoking while, was obstinsie. Inside the vestibule, as I was looking fer the latch, there set up on the street directly in front a noise that flash- ed in my brain the image of a wild man covered with hair, trying to put the dis cord of his being into scng. The noise, a: such, is simply indescribable. In front of a haunted house it seemed to have burst straight from the groaning bowels of the place where Ingersoll says there isn’t any. I have before experienced the terrors of persons who think they can sing,but never in my life have I known any one so hor- ribly mistaken in his voice as this creature. Drew Near Without Coming. Finally I had opened the door and closed it behind my back. I was alone in a haunted house. My first sense was of blackness—black- ness that had a body that was sentient, that spok2, saw, touched me, demanding that I yield to it or die. For a moment I was ready to do both. If my capacity for being scared was all there is to me, I'd be dead now. But. quite happily for nights in haunted houses and what else requiring courage, myself that quails at the sight of a mouse and turns giddy in the dark, not -my only self; there are others: eminently one that guys my terror, that, take me altogether, I am quite a pieasant party, which, on the whole, gets a variety of sensatior out of life and keeps up the average common sense. Clearly, the first thirg to be done was to light up end go through the house. My one great dread was tramps. I needed to be sure on this point befcre I could give any thought to ghosts. I had raised the slide of my 1: when, simultaneous with the scratch of my match I received an impression which in any other but a ha.nted house would have raised no question to my mind of the certainty of some one coming down the stairs—not the first, but the second flight above me. I hastily lighted my lantern, and with the fierce glance of its cyclopic eye turned upon the stairs, I squeezed up close to the front door, my hand on the knob, waiting. The footsteps—to drop into geometrical terms—seemed to be the asym- tote of an approach—that is, they con- stently drew near without coming. I can’t say that I was frightened. Fright is a definite something starting from a given point in a given direction, whereas my sensations I could refer to nothing so much as the boundless blackness that, though it was now lighted by my lantern and had somehow got feet, still overcame me with the pressure of its silent, motion- less body. If the nervous man had been with me at this juncture I would have quietly fallen upon his neck, and we would Bom heve been found dead the next morn- ing. The Rappings. The white frame of the doorway leading into the adjoining room became defined as my eyes grew accustomed to the dark, and within the room there was a mere sugges- tion of a shadow shaped by what presuma- bly was the outer gray light entering through a window. Into this room at length I moved, the wonderful eye of my lantern giving me to feel as if I were some greater incarnation of myself, in which my sixth se 13e possessed a physical organ to serve me in this gross, impenetra- ble world that sought to overcome at every point. A chandelier in the middle of the room, hung with brittle, yellow stuff that had been Christmas greens, set my memory vibrating with the mournful measure that begins, “The garlands dead,.the guests have fied.” I was advancing to the room further back, when “suddenly there came a tapping, as of some one gently rapping— gently rapping,” right upstairs over my head. Tapping is hardly the word to ex- press the sound, which I have been able to reproduce by winding my knuckles in a thick cloth and knocking on wood. I don’t mind telling that as the blackness began to articulate I precipitately retired to the hall near the frent door again. The raps were at first precise in their movement— ‘one, two; one, two, three, four; one, two” —someching like that. After a time they were expressive of impatience, or impor- tuning. I do not know how long I listened, spell-bound, as a bird gazes into the eyes of a snake, The clanging of a patrol wagon passing along the street brought me to consciousness of the outer world and its stupid considerations of time and that sort of thing. Not many minutes after the brazen bawling of the church bell began to tell me the hovr. It was twelve. I had been away from home two hours, and was still halting at the task I had set myself. Dread of the Living. Disgusted with my half-hearted under- taking thus far, I resolutely set out again to make a tour of the house. I had on over- shoes, and no sound of mine interrupted the intermittent knocking that kept up overhead. The winding ways of the hall seemed built for ghosts to hold high carnival with- in. Narrowing toward the rear, a door opened one side, leading by narrow stairs that stretched beyond the reach of my lantern’s eye into the basement below. I started down, but quaking nature called a halt. I got up again—I think I stepped over six steps with one stride. On into the rear room I went, peering this side into the depths of a black closet, and that side into a@ queer cubby hole, where a human being might find room for hanging, though use for little else. A crazy dumbwaiter in the end wall raised merry music for the dead to hear, as I gave it a push and it went clattering and creaking down below. “There I thought, “if there are tramps down there, they'll be just as afraid of what's up kere as I am of them, and we won't be apt to get unpleasantly mixed "As I advanced up the stairs, every step cracking beneath the unaccustomed weight of human feet, the rapping which had seemed to come from the second floor re- treated still above. Cobwebs broke across my face and the smell of dust was fixed in my nostrils, as with my sixth sense I open- ed every door, revealing everywhere corpses of cockroaches, flies and spiders. I started up the second flight of stairs, and not what I was going into, but what I might possibly be giving an advantage down below, struck me all of a heap, and I crumpled up on the stairs to meditate, with my heart in my mouth, on whether a tramp would be likely to brain me or just cut my throat. It was no use. I couldn't stand it. I flew to the first floor, and when the rusty bolt of the basement door had banged into its bar, my sole great dread of the living being reasonably assured, I returned to my ghost, feeling quite equal to taking my chances with the dead. The Ghosts Would Not Write. As soon as I set foot on the third fioor the knocking ceased. This seemed to me to indicate what in the game of hide the handkerchief is called “getting warm.” If I hadn't located my ghost, I seemed by my Perseverance and Grit. 10 Yenrs of Mixery—A Simpie Remedy, LINCOLN CENTRE, Me. used Dr. David Kennedy Such were the words of A: and any one uc itemedy.”” Grifila of tas place, uainted With the venent be derive from its use knows that he has great reason to feel thankful. The history of Mr. Grunn’s case is of so much interest that your correspuudent optained al y * to use Mr. Griffin's own ‘I have suffered with constant pain in my Which wus viougut aouut vy a diseased con- ot my kidneys. 4 endured at times is beyond words. and took all manner of inedicines, but T began , to be despundent, for hayin on and I wanted to get to work. Une day ading of Dr. David Kennedy's Favorice isetucdy, and I told my wife I would try it, 3 thaukfal that I did so. I had used it but a short waotle when the pain disappeared, and I then started in and worked all through haying and helped get in twenty-three acres of grain, and am feeling better than I have for years. My wife, who has also taken Favorl Kemedy for the Sickness wi usually troubled with, bas Induced many others to try this valuable medicine, and in every case it has ‘cured Where a cure Oue of our local physicians recently “Dr. Kennedy's Favorite Remedy has cured more people of dyspepsia, rhea- watisui, kidney, liver and urinary trouvles, women ‘who are suffering from illness peculiar to their sex, than any kuown treatiment. ‘Fhe great value of Favorite Remedy lies in the fact that It dissolves the excess of uric acid in the blood, expels it from the system, thus curing the disease."” In diabetes, Bright's disease and gravel it has cured where all else failed. Dr. David Kennedy's Favorite Remedy can be purchased of any dealer of medicines at $1 a bottle. presence at this place to have satisfied a measure of its desire. I waited a half an hour by the church bell and not a sound was made. Then I tried going back to the first floor. Here I sat down on the stairs awhile, and presently the rapping overhead began again. I therefore took my traps and went back to camp till daylight in the heart of the eremy. After wrapping my- self in my rug—the cold sweat cn the fore- head of the dying scemed to hang on the face of the blackness that was against me, and I was half frozen—after wrapping myself in my rug I placed my planchette in operation—that is, in what would have been operation, if it had operated. But it didn’t. I sat with.my fingers on it until they were stiff, and not a scratch did the inanimate thing make. Then I tried to see what burning alcohol and salt would do. I set fire to some alcohol in a saucer, as I have recently learned is the right thing to do, by way of determining the color of spirits hovering near. Then, while the blue flame licked the blackness, that #rimaced in return in a manner horrible to see, I threw in salt, which, while it sput- tered, turning the blue flame red, I joined with ‘the proper Logos for bidding uneasy spirits depart in peace. Proper Psychical State. When the flame died down to a mere point and went out I turned my lantern on the salt. It was white still—not a biack mark to betoken a spirit stained and known. This exhausted my physical means of dealing with spirits. So I snuggled down in my rug, in an endeavor to take on the proper psychical state in which spirits find a medium of manifestation. I tried to be so negative as to think of nothing at all, and succeeded in thinking hard of every ghost story I have ever heard. I caught an echo of the “Banshee” which the artist man had told me in his family makes wail- ing to warn an approaching death, and softly in my ears there tinkled the ghostly music of unseen hands that in another family I know play a piano that is kept locked and sacred to a departed one, when- ever a calamity of ar fall the living. I saw with my mind's eye the caul that the girl who dres: my hi tells me she was born with, which enables her to see people dying across the wide Atlantic. I recalled the homely features of the good old priest, not long azo passed over into spirit land himself, who more than once has gone on a “sick call” which no human form made manifest to him. Then memory turning back upon myself resolved me again into a child, awe-stricken and cold, sitting hand-in-hand with a small brother, listening to raps on a door on the other side of which we knew no one to be—a brother that a few weeks after passed into the great mystery himself. She Sees Visions. Still the blackness about me gave me no sign, and my vigil of ghcsts, mocked by recollections, widened to include the vigils of all those I knew to be battling or brood- ing with ghosts elsewhere. I saw the mother and the spirit of disease struggling for the life of a child. I saw ghosts of revelry and of vice and of crime warring with the souls of men and women to pos- sess them. Then I saw’ “Armies and emperors and things, All carrying different kinds of things, And marching in so grand a way, You never saw the like by day. “So fine a show was never seen At the great circus on the green; For every kind of beast and man Was marching in that caravan. “At first they moved a little slow, But still the faster did they go; And still beside them did I keep Until I reached the town of sleep.” Naturally, like the Irishman, I didn’t know I was asleep till I was awake. Then I had, moreover, a consciousness of having been awakened. All my senses were still vibrating with the impression of a Pres- ence. I spell it with a capital “P” to there- by indicate somewhat of the character of the Presence which ought properly to be spelled with all capitats, illuminated ones at that. Vaguely striving to determine, was it my eyes, my ears, my hand that had been addressed by this Presence, there came with me single precipitation of sound, a smash, a thud, and a demoniacal yell. Instantly something gripped upon my heart, a constantly widening wave of nau- seating impotency swelled to my throat, submerged my ears, covered my head, and I knew no more, until I experienced that awful, mad reaching after interrupted iden- tity that follows immediately upon faint- ing. Instinctively, without thought or ollection even, I dragged to my feet and crawled down stairs and out the front door, which closed with a bang behind me. A Pretty Predicament. After leaning for a time against the wall outside, my drooping spirits and flabber- gasted senses revived, when I sat down on the doorstep and had a good laugh. I couldn't help it. There I was, locked out of my haunted house, and locked in was my bag containing the car fare for me to get home with—home that was two miles off—about 4 o’clock in the morning. I'd be run in for vagrancy or lunacy if I sat there laughing longer, so with no alternative I took to my still rickety legs and walked home. The grim humor of the situation did much to carry me along, and not a cat nor a “cop” nor anything alive or dead did I see the two miles. But speaking of cats. In the gray. dawn of morning I returned to my haunted house, sought a rear wirdow convenient to a fence whereby to enter for my belong- ings, and found—a round hole in the glass, some spurts of blood on the sash and on the dusty floor inside the prints of paws. Unmistakably, my demon that broke loose in the night was just one more case of the cat coming back, which may not go very far with the Society for Psychical Re- search in explaining the phenomena of haunted houses, but is quite sufficient of the subject for PAULINE PRY. —>_——_ The Clerk Knew the Size. From the Cincinnati Tribune. “I want to git a collar fer my husband,” said the hard-faced woman, “and I declare I have plumb forgot the size. I giner'ly buy all his collars and ties fer him, too.”” “Aah!” said the astute clerk. “Then you probably want about a thirteen and a half or fourteen.” that’s right, but I don’t see how you guessed it so eas: “Oh, I have noticed that a man who lets hfs “Wife buy all his haberdashery for him “I Wonder How That Feels?” From Life.