Evening Star Newspaper, June 19, 1897, Page 19

THE EVENING STAR, SATURDAY, JUNE 19, 1897-24 PAGES. AT MAT ARIS LIGHT —_>__—_ BY JOHN ARTHUR BARRY. (Copyright, 1497, by John Arthur Barry.) ten for The ing My friend Harding was head keeper of ‘one of the finest light houses in the world, and I was fre> of it at all hours. But it ‘was o' nights that I loved best to join the old man on his watch, and sit on the bal- econy and gaze out at the great ocean illumined at minute intervals by the flood of white radiarce that seemed to pour forth a greeting to the silent ships as they passed and repassed, or came straight for the harbor mouth. Harding was a square-built, gray-haired man, with a strong, determined face, all brown and wrinkled by sun and storm, and eyes that burned like live coals under shaggy white brows. At odd times, athwart the concentrated beams that seemed to hit the far horizon, would sajl ships, glorified momentarily as they passed through, with every spar and sail and rope sharply outlined by the sud- den brilliance: but more often they slid along between light and water, ill-defined phantasmal blobs of smudge, out of which, when the fancy took them to make their numbers, would spout forth many colored fires, all incomprehensible to the untutored eye as the dim fabrics they proceeded from. But Harding and his assistant signal- men read off ships and ‘numbers as easily, apparently, as if it was broad daylight: “Large square-rigged ship, with painted ports, steering E. by N. Made her number 23,745." Or M might be, “Steamer, black funnel, with white band, brig-rigged, deep, bound south, showed no number.” But nothing large or small ever escaped the eagle lookout kept from that eyrié on the great cliff, where the only sounds that broke the long night silences were the wash of the waves on the rugged, kelp- grown rocks, 400 sheer feet beneath, and the subdued hum of the big dynamo in the basement. . This, you will see, was no isolated light stuck forlornly hundreds of miles from anywhere. It was an establishment over which Harding presided—quite a little set- tement of government offices connected with the important department of harbors, rivers and trade. His salary was high; so was the efficiency of the service he headed. And he was not averse to a little judicious praise now and again. On one of these occasions J had said: something respecting the speedy identification of a foreign cruiser, and the prompt wiring of details to the capital whilst yet the warship crept in as if desirous of escaping attention, and little guessing that long ere she reached the port a score of nine-inch guns, to say nothing of submarine mines and Brennan terpedoes, would have blown her to atoms had she « ded the challenge of the warned guardship at Inner Point. Well, I had complimented him on the ceaseless vigilance maintained, and he chuckled, well pleased, and hemmed and remarked, “Now, that reminds me!” Usually a taciturn man, and one en- r. grossed in business, he was difficult to “draw.” Often enough he had said as much beforg with no result: often matters had followed weil any case, I knew worth the hearing, In jience was best. a mild night, with a “southerly” at gui ping the sea flat- ato a vast milky-white expanse of that kept up a long-drawn r at the foot of the cl ompaniment to the shrieking led and tore around the great tower, as if striving to shake it from its foundations deep down in the solid reek “Come along to my room,” said Hardi a good look around, pe and nd a glass of grog about another light house ler man-o’-war that I nty-flve years ago now.” private snuggery be- I took one of the big Harding operated with » bottle, lemons and sugar to his satisfac- 2-and-twenty i sat on the steps fault, nor did I captain. All the rs have —not pel fads dead out. light have 1 up ax isfy right you afl your time to as I sat nt, and ay here till the never get a ship. up that perhaps is > you'll arhe to you 6 Dutch age they aid Van on on the passage, and up at our de ded point a reef rs of a mile out S. At the extreme point was called— i ha’ Jaughed one - ona on piles forty feet high. the shed there ran a n hand rafl, some reward, to another and Harding Proceeded. a larger platform, where, in a large hut, we were tw live. The only way to get down to terra firma was by ladders. At low wa- ter all you could see was mud and dozens gether, elbowing each other, so to speak; art, as .f that wasn’t enough, | of the round hotse, except sit and smoke and hung to the roof of the meat safe. That it had been badly wanted, primitive as it was, the remains of several vessels emphatically witnessed. “My boss was there already, a cross- bred, surly looking customer—tather Dutch, mother Malay. She kept heuse for us—a skinny old hag, with a nose like an eagle's, and a bigger mustache than I could boast of in those days. Her son's name was Peter—Peter Klopp. “Presently the schooner went away and left us. And what a life it was! Nothing to do after trimming the lights of a morn- ing and sweeping bucketsful of moths out and look out across the straits to Celébes— rst a blue line of high mountains in the sleep, eat, watch the ships com- ing and going, or pull faces at the monkeys up among the tall trees that waved their heads seyenty feet above ours. ‘At times the traffic was pretty thick; it was always peculiar. Junks from Swa- tow, bound for Amboyna and Ceram for sandalwood, swallows’ rests and beche de mer; ‘country wallahs’ from Penang and Singapore, going round to Benjarmassin for coffee and rice; steam tramps from Australian ports Ieaded up to their gun- wales with coal for Manila; and smart lit- tle tonsail schooners flying any flag that took their fancy, and ready to pick up any- thing that wasn’t too hot or too heavy for them, from a bushel of nutmegs to a hold- ful of ‘blackbirds.’ But, with the exception of a Dutch gunboat, the Blitzen, acting as & sort of sea patrol, who called on us at mm “I SLASHED THE ROPE THROUGH.” CR cer’s last visit, coming in and rousing Peter to take his watch, I brewed myself a cup before turning in. It tasted very bitter, and I didn’t finish it, but almost before I'd time to undress I was dead to the world. 1 woke in a fright, dripping with sweat, and shaking all ‘over. Now, in the light house was a bottle of lime juice I'd brewed myself; my throat was as dry as the lu- bricators of a collier’ engines, and the thought of that drink tantalized me till I made shift to crawl out of my hammock, and stagger along the bridge to the little house where also was a@ ‘chatty’ of cold water. “To my utter astonishment, looking up, I saw that the light was out. Opening the door. I entered, and, half choking, felt for the water bottle. It was empty. Striking a match, I saw that the floor was soaking wet. Putting up my hand to the wicks they only frizzed and spluttered at contact with the flame. Also the spare lantern that we always kept ready trimmed had disap- peared. ~ “Stepping outside on to the platform I stared around, headachy and very shaky still. The night ‘was black as pitch—one of those nights you cften get out there, that feel almost like black velvet and as thick. And there wasn’t a star'to be seen, as Sometimes happens at the change of the monsoons. The jungle, too, was still as death—there was no sound on land or on the sea. The whole world seemed fast bound in sleep and darkness. Presently my eye, roving along shore, came to the gleam of a light some half mile away, ay long intervals, we had no visitors at that Aris point. “Peier and his old hag of a mother I soon discovered were confirmed opium smokers, and wher they went in for a regular spree, and ocgan to suffer a re- covery, they made things hum in ‘Monkey Isiand,’ as I vatied it. Once { was fool ugh to interfere and stop Peter from huking hfe out ef her. For thanks, the pair ed on me; but I managed to dre them wn, although Peter nearly And I can tell you, 1using in his story, and rising to conjure gain with the kettle and other adjuncis, “that two to one, with precious jittle room, and a break-neck fall if vou'rs net careful, ien’t as funny as It might bi - Having replenished the glasses and re- filled and lit his pipe, Harding proceeded: “Well, aiter this I could see thaf the two had taken a down upon me, and as I, on my part, was heartily sick of the whole contract, I told the officer who commanded the Blitzen, next time she called, that I wanted to leave, ana that the sooner he found a substit the better I should be ed. For answer he called me an Eng- chelm. whick means rascal, and told reed for two years, which a lie, d that there I should stay. Also, that he'd make it his business to see tI dian't get away. ‘Seeing ape, that for that’s what it ly came to, by water was not to be ught of, except by swimming, and the Ks pretty well put that out of the ques- I determined to see what the land side like. A muddy banked river empzied f just below the light house, and this day I started ‘to follow up. But I follow jong. I don’t believe I got a fore I was mother-naked and nearly | sturg to death. Every bush | nay the very flowers, seemed thorn. And what with fire ants, miosqu: leseh centipedes, stinging files, and, Worse than all, a blamed cater- piliar that drops on to you off the leaves and hairs into you that break off | in your flesh and fester, I can assure you was the roughest picnic I ever had. Why. I almost thought I could hear the alligators chuckling as I made home again. Certainly Peter laughed for the first time since we'd been mates on Monkey Island when he saw the plight I was in. “A day or so after this the gunboat sent her gig ashore again, and, from the ham- k, I _had slung in my portion of the big ST could ner atch: inughter amor Dutchmen as Peter detailed piy ad- ture. I heard also allusions to some other verdamde Englander, and a long talk about the light ané bearings, the gist of whick edge bitten and to car of the langu: escaped me. Next norning I saw Peter marching off along | the narrow strip of bank that separated 16) with a tail-block over his shoulder, and, though wondering mightily what he could be up to, I wasn't going to show curiosity. way, I ought to block that y to one bush A tail-block, by the ell you, is the cofamon u_reeve a rope through, only aff, * ually, by which it can be spar or holt, alow or aloft. gave me focd for thought in and I puzzled over this till Peter bac! and rummaging among the walked off once more with a coil of . for want of a more intimate know1- | of tt is attached a long tail of } sew ratline line, and in the same direction. He did not appear at dinner, and, as I hed my mess of rice, salt fish and d mangoes, I said to the hag, ‘What Deco: er” ‘He's gone to set a for an orang-outang whose tracks he at the foot of the ladders yester- he replied, grinning and leering. added she sarcastically, ‘if you don’t * me, go and look,” only leave ycur s behind, most misbegotten of En- fools.” “Peter came home that evening, and in the interest created by a new visitor in those waters, and whose acquaintance I t onc= sought some means of making, the incident of the tail-block was completely forgotten. “Dutch soundings, it appeared, haviag been found so unreliable as to bring a good few British vessels to grief, that gov- ernment, charactertstically enough, had dispatched a vessel to correct them with- out giving the Dutch notice or saying by your leave or anything else. ‘And although we, or rather I, was una- ware of it, H. M. S. Badger had for some time been thus engaged at the upper por- tion of the straits. Now she appeared off Mat Aris busy, in sporting parlance, wiping the Blitzen’s eye, very much to the disgust of the latter’s officers, whose specialty, if they possessed one, was sup- sed to be surveying. ‘The Badger was a paddle-wheeled, hrig- rigged old tub, sure enough. But she was British, and as I stared dnd stared through the glasses at the white ensign nd the good red cross flying from her ak, I was tempted often to swim off to P her as she puffed and churned away, fusa- ing around after her boats like an old hen after her chicks. “But when I looked at the black, three- sided fins sticking up at high water right alongside our piles, I felt my toes tingle, and thought better of it, trusting that some day she'd send a boat to give us a call, when I determined that go I would if ali the Dutch in the East Indies were to try to stop me. ‘That Peter guessed my thoughts and | netions I could see from the mean, yel- low-brown, grinning face of him. ' And I'd try to get his dander up sometimes. ‘Leok at that, Peter, my country’s flag. derneath its folds, sweating and toiling, half starved and taxed to death’s doors like there is under yours. Hip! hip! hoo- ray! Rule Britannia and God save the queen!’ | hell for leather, through bush and pbriar. about on a letel with where ours should have been, only much farther inland—a big light I saw it was, as my eyes got the sleep out of them, and burning steadily. “As I stared, puzzled beyond expression | I all at.once heard the sound of muified snorting and churning faint tn the distance -a noise as if a shoal of grampus were coming down the straits. “Listening and staring, there suddenly rose to mind fragments of the first talk I'd | heard between Peter and the Dutchman | about lights and bearings. Then, somehow, ! came a connection between that and the | tail-block and the coil of ratline stuff. | Then, I don’t know how it happened, but | in a second—perhaps you've experienced | something of the kind—my brain seemed cleared of cobwebs, as if'a broom inside had swept across it’sharply, and the whole plan lay before me plain a3 mud in a wine- glass. And I laughed; yes, sir, I assure | u, I did, for I saw my time had come at | The puff, puff and wheezy panting | sounding nearer; and, looking steadily | and hard into the distance, I could see 2 | long way up the st a shower of sparks | like a swarm of fireflies, but which I knew marked the whereabouts of the Badger, burning Nagasaki coal. | “She was approaching obliquely, over | from the Celebes side, heading about west- sou'-west to pick up Mat Ars light: then. according to the sailing directions, would straighten y-sou’, keeping the light four poin starboard bow to clear the reef. Now, with the light in its present position, she would, if unsus- picious—and it was the merest chance that anybody on board observed the change— crash right on to the outermost edge of the reef, and go down in deep water as others ‘bad done before her. It was a trap cun- | ceived with perfectly diabolical cunning and ingenuity, the site of the false light having evidently been determined most carefully and scientitically, not tco far to excite the lookout’s distrust, and yet near enough by half-a-point to prove effectual. Puff-puff, churn, churn, pant-pant. An- other twenty minutes, and it wouid be all | up with H. M.S. Badger. But, knowing | exactly what to do—holding two honors | and the ace, so to speak—I waseas cool as | a cucumber, and except for that trembling about the legs, my own man again. That i had been drugged or poisoned by an in- | sufficient dose I more than suspected. Just | then, however, I didn’t bother my head about that. I wanted to renew the light on Mat Aris. Round the caboose in which jhe lantern used to hang, as I've told you, ‘or all the world like a leg-of mutton in a ran lockers filled with tins of waste, rope, oakum and such matters. Knocking in the heads of a ccu- ple of the tins, I poured the oil over al liberally, saturating everything. After thls, a match was ali that was needed, and be- fore I was half way along the bridge the flames were six feet high. Just looking in her den to see that the hag wasn't there, I went down the ladders like a lamp- lighter, and ran along the bank toward Where I knew the false beacon must be, swung high aloft in some tree. “Over logs and stumps I stumbled, look- ing back now and again at the big, tal! glare till, rounding a point, the dense for- est shut it from sight. Getting along some- how, I stopped at last and Hstened. But I could hear nothing of the Badger. Inland, however, high overhead, hung the light. Pulling out my sheathknife I made for tt, meat safe, kerosene, As I guessed, it was hung to a tree, and, feeling ali around, I soon found the rope belayed to a root, and before you could say ‘Jack Robinson’ I'd slashed it through, and was watching the lantern coming down by the run when a fellow jumped out of the dark and muzzied me round the throat. ‘Hello, Peter,’ I said, as I returned the compliment, “‘you see the coffee wasn’t strong enough.’ I hadn't time to say much, being very busy, for the brute, in spite of the opium, was stronger than I thought, and I weaker. Down we went, rolling over and over, while, to make things warmer, the lantern capsized, and, setting fire to the coarse grass, tt blazed up all about us. Also the hag, with a big club in her fist, was dancing around screeching blue mur- der, but afraid to hit, so closely entangled were we. I still grasped my knife. I could see Peter's also gleam as we turned and writhed. Presently I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder, and knew I was stabbed. That made me real mad, and as we rolled away a bit from the fire the hag made a smack at me, but, missing, caught Peter on the point of the shoulder, causing him to drop the knife. He stretched out to re- cover it, and I got home on him till I felt the wooden haft jar against his ribs. “He went limp all in @ minute, exactly like one of those bladders the children play with if you shove a pin into it. Well, we'd rolled down a bank into a bit of a swamp, and when the hag saw what had happened she gave one yell and jumped fairly on top of me, and got her stick to work in great style. As you may imagine, I was by this pretty well knocked out, and I don’t. know how ‘matters would haye gone, only thaf a “boat's crew of Badgets just then cathe ofi the scene and dragged the hag off’me, ‘swearing, kick- ing*and striking right ané left, until one of the men gave her’® poke with a bayo* fet, Wlien'shé suddenfy ¢dlmed down’ and started to rafse the Malay"death wail. “and she had causé to, for Peter pegged out before we got Aint &n board. Bfine turned“out to Be not! iiach worse than a flesh wound, although Pd lost'a lot of blood from it. © ~~ “As you may sused, the skipper of the Badger Was in a pefter When he'd heard my story. Certainly I had’no witness, and the hag kept her motith as close‘as a tat trap. But’we ‘got over that. There wad a falay interpreter on) boatd, and he gave the captain a hint. So, When the hag heard that she was to“be taketh’ back to Perak, ker native piace, and tMere handed over'to the tender mercies of the sultan—at that time our very good friend—she made a clean breast of everything, including the attempt to poison me with the juice of the Rlang-klang berries. Four hundred gufld- érs ‘was‘the price of Peters’ connivance, and promotion to one of the Java lights if the plan ‘succeeded. “This confession of the hag’s was a bit of juck for me, and Capt. Cardigan compli- mented me in pregence of the ship's ‘com- pany’ on the way T'd behaved, having un- doubtedly saved the Badger, whose officer of the watch was steering by the false light, ‘when it suddenly disappeared. The captain also said that he would représent my Gondust to the admiralty." And that he képt his word,” said Hatding, as he rose ‘to ‘go on deck’ ‘for a mfnute, ‘‘my ‘“sresence kere proves. If you'll, zeal the kettle I'll be back again in a Véry short time, < “ay,” replied Hapding a3 be reseated himself, in reply to a remar! eae aI was lucky. But you miustn's thifl at I came here straight away. This—the prize of the Service amongst the Nghts—is my sixth. So, you See, to some extent, I’ve worked my way up, helped, of course, by the little tuatter I’ve been telling you, and together with what in my young days was called a very fair education, Well, the cap- tain of the Badger- hg 2 Tear admiral now—wasn’t the iman to sit quietly down, and let the Dutchman go scot free. But n&t a stick of the Blitzen was to be seen eaeaen the straits of Macassar. Still we kept on searehing till, at last, the skip- per of a country wallah‘told us he'd seén her off Breton, an island round in the Banda sea. Sure enough, oné morning, there we found her, at anchor off a na- tive town. Now, she was both faster, cam ried more men, and was more heavily armed than we were. But Capt. Cardigan had made up his mind that there was to be no international row over the matter. It had to be settled as privately as possivle and strictly between the two ships. “So, with the men at their quarters, guns run out, and the old Badger stripped for fight, we ranged up to the Dutchman in great style, with the hag in full view on the quarter deck, and ordered—ay, ordered —the Blitzen's captain to come on board. And whether it was the sight of the hag, or that they were unprepared, I don’t know, but, by gad, sir, he came, he and his first lieutenant, and they were received at the gangway as if they'd been princes of the blood. “Then our skipper and the first lieutenant and the Dutchman’all went beiow. What passed there I don’t know. But presently they came up again—the Dutchman louking very sour. Then our gig was piped away, and the whole party got into her. I man- aged to slip in, too, and off we went to a little lump of an island “pigeon shooting,” as I heard the first luff whisper to the doctor. “Well, the two skippers and their lieu- tenants put their hands in their pockets and strolled away into the bush. Presently our second luff and the déetor, each carry- ing a hand bag, stroiled after them. No- hody else left the boat. In about ten min- nutes we heard a couple of shots, then tw port’s good! said one of the ies. But the biaster, who was in charge of the boat, never: winked. After a while thé-party came strolling *k again. But Von Helns, the Dutch ceptain, walked lame; and had his arm in a siing. And there was blood on the doc- tor's hands as he warhedthem in the sea. Also, as we pulled on:boara again, I noticed trom where I gat that our skipper had a Heat round hole through his cocked hat, rd that the gold lace on his right shoul. der epaulet was badly damaged. As they aboard their own boat I lcok- ed at the Dutch lieutenant —he was the same fellow who'd ealied me an English rascal at Mat Aris—and E said in the best of his lingo that I could manage, ‘At le: one Dutch rascal who'll think twi he sets traps for a British man-o' ‘His hand went to his sword like a flash. But our second luff, who understood, tap- ped him on the shoulder and pointed to the and, with a scowl, he got {n. ely escorted down gangway and transhipped. We had those Dutchmen fairly cowed, blufted by our audacity and their own bad conscience. ‘No, I never heard a word about the af- fair afterward. I stayed with Capt. Car gan until he was promoted to the Poly mus corvette, and I dare say I might have stuck to the service only my shoulder was always a bit stiff, and got rather worse, if anything, as time went on. So I left, and, through the captain’s influence, got a light. and then others, and so on here. Now, it's # wild night, and you'd better turn in he: tal maorntey NG use trying to get back to yn. I’m going to the tele; coking pilot station,” Se ier ‘io I went to bed, and dreamed of Aris 4nd the hag, for whom I took Wards ing when he woke me for morning coffee. Se Peace on Earth. Rebecea Tyler in Boston ‘Transcript. Now, this is the word of the Kaiser «And the Princes tint rule the land: “We vre keeping the Peace of Unbroken fiom strand to strand.’ And glad were the hearts of the peo, Aud that word to them was Wee For peuce is a thing most precious, And bitter the bread of strife. But the Moslem butchered the Christ! And ‘the rich man plundered the sae And the huughty armies of Europe Made the savage to cringe and cower. For this 1s the Law of the Nations, «the law for the humble aud weak: ‘To the tron hand of the smiter Ye shall turn the other cheek; And he who rebels shall be broken, ers, that shake the land; % ping the Peace of Europe, Which ye fafl to understand.” — ses Cities in Layers. From the Argonaut. 3 When Dr. Schliemann was digging at the supposed site of Troy he uncovered the re- mains of several-ancient cities which had been built, one after another, on the same hill, In the second layer from the bottom he discovered masses of silver in the form of ax heads. Dr. Gotze now suggests that these were intended, not for implements, but for money. Bronze ax heads have also been discovered in ancient remains, mingled with metal pieces in the form of rings, in such a manner as to suggest that all alike were intended to serve as money. After the ax head had disappeared as actual money the memory of it was pre- served in the coins of Tenedos, which bore the figure of an ax head. Dr. Gotze also suggests that the “wedge of gold” which Achan stole from thé spoils of Jericho, and for the stealing of which Joshua had him stoned to death, was a»specimen of the ancient ax head money. —+2-—__— If you want anything, try an ad. in The Star. If anybody has what you wish, you will get an answer. BRINGING HIM TO (TWO). BETTING IN FRANCE Gay Parisiang Dearly Love to Play the Races. TRUE OP RICH AND POOR ALIKE Plucking the Great Public is a Government Monopoly. ITS LARGE PERCENTAGE ‘Special Correspondence of The Evening Star. ‘ PARIS, June 10, 1897. yy TIS NOT AGAINST the law to play thg \ races in the gay French capital. The “courses” being themselves tolerated “with a view to the pmyelioration of the equine ccd the patie finds its easi- ly comprehended tol- eration in the ame- lioration of the ourses.”” Yet it is hot without debate. The gay French capital is noi so gay but that it has grave cliques to protest that no evil shall be done that good may come. And so, of course, the government is placed in difficulty, out of which it finds its way by compromise. It is not against the law to play the races; but to play the races you must go out to the races. “But yes, for sure, it’s very easy for the rich—for ‘the digesters’—to loll out to Long- champs in their carriages; but how is the braye workingman, the noble, clear-eyed Nature's nobleman, to take a day off from his toil when he desires to pick a winner?” These types, the “wine merchant,” the garcon de cafe, the newspaper and tobacco functionaries, being very much in touch with the down-trodden workingman, in their continuous performance act of touch- ing him, have conceived and daily execute a veritable touch-down on the government and workingman alike by means of this appeal to liberty, equality and fraternity. “Give us your money,” the philanthropists say, kindly, “and we will go out to the race track for you. There, consulting your in- structions, we will execute them to the letter, bringing home to you, less a com- mission, all the winnings your provision foresaw and our devoted assiduity accom- plished.” Flourishes Enormously. Now, for two reasons, first, contrariness and an invincible determination to evade an arbitrary law, and, secondly, a no less fixed determination to play the sure up dreamed of, worked out with a pencil from statistical sporting annuals, the cip over- heard, bought, found in coffee grounds, ob- tained in any’ of a hundred ways, as may be, this clandestine betting flourishes enor- mously among the lower and the lower- middle classes. The cafe Waiter, who ts known to take risks, has io keep a note book. He only works at night and a few hours before lunch. Every afternoon he changes from “an honest workingman” to one of the contemned luxurious idlers, and he likes it. He would fain be a “digester,” too. He will take one of those four-horse or six-horse omnibuses, long, high on_ its springs, its s ise, like those of a summer The driver, in a ts fixed cross: 4 trolle: blue coat, a red vest, with gilt buttons, gorgeous topboots and an oilcloth high hat of the old postillion type, cracks a long whip, while the conductor, in piain clothes, hoarsely solicits passengers from out the passing throng. with its three-card , its ogling damsels turally cherry ripe, aged men, downcast, furtive, into hepefuln over some South African gold mine prospectus, its vigoro the merry omnibus, with its cler work, its clerks eyading a day through falsehood, its wre going fT of-a-family risking the mor misdirected youths fresh from the pawn shop, jingles merrily to sound of snapping whip and winding horn, through the great park they cali the Bois, and then into the lovely hill-and-wood-surrounded basin, where they race upon the Longchamps turf. The track itself is all green turf, and as the bunch of splendid racing ani- mals comes thunderi by apg Da: in the twinkling of an eve, their heels kick up soft clods of grassy that splatter back on thosé in the first 1 around the fence. ates “Poor Get Better Odd: There must be thirty betting booths in the great popular two-franc inclosure. Pay four dollars, like fhe self-indulgent swells, to enter the pesage, to see the weighing, to observe the horses as they are walked round and round, to watch the actions of this noted plunger and that celebrated backer, to have information of odds of the bookmakers, to mix with the flower of Paris, to observe the ladies and their toilets, to be charged a quarter for a lemonade and twenty cents for a thin sandwich? No, the one needful thirg is at his hand, the betting booth run by the government. The government of France is operating here among the lowly and the humble, taking their one-doilar and two-dollar shots, exactly as it is among the plutocrats across the way. He will get better odds There is something remarkable in this, ard, as the cause lies deep in the unfath- omable darkness of no single human im- pulse, but the infinitely blacker mystery of the movement of souls in coaglomera- tien, that is, in the incoherent fiopping of the idiotic crowd, no formula for its use in the elusive problem of accumuiation is to be hoped for by the philosxpher or speculator. Only the fact remains. It is that, while the mutual pools in the aris- tocratic pesage may be paying thirty francs for ten on such and such a horse, those of the plebeian pelouse—the great ring where you pay oniy forty cents ad- mission—may yield easily full twenty francs for five! And this explains why in all photographs of the Grand Prix and other great events you will see blurred across the track the indistinct images of a hundred men caught by the camera in the act of running back and forth before the race or after it, to lay their bets in the booths of the populace or ascertain how much the populistic pools are paying. Picking the Winner. Should you follow the garcon de cafe as he lays the cash Intrusted to him, you would note that, while all the ilttle govern- mental shanties operate on the same race in the same way—and, note it, pay the same when all is figured up—he will still walk from this to that, perplexed, and seem to calculate, resolving a hard’ prob- lem. When he does this, it denotes that he is exercising his own individual right to pick out winners on his own account. He seeks to penetrate the motives of the crowd, the fancy of the moment, on which must depend the final price—and present value—of each horse, and, correlatively, the excruciating risking of his own dear doHar. Each booth is the same, but the chance movement of the mob will cause them to be very differently patronized. Hach booth’s erabellishment consists of two inhumanly impolite and snappy civil-service clerks, one to receive the doitars—five-franc pieces giving out a sin; numbered ticket for each dollar, while the other at a big biack- marking hat horse — pao = Medias sigs @ stroke fe the name of represented on the Ucket by enty wire ‘hite Laver”= arene og aN a ae “Phe Bai ‘ite LAver”=ten : “The Bat’=fve _" races is simplicity itself and absolutely fair and logical, it is the simplest, fairest and most togical thing in the world to cal- culate what the garcon de cafe or his client will win, should his horse—“The Bat,” say —come in first. According to the first booth’s blackboard, the $50 ought to be divided equally among the fifteen tickets sold upon “The Bat,” and so pay some- thing over three for one. According to the second booth’s blackboard, the 3) ougnt to be dividéd equally among the five out- standing tickets on “The Bat,” which would be ten for one. So they will vary ever, but the fairness, logic and simplicity of the French government casts these hazard- ous details aside, adds up the great total of all tickets sold upon “The Bat" ahd then distributes all the money represented by the great sum total of the losing tick- ets equally among them. So should the two blackboards just mentioned be im- agined now as that total, it would be dis- covered that “The Bat,” having fifteen strokes upon the first, and then five pon the second, would have had then t C tickets, in all, sold upon him. And twenty men out of the hundred—ffty to éacn blackboard, as above—must haYe the hun- dred five-fr: 3; “when “Ihe Bat™ will have paja-qye-ter one. Not three for ore, Not ten for one. But fiye for one, eras ghould the @&rcon de cafe ha¥@ walked studying the blackboards? ‘To gain, if it might ‘be, so} the pools might be loe“fu ror to pay, per: form ing Men'“uy the intricate calculation t omplished so successfully above. A “fooks as if “The Bat’ might pay us six for one, or five for one.” “It looks as if—"" t Making False Favorites. What do the sporting papers say? Per- haps they recommend “The Bat” at seven to one, but deem him altogether out of Brice at five for one. Exactly! And so many trustful souls have hastened to buy tickets on “The Lat” when the blackboards appeared to indicate the flyer of the night, suppose, at nine to one that now, as in the twinkling of an eye, they have piled in and made bim a false favorite, at tures for one! fere May be geen, however darkly, a elimpse of the why and wherefore of the hopular pelouse's better paying. The aris- tocratic pesage—‘weighing-place,” exactly, meaning not the mere grand stand, bu’ the sweet, cool, airy grove in which it rises, with the stables, the small tan track where they walk the horses and the quaint thateh-roofed pagoda of the rich and haughty bookmakers—the pesage, with its calm public, mild, serene, is not given to the raptyrous rushes and infernal stam- pedes. The yieldings of its mutual pools will be found to go nand in hand with the bookmakers’ prices, the high-toned book- makers, who bet with you on your mutual honor only, though by force, this, as the law directs, The garcon de cafe—or the wine merchant at the corner, or the husband of the dame of the tobacco bureau, or whoever—does not bet with these bookmakers, who havo naught to do with the great public. The French law has cut them out of the French life, and they must draw their profits from the privileged few. Yea, privileged, at least to this point, that one is so well known; that is, known to be “well,” as it is in the idiom—that his simple word is good for any sum that one may mumble to the serious person who, note book in hand, bows so respectfully his thanks. Plucking the Public. The bookmaker, betting, as they say, on honor—and it is on hcnor—draws his profits only from the swells, the happy few. The plucking of the great fat public, Whose illimitable dollars limitlessly chink into its coffers, not excluding Sundays, is reserved by the French government for ‘ts monopoly. Hands off! A certain by name Oller, he who dota still rej the proprictorship of the famed Moulin Rouge, conceived the idea of these Paris-mutuel being the French word for “bi is affixed for the plural ought it out and set it worki was too good. His 5 per ceni of all the money -d. The French government, in tak- the gocdwill and io itself, has made it seven. Seven dollars taken oul of every hundred. n cents taken out of every dollar. How many passings through the “mutual” pools will my so largely mutilated dollar suffer é’er it slip and fail and roil and disappear through a crack in the universe fnom mere minuteness? STERLING HEILIG. —— “Want” ads. in The they bring answers. — —— George’s Suicide Bluff C From the Kansas City Times. ‘ “I thought I was going to sell a casket to one of my neighbors a few days ago,” said the urdertaker. “A certain young man who has been dissipating considerably of late, and has gotten himself into debt, be- ceme desperate and threatened on several cceasions to commit suicide 4f his widowed ipother did not give him some of the mon- €¥ She had borrowed on their little home in Westport. Not long ago he went home with a desperate look on his face, and call- irg his mother into the parlor, said, as he pulled a revolver from his hip pocket: “I will have the money or right here I will end my miserable existence.’ y Wait!” screamed his mother, as she rushed from the room. A look of satis- fection overspread the young man’s face he mumbled to himself about knowing he would get it, but he was destined to disappointment. In a moment his mother returned, car- rying a large rug. Quietly she spread it down on the carpet, and then, straighten- ing up, said: “Now, George, go ahead. I was afraid you would spoil my carpet with blood ains.” ‘The boy almost sank to the floor in his astonshment and disappointment. He was scre if he made a bluff at shooting himself his mother would accede to his unjust de- mards and give him the little money she was saving to buy the necessaries of life with, but on the day before she had come over to my house and told my wife about his threats. My wife put the idea into her head to bluff her son the next time he threatened to commit suicide. She was afraid to try, but summoning up all her nerve, she carried out instructions, and succeeded. “The boy hasn't said a word about dying since.” tar pay because led. The after-dinner Task of dish washing loses its tetrors, and all household cleaning is ac- | ro.euia—Toe complished quickly and easily the use of : Washoe Largest package—greatest economy. on comrant, Py GET FLESH. Get Strengt' Vigor, Clear Complexion and Good Digestion, Not by Pa Medicine, but I Nature's Own Way. Any bonest physician will tell you that there ts but one way to get iucreaued flesh; all the paccut medicines and cad liver ofls to the contrary not- withstanding. and vicor ef mind aod bedy the stowach by wholesome food w method whatever. People are thin, run down, nervons, pale al es, simply because their st chs are weak. ’ not think they have dyspe -- | fo at they eat is not quickly and propery di- as It should be. = Nature has bat one way t There is no reason or common #cbse sheky in their pery t yemains that they do not cat enoug’ - Harlandson says the reason is because the stomach Incks certain digetiye acida and pep- tores, and deficient sevvotiog af Eastric juice. Nature's remedy: in gich “ccs ts 49 supply what the weak stgmiy I ig fire several preparations which wil! to 3 res Dy€fopeia Tapecially for all cure all digestive w FY 4 “ plan of forming on the common digestive principles sche hich the some ag _ Stuart"s aseftpsin “Cabicts give perfect digestion. ten fect is to increase the appetite and tn- eyenged vigor, added flesh, pure blood, and strength Sf ere aad mngele Jp “the perfectiy’ natural ‘re- sult. ~ = ud Stuart's ts ds the safest tonic Snown and will cure any form of stomach trouble exccph Uincer of the stomach. be found at Grugglsts at 40 cents for full-sized package or dl- fect by snail from Stuart Oo., Marshall, Mich, Little book on stomach discases matled free. Jel6&19-2t FAIR LADIES! No pleasure in HANGING ON toa STREET CAR STRAP. Rides MONARCH BICYCLE” ‘and experience all the joys of cycling. $100 to anybody and everybody $100 ‘96 #100 MONARCHS fitted with ‘i tiresand $50 saddles. ae g Forty page art ‘catalogue tape. « Washington Agents American Watch and Diamond Co., 1425 Pennsylvania Avenue. MONARCH CYCLE MFG. © New York. hington nts, FINLEY ON, 6 D St.N.W. Blood«Nerve Food Yourse 5 Fee errors TAKING Si For Weak and Run Down People. What is It A F.E & The richest of all restora- tive foods, becuse it re aces the esrentials of life that are exhausted ¥ disease, indigestion, high ving, overwork, What it Does! ',,megns, 0, (ood digestion perfect—It creates solid ti strength. The nerves bein, brain becomes active and « stops all wasting drats and as a It restores lost and weekness ip regulator has no equal, . Drugsists or by Avice and book, free, _W rite Us About Your Case. The Dr. Chase Company, 1512. Chestuut street, Philadelphia, mhiS-thasS2t = WoopnrRy’s ctured by a De in, sealp and ¢ It ts pure so’ FACIAL SOAP Atologist who has jon a study f one evke w : for samp eof the skin, ‘ew York, Discovered and Perfected by NERS OF PHit.al Infaut' ute Friend, the Invatee ‘ind for, the weal ? . & *be little Bla PLS Bakes to cure. TURNERS’ LITTLR TURNERS—A vey swall pill, ‘Turns your liver. TARZINA—The only ointment for skin troubles, Cares WASRIS ‘Conain, J. Nrataine, cs Peay