Evening Star Newspaper, February 13, 1897, Page 20

20 THE EVENING STAR, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1897—24 PAGES. ee When These Monsters Inhabited Our Western Plains, QVER A MILLION YEARS AGO Mammoths With Small Heads, Ta- pering Tails and Kangaroo Legs. a BETWEEN REPTILE AND BIRD ot een Written fer The Evening Star by Prof. Angelo Heilprin AD IT BEEN Pos- sible for a traveler a million of years ago cr more to have wan- dered about what then constituted the continent of North Americ and to make notes on the animal and vegetable life of his surround- ings, he would have had much to report that in these days of modern common- places might appear not only extravagant, but violently so. The leaves from a note book of this olden time would be scanned with the same s1spicion as were during the las ree or four centuries the ac- counts of discoveries of vague monsters of the land, sea and air, or the histories of a still earlier period, the pages of which were graced with mythological fancies— elements of knowledge which have long since passed into the domain of fable and of the impossible. Yet the calm, observing mind that has, perhaps, not found it easy to worship at the shrine of the dragon or of the great devil fish, with medusoid arms gathered in writhing tumult about the topmasts of a vessel, is brought to rtemplate In the discoveries of the last few years a class of creations which might well compare with the product of “TERRIBLE LIZARDS” | from what they were at the time of their own nieditations. We illustrate in this article some of the more interesting and anomalous types which it has been the good fortune of geologists to disentomb, the greater number of them from the “a cient burial grounds” of Coiszalo and W-: oming. They ail belong to the class of les which have been designate] by ralists the dinosauria, i. e., “terrible animals which in many points of lizar structure recall the wirgless birds, such as To them belong the greater number, and not improbably ail, of the three-toed and four-toed impressions, large and small, which have so long distinguished the red shales and sandstones of the eastern United States—of the Connecticut valley, of New Jersey and of Pennsylvania—and which for so long time had served as evidence of bird- life in the particular period, the Triassic, | to which they belong. It is from these silent shales and sana- stones, many of which enter as building TRICERATOPS PROR SUS. PROF. MARSH. the ostrich, emu and cassowary, and are by many systematists considered to be re- motely ancestral to these and to constitute the point of departure where the bird stock diverged from a reptilian stem. Three Monsters. Perhaps the most interesting of these, and in many ways one of the most str:k- ingly peculiar of all animals, whether re- cent or extinct, is the form upon which the discoverer has bestowed the name of Stegosaurus ungulatus. ‘This singular rep- tilian monster, which measured approxi- mately 20 feet in length and very nearly 12 feet in height, was, so far as it was pos- sible to determine, a vegetable feeder. Its most distinctive external features were the disproportionately small head, which was covered in front with a horny beak, the BRONTOSAURUS EXCELSUS, RECONSTRUCTED BY PROF. MARSH. the most fertile brain, and to which is at- tached as proof cf existence, not clamcrings of a vivid imagination, but the evidence of authentic history. Millions of Years Ago. The most striking faunal impression that would be reflected to the mind which has thus wandered through the “corridors of time” would be the recognition that the animal life of today is not the life of the past, and that its only relationship with it —it is tru @ very important one—tis that which has been established by inh-ritance and otherwise on the ne of the family tree. A million of years ago, or, perhaps, two or three millions of years would more nearly represent the truth—and so far as a conception of time periods is concerned it matters little whether it was the one or the other—none of the commoner kinds of quad- upeds which today inhabit nearly all parts of the earth's surface, as the dogs, cats, oxen, deer cr sheep, had yet come into ex- istence; the birds of the time were almost if not entirely, different from se of the present period; the same was largely true of the reptiles, and almost equally so of the fishes. Man had not yet in faet, was he to appear age of a time era almost as long as that which carries us back to the epoch that is under contemplation. At that time the face of the land was itself dif- ferent from what 1t is today. A broad arm of the sea, stretching northward from the Gulf of Mexico in the direction of, and perhaps quite to, the Arctic ocean, separ- the continent into an eastern and a the Rocky mountains, as a 8, teaus and table to be formed, and to the ates had still to be added road lowland fringe, uniting ocean mountains, which constituted the modern ccastal plain—the plain of tide Waters upon which are situated so many of the more important commercial cities of the national domain. We sreak of this as an ancient period, but it s. in truth, measured on tie geologi- cal scale, quite modern. In the gea and in the fresh waters of the land—the lakes and rivers—there lived a multitude of the hum- bier forms of life which were barel: all, distinguishable from teday. The their kindred of the | oyster built its bank of reef | i | their proper positions; | was very long and powerful. if at} | Triceratops prorsus. greatly elongated hind limbs, and the series of great spines which traversed the median Portion of the body and tail. Referring to these spines, which during the life of the animal were protected by a thick horny covering, Prof. Marsh says that their ex- istence could not have been anticipated and “would hardly have been credited had not the plates themselves been found in posi- tio: The construction of the entire frame of the animal indicates that it was habitu- | ally a slow mover on all four legs; at the same time it is almost certain that occa- sionally the animal elevated itself in the manner of the kangaroo, a position to which the massive hindquarters lent them- selves as a ready support. Scarcely less extraordinary than Ste- gosaurus, and somewhat surpassing it in size, was the animal which we figure as Its most distinctive | feature was the gigantic horn-coated head and cephalic crest, the former carrying a remarkable armature of horns supported on true bone cores. This animal was, like the preceding, heavily incased in plates and spines, but up to the present time it has not been practicable to restore these to the length of the largest specimeu measures about 25 feet, and the height about 10 feet. So little pre- pared were zoologists for the association of | bony horns with reptiles of the group to which this fossil belongs that when the frontal bones carrying the horns were dis- covered, they were announced to belong to a species of bison. Triceratops belongs to the transition beds which in Wyoming unite the cretaceous and tertiary series. Vastly surpassing either of the preceding in bulk was the giant Brontosaurus excel- sus, a land animal, which very nearly equaled in lite the largest of whales. It is thus described by Prof. Marsh: “The diminutive head will first attract attention, as it is smaller in proportion to the body than in any reptile hitherto known. The neck was very long and flexible. The body was rather short. The legs and feet were massive, and the bones all solid. The tail The animai during life must have been nearly 60 feet in length, and about 15 feet in height. Its | probable weight was more than twenty tons.” This giant creature, whose skeletal parts were disinterred from beds of Juras- | sic age In Wyoming, was herbivorous in He Dix habit, and its,food consisted probably of we s it does a 1 cockle hopped about beach chen as they do now; the pond snail and pearl mussel sought the quieter and rippling waters of the land as they still ecntinue to do. So nearly, in fact, do they belong to our own periods that the action and ravages of time have not yet succeed- ed in all cases in effacing from them the color markings which a beautiful nature had provided. The Terrible Lizar. Dating back to this time period, whether old or new, and to ages before, belong a series of preadamite creations which by thelr wondrous types and numbers have impressed so distinctive an individuality upon the fauna of a country as to have virtually made it their own. The natural- ists who less than @ hundred years ago framed thetr systems of classifications would, were they suddenly brought into contact with what the earth has since silently given out, be utterly bewildred in their conceptions of the organic universe— so wholly different are the parts today t the present time; the scclicp| aquatic plants or some other form of suc- on the sandy | culent vegetation. Associated with it was a still more gigantic form, Atlantosaurus, which, with its huge frame of 80 feet in length or more, was seemingly the largest of all known animals, whether recent or extinct, or as an inhabitant of the land or of the water. Smaller Companions. These, then, are some of the curfous types of animals that were indigenous to the American continent, and which roamed over the marshy tracts and through the matted jungle of the far-off period of a million years and more. With them were others of their own kind, but small—as the nanosaurus, of about one-half Gs size of the common fowl—and in S so eminently bird-like that some stances the greater part of framework cannot be the similar parts fronts into the stately mansions of our metropolitan cities, that are read some of the most imposing lessons from the history of our earth. We see in them the impress of these antediluvian monsters, the evi- dence of the life that then existed; of riffle marks which showed the nature of the ground that bore the tread; of raindrops, which speak eloquently of the meteorologi- cal conditions which prevailed at,the time of the animal's wanderings. Mfilions of years have not served to efface them, and they stand today as monuments of a kind which is not to be found in book. In a tew instances the dragging tail had cut its furrow in the soft mud, and today it is the groove of the hard rock. Some of the rock bears clearly the impress of the hindquar- ters of the animal, showing plainly where ard how it sat. Their Extermination. The problem that perhaps most closely associates itself with these curious beings, whose type differs so radically from the type of the modern reptile, as the crocodile, turtle, iizard, or serpent, is, What were the causes or conditions which led to their ex- termination? Not a trace ef such creatures is to be found in the fauna of today, nor, in fact, has it been found as a belonging of any time since the beginning of what geol- ogists term the tertiary period. In our present knowledge of the past changes which have affected our planets, it is, per- haps, an almost fruitless research to enter into speculation as to this remarkabl2 dis- appearance; but it is an event in history which, of its kind, has frequently repeated itself in the making of the earth’s life rec- ord. Animal groups have slowly come into existence and have as slowly disappeared; seemingly, no cataclysm has driven them from the field at once, but in measured time have they, for one cause or another, found the conditions of existence no longer “favorable, and thereby ab!ded their tunes. ‘The naturalist may or may not cover what these conditions inimical to ex- istence may be or may have been the evolutionists may not be able to trace the lire of modification which has turned an ancient form into its modern representa- tive; but we know that the progress of life upon the globe is a necessary outcome of transformation—the remodeling of life by the incoming of new forms and the outgo- ing of old ones. Man, himself, may not have noted the appearance of new types cf life, except such as he himself has pro- duced through interbreeding or domestica- tion, but he has been witness to several dis- appearances, such, for example, as of the mastodon, mammoth, and urus; and even pow, he sees the rapidly receding battalions jof the elephant and musk ox following closely upon the lingering remnants of the bison and aurochs. ieee Ma‘am and Sir. From Harper's Basar. Ferty years ago all small people were carefully instructed in the formalities of life, and one of the things especially in- sisted upon was that they should invari- ably, in addressing their elders, say, ‘Yes, “Yes, sir,” and “No, ma'am, | sir.” A well-bred child in a later period than that always rose when older persons en- tered the room and remained standing till told to take a seat. It is observed by Au- gustus Hare in his lately published auto- biography that his mother in her girlhood | not only stood when in the room with her father, but even accorded that honor to empty chair if she were in the room with it. In our period a well-trained boy rises when his mother or other woman enters a room and stands till she is seated. A little girl, too, is taught to be soft of voice and gentle in movement, and to slip a cushion behind the back of a friend, to urge on a guest the most comfortable seat, to adjust screens against window glare and firelight, and to avoid interruption and contradiction. But “sir’ aud “ma'am” are not now in vogue for children, being considered the appropri- ate form of address for servants and for those of inferior position. Children are in no sense inferiors in their homes. They are socially on the same plane with their parents, and it is fitting that they should be treated with courtesy as well as practice it. A child should be taught to say “Yes, mother,” ‘“Yse, father,” “Yes, Mrs. Smith,” “No, Mr. Jones.” It is always elegant to repeat the name of the person you address. “Mother” and ‘father’ are preferred at present to any affectionate diminutive for the speech of even little children, and “mamma” and “papa” (not momma and poppa) are in the second place in favor. Singularly, “daddy” and “mammy” have just now ‘established their claims to be heard in the drawing room, though of old the laborer’s cottage was their accustomed lace. To train a child in the conventionalities of his own generation is certainly advisable. Only by the automatic practice of every- day forms during the years of chlidhood can man or woman hope for the uncon- scious ease which in maturity is the first flower of good manners. —— + e+ ___ Minister Willis as a Lawyer. Correspondence of the New York Post. The death of Minister Willis in Hawaii has set Kentuckians at Washington to story-telling about him. One of them de- scribes an incident illustrative of his meth- od of trying a lawsuit before a jury. He was once attorney for a young woman in @ case against a prominent and wealthy contractor of Louisville. The case attract- ed much attention, and the court room was crowded when the trial was on. The con- tractor took the stand, and, being of an easy conscience, tried to swear the case out of court. Then Willis arose in behalf of the young woman. He did not seek to cross-examine tke witness. He turned to the grent crowd of spectators, and at ran- dom singled out a man in the front row. “Stand up and get sworn where you stand,” said Willis to the astonished spec- ‘Do you know the defendant?” ” answered the spectator. “Do you know his reputation for truth and _ veracity?” “Yes.” (3s 1t good or bad?" ae you believe him under oath?” “No.” Then Willis called on another spectator to stand up and be sworn, with similar re- sults. Thus he called on tator after spectator at random, until he had sworn fifteen or twenty of them. They all agreed that the contractor could not be believed under oath, Jt was proof positive to the jury in impeaching the contractor, for it was clear to every one that the witnesses had not been summoned for the purpose of impeachment. Willis wan the case and se- gured_s verdict of $20,000 against the de- ———+e+_____ From the Cleveland Plain Dealer, “Miss Gush admits that she is close to thirty.” i Siena a E 1 Well, she'd - ch tos waferyt™ better make a touch- MUSSULMAN DEPUTY ees oe The Parisian Legiglator Who Prac- tices Mahometanism. HOW HE PUBLIC): REGARDS HIM Curious and Obsolete Customs He Follows in Paris Streets. IN HIS MOUNTAIN HOUSE Special Correspondence of The Evening Star. PARIS, January 26, 1897. AILY during the past week — and through snow, hail, sleet and rain at wl —Parisian crowds whose numbers mount up into the thousands have been gathering along the rives Seine beside the Palais Bourbon. They wait patiently until a strange man, costumed like an Arab, makes his way Gown to the water's edge, and, taking off his red Algerian morocco shces—he wears no socks—proceeds with utter nonchal- ance to wash his feet. Then he is seen to pray, his face turned toward the east; and all the people cheer. Dispersing they discuss the matter with more interest than they would give to political happenings of {nfinitely greater note. For it is a politi- cal happening, this washing of the “Mvs- sulman deputy’s” feet, and this man, Dr. Grenier—not despite his eccentricities, but Lecause of them—may wash and pray him- self into great power. Alrealy he is a Parisian notoriety, as truly as is Presi- dent Felix Faure, the painter, Puvis de Chavannes; the poet, Co) the play- wright, Sardou; the physiologist, Roux; the engineer, Eiffel, or the actress, Bern- hardt. Sudden Prominence. Here is an obscure French doctor, who, popping up most unexpectedly from -:c- where in particular, as a Parisian of no importance—merely provincial deputy like other hundreds—has yet known how* to force himself upon the public in two short weeks by a series of such eccentrici- ties as to raise doubts of his: sanity on one hand and grave fears of his future influence on the other. His specialty is to declare himself 2 Mussulman in religion. Bat there have been many Europein Mus- sulmens and are today. it inust be that Dr. Grenier is a Mussulman and a half of the Palais Bourbon, its lavabos and {ts corridors, and the assistance of the horde of journalists who haunt its courts, its smoking roonts and buffets. Possessed of such @ status from the first, though trifling real, his picturesque::ipromenades from Vaugirard to Montmartre and his sudden takings at the nours of. prayers, no matter where, even on the scoffing Boulevard, have Ted him far. How Tarks and Arabs Regard Him. Dr. Grenier dresses 1@ an Arab of the Arabs; he is perfect in his get-up; perfect ip his way, indeed, which has brought him rebuke from doctors ef Islamic law. Ac- cording to an admirable precept of the Koran, true believers aré bade “‘to reserve judgment when one cannot pronounce with exactitude on sure information,” while an- other forbids all gocd(Mussnimans to put in doubt the sincerity of a conversion. Therefore, the promirentPurks and Arabs esident or temporarily:im-Par's at the pres- nt moment lament thejenthusiastic doc- tor’s indisereticns with the utmost reserve. Mehemed Ubeyd:-Alah HodjazadeJate,mufti and director ofthe “Sads,"@ famous Ma- hometan ecclesiastic of Constantinople, has gone so far as to declare to a reporter that “it all looks very funny. */* * Particu- larly, because the case of-a)Musgulman in your chamber ‘of deputies has not been foreseen. At Constantinople, of course, prayers and ablutions are provided for. ‘And each time a minister receives a letter, does he kiss it and invoke the name of Mahomet?” inquired the interv: “No! Does your man do that “Our man does that, indeed, and many other pfous acts, He tried to wash his feet in the Palais Bourbon lavatory, and now goes to the river Seine, at the ap- pointed hour * * +” But,” interrupted the late mufti, “there Is no appoin ed hour in that sense. In or- Gr to avoid scandal or inconvenience the law permits a,believer to perform all his day prayers and ablutions together, at one time, in the evening, for instance, when one is at home alone. Curious bat Obsolete Practices. This is the most serious complaint against Dr. Grenier, that he is ostentaticus in his new faith. The facts appear to be that he— having read too many mystical, transcen- dental and even schismatie Arabic theolo- gians, presumably of long-past schools for the most part—has fallen in love with cc- cult ceremonials unknown to the modern rank and file in Islam; such as making rev erence to the Palas-Bourbon clock—in lieu of the sun dial of Granada—kissing the stores of the Palais-Bourbon steps and spitting when he sees a dog or a hump- back, and many other quaint and curious practices. Most notorious have been his “ablutions.” Forbidden to wash his feet in the lavatory of the chamber of deputies, he adjourns to the river in front of the palace. The latest news Is that nis fellow- members, to avoid the sandal, have voted the erection for him of a little worshiping ard washing room inside the palace, where he may disport himself in the discretion that becomes a French legislator. Astonishing Spectators. And all this is absolutely true, without a word of exaggeration. Indeed, it is much less than the truth, as new explosions of Mohometan devotion are recorded by the daily press of Paris morning ani evening, with the regularity of weather and Lourse reports. For example, the day before yesterday he was seen on his knees half-way up the great stone stairway of the Rue Lepic, at Montmartre. But what was the astonish- ment of the spectators to observe that he was bowing and gesticulating toward the west instead of the sacred east. “I am new to Paris,” he explained sheepishly, “and I forgot to bring out my compass this morn- ing.” And yesterday morning the passes: gers in an Auteuil-Madeleine omnibus were surprised to see him, wifhta sudden gesiure after an examination of his watch, fall to his knees on the omnibus floor, rest in that attitude a moment a! hen get up and resume the reading of‘his newspaper. He has been seen to do ‘his prayers in the lobby of a theater, oman “island” in the middle of the Avenue #6'!'Opera, and in a Duval restaurant at lupeh time. ‘As it may be imagined, such performances cannot go on without remark. Byt—and this is very curious—such is. the iar position of religion in Paris thi here a fanatic Christian of no matter tat particular sect would be insulted and\\perhaps arrested for a tithe of such overt'acts, the Moham- etan is smiled on with good naturc—tol- erated, almost petted, and—though joked enough—excused, explained, apologized for and commended by th@ common people, in the press and by. <philosophers, ro- mancers, poets and wits, humorists and satirists. 2 Who He I It fs natural that people should want to know who Dr. Philippe Grenier is, and how he came to be elected to the chamber of deputies. The information is not lack- ing. Every Paris daily and all of the week- lies have sent artists afd interviewers to the town of Pontarlier, up in the moun- tains on thé Swiss frontier, from which he hails. There the most remarkable revela- tions left them ut! nonplused, with- fts @ leg Abe ved ot zone eories wi on. of a joker, a self-seeker Or a visionary dreamer, the French Mussulman—a convert five years back, when he was in Algeria—en- joys the love and respect of every soul in the electoral district. The Mussulmen. who on his first, elec- ticneering tour spent only $6 and on his . second’ did not pass $80 was brought in without an effort! “It was the honestest election!” every one agrees. “There could not have been any practical electioneering,” explained one of the local lights, “because Dr. Grenier has no money of his uwn any sore, and his mother—who wishes him to live with her—would not have given a sou to make him a deputy. Nor would his best friends have helped him, doubting the wisdom of so much ex- citement and notoriety for one who might be misunderstood in a trifling capital like Paris. No one believed he would be elected,” continued the wise townsman, “nor did I myself. Neither did Dr. Grenier expect it. Do you know what he was do- ing when they brought him the news? He was putting leeches on a sick girl's le “The peasants, not knowing that they might vote with a pencil on blank paper, or even scratch one candidate’s name and insert another's, voted against Dr. Grenier rather than lose their votes, though they would have wept bitterly had he been de- feated. But they knew he would not be defeated. If there had been Grenier btlie- tins—tickets—everywhere the doctor would have had 900 more votes to his majority!" Why He is Popular. “But whence comes this popularity?” in- quired each interviewer in turn. And the answer was ever the same. “It is because there are not two men in the world like Dr. Philippe! Here, during the past five years (the years in which he has been a Mussulman and worn the Arab costume), he has done things qui ne sont pas d'un homme—things superhuman! He was rich. He has given all the fortune he inherited from his father to the poor! And asa doctor he is just as extraordinary! He has attended sever typhoid cases simultaneously and not lost one!” The druggist of Pontarlier, one of the chief towrsmen, speaks of Grenier with tears in his eyes. “During a month and a half my young wife lay between life and death with a puerperal fever, and the doctor nursed her and cured her with such skill and cevotion that I would have given him my fortune! Yet he refused any pay- ment. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘that God for- bids us to sell our science!’ And when I insisted, he would only accept a compro- mise. “You can pay me in drugs,’ he said, ‘and that will be serving us a good turn all round.’ ” At Pontarlier there is no end to the tales of his goodness, goodncss it would seem born entirely of his conversion to the cult of Islam. The people refuse to be- lieve it a freak, this practical visiting of the widow and the orphan. And as to re- maining unspotted from the world, his mother—they always consult the mother in France, however old the son may be—has said to the interviewers, while lamenting the more picturesque of her son’s eccen- tricities, “He is as pure as the snow of our mountains!” A last tale of his philan- threpy will have to be sufficient to illus- trate the past five years of his existence. “At Montbenoit, about fifteen miles from Pontailier, there lived in an abandoned lit- tle but on wheels that had prc'ably once served a traveling photographer, a poor old peasant woman, whom th» doctor was visiting. Oue day he said to her, ‘You are toe ill to remain here; you must come to the hospital at Pontarlier.’. She had no money; neither had the doctor. Where- upon he put her on the train, gave her his return ticket and walked back the fifteen miles himself!” This is probably the reason that the peo- ple of Pontarlier are not so much ashamed of their deputy’s Arab dress. They take kindly to nis religious propaganda, which, apart from letting his own light shine, he does not prosecute with unseemly persis- terey; and they accept reverently the Bibles—yes, the Bibles—which he qistrib- utes among them. These Bibles are the ordi ary Protestant editions issued by evangelical societies in France. The only addition he has made to them, outside of notations, of which he ts. lavish, con- sists in a series of aphori and pro- nouncements. STERLING HEILIG. Se Alaska’s Queer Plains. ‘The most wonderful mirages ever beheld hy mortal eyes are those that are seen in the twilight winter days in northern Alaska. These remarkable ghastly pictures of things, both imaginary and real, are mirrored on the surface of the waste plains instead of upon the clouds or in the atmos- phere, say3 a correspondent of the St. Lou's Republic. Mimic lakes end water courses fringed with vegetation are to be seen pi>- tured as real as life on the surface of the snow, while grassy mounds, stumps, trees, logs, etc., which have an actual existence some place on the earth’s surface, are out- lined against mountains of snow in all kinds of fantastic shapes. Some of these objects are distorted and magnified into the shapes of huge, ungainly animals and reptiles of enormous proportions. The fogs and mists are driven across these wastes by the winds, and, as the ob- jects referred to loom up in the fiying va- pors, they appear like living creatures, an’ scent to be actually moving rapidly across the plain. At other times they appear higa ip the air, but this is a characteristic of the northern mirages that are seen near the seashore. When the vapors and mists are driven out to sea the images inirrored in them appear to be lunging through the waters at a terrific rate of speed, dashing: the spray high in the air, whiie huge break- ers roll over them and onward toward th mountainous islands beyond, and against which they all appear to be Monstrous serpents, app: hundred feet long, sometimes with riders on their backs; men on horseback thirty te fifty feet in Feight, animals and birds of all kinds of horrible shapes and colors, seem to be scurrying past, racing and chasing each other until they are lost in the twilight fogs or dashed to pieces upon the rocky islands mentioned above, and which are twenty miles out at sea. —~20— Mnine’s Ax Handle Man. Correspondence of the New York Post. The ax-handle man is another peculiar worker in the Maine woods, and he lives just as unconventionally and has just as good a time as the hoop-pole man or the gum-maker. He frequently accompanies the hoop-pole man in his tours through the woods in the wake of the loggers. The saplings needed for ax-handles must be larger than those the hoop-pole man is looking for, and consequently their inter- ests do not conflict, unless it is that the hoop-pole man denudes the forests so thor- oughly that he leaves very few saplings behind to grow up for the ax-handle cu: ter. The ash saplings are about thé only ones that the latter looks for, and he goes into the woods in the fall and chops‘down every sapling of the desired size. The young tree is then split, and the chopper blocks out the handle in a rough way. When a good collection of handles is thus blocked out they are buried so they may season without cracking. If the sun is al- lowed to shine upon these ash handles for any length of time while seasoning the fiber loses its firmness. In addition to this Precaution, the large ends of the handles are smeared over with a greasy paint that tends further to hold the grain together. In the winter the ax-handle -men collect their handles’ that have been buried throughout the forest at convenient places, and aoe ea the railroad station, and ence to the factory, where the; - pence te y ‘Y are fin. He Paid for the Dough. From the Pittsburg News. “I can deal. with mén,” growled a griz- zled ofl driller, as he leaned up against the bar in Bayley’s, “but hang me if a woman can’t do the best of us. The other day I brought in a well down in Virginy, right close to the kitchen door of a little farm house.- Jest as we was gittin’ to the tick- lish point, where pipes weren’t allowed within forty rod, out comes the farmer's wife, an’ goes to buildin’ a big fire in a Dutch oven. Mebby I didn’t kick, but she jest showed me a batch of dough an’ said if she didn’t bake it 'twould spoil. If I wanted the fire out I had goz to pay for the dough. Ten dollars, too. She ‘est dared me to touch that Dutch oven, an’ I didn’t touch it, neither. I jest flashed the ten. Mebby we didn’t git that fire out quick. If the well had a-broke loose it would a-blowed me an’ the hull farm house to kingdom come. No, sir. I don’t want no more dealin’s with a woman. They’re too resky. several “I observe,” said the boarder who likes to talk about actor folk, “that Andre Theuriet, the novelist, presented Sarah Bernhardt a sprig of wild thyme on the occasion of her celebration.” “I wonder,” said Asbury Peppers, look- at his. , “I wonder aa : fi ALIMANAC | & HANDBOOK. well-informed Every ING HANDBOOK. THE EVENING STAR | person in the District of Columbia should possess a copy of THE EVEN- STAR ALMANAC and Its value as a ready book of reference makes ‘it well nigh in- dispensable to every one who’ de- sires to keep in touch with latter : day events. Twenty-five cents a copy. For sale by all newsdealers and at The Evening Star Office. | THE WORLD'S GREAT PORTS, European Cities Going Ahead While New York is Standing Still. From the New York Sap. Some German merchants, bankers and imperial officials have found great encour- agement in the fact established by figures | that, while during the last ten years the commerce of the city of Liverpool has in- creased forty per cent, «he tonnage of v sels arriving at or departirg from the Ger- man port of Hamburg has increased seven- ty per cent in the same period. The gco- graphical position of Liverpool is highly favorable to shipping, and the docks of Liverpool, it is well known, have at large ! expense made the harbor a most desirable one in the facilities which it gives to ves- sels of all dimensions. But recently Liver- pool has had to coniend with the serious industrial and mercantile rivalry of the of Manchester, and the business of Manchester has been greatly promoted b; the Manchester canal. The German gov ernment, in the construction of the new Balttc canal, has discriminated in favor of Hamburg, which hus increased its shipping business very largely of late years at the expense of the uther North German port of Bremen. At the close of the Franco- Prussian wer the tonnage of vessels ar- riving in and departing from Hamburg was 2,000,000, and of Bremen in the same year $00,000, Since then the commerce of Brem- en has increased about 75 per cent and that of Hamburg 300 per cent. Notwithstanding these great gains city of London still retains its remarkable distinction of being the greatest port in the world for sea-going vessels, New York fol- lowing rot very far behind, brt showing comparatively little increase. The num- ber of ships, steel, steam or sail, which leave the port of New York in a year is about 2,000, and more than two-thirds of the total number of such vessels are reg- istereec under foreign flags. New York has gained of late years in respect of the amount of business done with European ports, but there has been no corresponding increase in the volume of business done with domestic ports, and more- over the city of New York has had to meet very strong competition from Bal- timore and New Orleans, a considerable portion of the shipments of western grain having been diverted to these ports and away from New York. The business of the pert of London is very largely of a local character, London being a mart of con- sumption and interchange of articles ar- iving*from other parts of England. The four cities of London, New York, of the ports of the world, but there are business is done—some decreasing, but a larger number failing to keep up with the ratio of growth in mercantile business. Anewerp in Belgium stands fifth among the commercial ports of the world and very near it, with a volume of tonhage nearly as high, is Marseilles, in France, the chief port of the Mediterranean. Havre, in France, does a considerable business, chicf- ly with foreign ccuntries, in the shipping line, and Stettin, in Germany, a large bus- iress, chiefly coastwise. of the railroad and canal systems of each port has much to do with its growth in commercial business, and it is a fact usual- ly to be observed that a city which is the terminus of a canal retains longer and bet- ter its shipping trade than a railroad terminus. At least this is observable in the United States. +0 ‘OT TO CARRY THEM. HOW » Ways in Which Canes and Umbrellas May Become Sources of Danger. From the New York Sun. “Any man who feels himself impelled to curry a cane or an umbrella not in actual use in any manner except in an approx!- mately vertical position by his side,” sald Mr. Glimby, “should at once hire a hall and go there and lock himself in alone, where he will not endanger the lives of his fellow mcrtals and where the damages done by him will be confined to the breaking of such windows as he may stick tne end of his umbreilé through in his sudden turn- ings as he pursues his walk. “And yet, reprehensible as is the practice of carrying a cune or umbrella through the streets in any other than a vertical posi- tion, there are in this as in other crimes degrees of reprehensibility. The least dan- gerous of the wrong ways of carrying a cane is over the shouider, with the poiat up, at an angle of about 45 degrees. Tie man carrying a cane in that manner turn- ing suddenly in a crowd is not likely to do much damage beyond knocking off a few hats. “A more objectional way of carrying a canb is horizontally under the arm, the ends sticking out front and back. It possible for a man carrying a cane in this marner to jab two people at once, rouse a corsiderable amount of ill feeling and pertaps huri somebody. “The man who carries through the strects a cane or an umbrella run through the the | Liverpool and Hamburg stand at the head | others at which a very large mercantile | The development ; straps of a valise with the ends sticking out is a dangerous being, for people cannot see this umbrella till they are very near to it. They might not know cf. its presence at all unless thev should run over it, or ‘he carrier should turn when they were | close upon him. | “But the most dangerous of all the care- jless or thoughtless cane or umbrella car- riers is the man who carries a cane or a9 | umbrella horizontally under his arm wiile | going up a stair way. for exampl the stairs leading to an elevated ste The point of an umbrella so about on a level with the eyes of any following close and it is a source of ered {danger. ‘There is but one thing for | follcwer to do if happily he shall d |the umbrella in time, and that is to | the man carrying it lots of room.” give INSECT LIFE IN ARIZONA, Many Deadly Creatures That Are the | Terror of the Inhabitants. From the Denver Ni Mr. and Mrs. J. T. Mason of this city are entertaining this week two distinguished naturalists, who have made extensive searches in the western field. The guests are David Bruce, the world’s greatest ento- | mologist, and Dr. Richard E. Kanze, a phy- | siclan of New York cit ho has just compieted a campaign of five and a half months among the insects of Arizona, and is so yreatly charmed with Colorado that he has decided to take up his residence in this state. Dr. Kunze talked in a most i | tertaining manner last evening of his trip | through Arizona, and the peculiarities of insect life in the far southwest. said he. in the course of h ‘is the El Dorado of the entomol- The variety of insect life in Arizo- for years made the region @ favor- field for students and collectors, b ite every year new species are found, and nw species will be found for years to come. I began work in Arizona in the first week in April last, in the vicinity of Tucson. ing the season I worked every day, for the | naturalist knows no Sunday when he is in the field. He just takes the insects in their prime. I succeeded in collecting between 60,000 and 75,000 specimens. I could have collected a much larger number in certain directions, but did not want to do so. “The least number of any one species collected by me during the summer was 100, I gathered in only 100 of the scorpion, cen- itpede and tarantula family. “Scorpions!” ejaculated a should think they would bite. The naturalist laughed. bite, if they had a chan business of Dur- listener, 3; but *< is collector not to give them a chance. You sec, we are supplied with | all sorts of paraphernalia for handiing the differe::t insects. Never let an insect seize you. Do the seizing yourself. Fear is out j of the question. We face the m and take the chances. “The tarantula hawk,” said the learned naturalist, “is one of the peculiar little animals abounding in Arizona. The hawk | preys upon the tarantula, hence his name He is built for hunting them, and ke docs it to perfection. You can see the hawks crawling along the ground in search of | their prey. They have long legs and mov like lightning when a tarantula he: in sight. In an instant the hawk pounces upon the poor tarantula, and before the victim is aware of the danger the deadly weapon of the enemy is implanted in his body. The hawk simply deposits a poison jinside the body of the tarantula, which paralyzes him. Ia connection with th | poison he deposits an egg, which proceeds | to hatch out, and a caterpillar is the re- | jsult. The young caterpillar feeds on the body of the tarantula until he is ready to undertaking housekeeping on his own a. count. There are two species of tarantula nawks, distinguished by the color of their wings. A peculiar thing is that each sp cies has its particular kind of tarantula -eee Her Apology. From Tid-Bits. In a certain part of Banffshire, where the roads are as nearly pr°cipitous as may be imagined, a little girl was one day em- ployed in her usual task of herding che cows. A minister, newly settled in the parish, coming suddenly upon her, re marked: “These are awful bills you have here, lassie.” Overcome, doubtless, with the feeling of awe for the cloth so common in Scotland, the frightened lassie answered, in apolo- getic tones: -“"Deod, sir, they were here afore we cam’ How He'd Recognize Him. From the Fliegende Blaetter. (Extract from a letter written by the Stu- dent Biersaufer) “I am much rejoiced, dearest uncle, that you are coming to visit me next Monday, I will be at the station to meet the train. As we haven't seen each other for a long time, that I may easily recognize you, hold vp a hundred-mark note in your right hand.” IN THE THIKD PERSON.