Grand Rapids Herald-Review Newspaper, October 27, 1900, Page 7

A SIREN'S VICTIMS By Frances Warner Walker. PEUUTIUTTELIMTSTTETICT TD, CHAPTER XXIV—(Continued.) from her manner, and the deep feeling It was noon next day when Harvey | surging beneath began to evidence it- Barclay called, but Helen, not Andrew, pened the front door to admit him be- fore he had time to pull the bell. Their cyes met, Without a word on either side, he followed her whither she led—into a small room adjoining the Ubrary. “I wish to speak to you,” she said. “Evidently,” he replied, coolly. “But first let me tell you I glad I am to have you back again, though regretting the cause which brought you. By the way, | has M Reynolds improved since yes- terday “Stop!” she interrupted, imperiously. “You are not dealing with a child. We j are not here to talk of Mr. Reynolds, mor my return, nor your gladness thereat. I have returned, however, Harv y—returned to thwart your plans—returned to prevent your marriage!” “I did not know a marriage was con- { templated,” he retorted. “I presume, from your remarks, Miss Hawthorne bas done me the honor to acknowledge her engagement to me. I told you, @ome time since, I intended to consum- mate this engagement. I also told you | I was in no hurry to cement it. But, really, since you freshly suggest the fdea, it is not altogether bad. It’s rather necessary, in this little crisis of | eur affairs, to hold the whip-hand. 1 don’t think, if I were in your place, that I would interfere.” ‘The cool arrogance of his manner but made the woman's passions blaze more fiercely. “You are deceiving me!” she cried, and her voice rang shrill and clear. “You mean to marry Grace Hawthorne and defy me! You, who have deceived | me from the beginning; you, who sold me into my own marriage! But it shall not be! You hear me—it shall never be! Sooner than see you Grace Haw- thorne’s husband, she shall know all— aye, though I confess my own share of the infamy!” 1 “Perhaps you will make that con- fession now,” interrupted a _ voice, which fell upon their guilty ears like the knell of doom. Half way in the library stood Harry ; Reynolds, looking more like a dead man than a living man, but his eyes were bent upon them, and it was his voice which they had heard. : CHAPTER XXv. It was a moment to shake the stout- est nerves. It was one thing to threat- en confession, another to be brought | before the tribunal of justice and have ft extorted from you; but Helen quiver- ed under the shock for a moment only. Then, cool, resolute and deflant, she rose up to meet it. “Since you wish my confession, you shall have it,” she said; “but I prefer that to it there shall be no witness. Mr. Barclay, will you kindly leave us?” “I prefer that Mr. Barclay should reman,” interrupted Harry. ‘‘Evident- ly what you have to tell me is known to him. It is best spoken before him.” A cool, sardonic smile played about Harvey Barclay’s lips. He, too, had had time to recover his composure. Of the three he had the least to fear from the exposure about to take place. “I think that I will join Grace in the music room,” he said, quietly. ‘Con- Jugal scenes are not quite to my mind. I shall be at your service, Mr. Reyn- olds, when this evidently-painful in- ‘tterview has been forced to a conclu- sion.” Harry Reynolds made no further ef- fort to detain him as he walked past ‘him, closing the door carefuily behind him. Before the young husband’s eyes was a dense black cloud, which shut out from his view the form of the beauti- ful woman on whom he had placed all | ‘his young love and trust. The air around him seemed filled ‘with voices which echoed, mockingly, the words he had heard her speak. “She shall know all--aye! though I eenfess my share of the infamy.” And then, not one, but a hundred voices took up the last word, and ehrieked it in his ears. And as they did so, it seemed to him that these in- visible, malicious spirits took mud in their sands and threw it against a beautiful, pure-white statue, until they fad brought destruction alike to its beauty and purity. ‘When at last the cloud clearéd and the voices were silent, he found him- Belf within a very few steps of his wife. Her arms were folded across her breast, a smile of defiance on her lips. ‘All her softness, all her womanliness, | had fied. “Well?” he questioned, mockingly. “I am waiting for you to speak,” he | answered. And his voice, though unutterably gad, was cold and stern. Instinctively the woman felt that she @tood no longer in the presence of a doting husband, a man whom she could trick by her smile and bend by her caprice, but her judge, the scale of justice in his inexorable hands. “And suppose I refuse to speak?” she replied. “It was to Grace I prom- ised my confession, not to you.” “Grace does not bear the name which your confession may tarnish; nor may it be fit to sully her pure ears. I will listen to it first. if it be infamy” (he paused and shuddered) “it is for me to hear—no other.” “This is an unfortunate house for tete-a-tetes,” she responded, coolly. “One I had not long ago was inter- rupted. Do you know?” she contin- ued, “I am afraid you will be disap- pointed in my confession. I was merely working in your ends, after ell They happened for once to run in the same groove. Like yourself, 1 wished to prevent Harvey Barclay’s mrrriage with Grace Hawthorne.” *#or her own sake?" “Her own sake? No!” she an- swered. And now the lightness fled self. “For her own sake! Why should I? Has she not all in this world—all—that she should covet pos- session of the man I love?—yes, love! You would have the truth. You forced it. Don’t start and turn paler than you already are. A little while ago— only last night—you were ready to Jaugh at your jealous fears. They were not quite unfounded. Yet, but for Harvey Barclay, I never should have become your wife. He told me you were rich; that you had a for- tune in your own right, independent of ye father. He was poor, and could not marry me, or was a coward and would not. I ‘would rather have worked for him, toiled my fingers to the bone, than lived in luxury with you; but I was ambitious, and he played upon my ambition, and so, af- ter letting you go once, I won you back again—won you from that pale- faced girl, who loves you yet. Will you curse me now? Will you wish that you had never seen me? Will you drive me from your house, and send me back to the old life of toil and poverty? Well, drive him out, too, and I'll not repine. I—” “Hush!” interrupted the tortured man. “In the name of your woman- hood, be silent. Oh, my God, do you dream how I have loved you, that you shculd thus wreck my happiness and destroy my faith?” “Your happiness! your faith!” she crept into her tone. “Both are un- echoed, and a touch of weariness known words to me. They were blot- ted from my vocabulary when I was a little child. Why should they exist for others? Yes, you have been good to me in your way; but goodness can- not purchase love, and all the love I had in my heart belonged to another before I ever looked upon your face. Yet the name, the respectability, you have given me. I like, and I mean to keep them. You can’t make a public scandal becaus» I do not love you.” “I cannot make a public scandal— no,” answered the heart-stricken man. “You shall enjoy the price of all that you have now, but you shall enjoy it alone. As soon as my father suffi- ciently recovers, I shall leave this roof. | You, also, shall leave it. All that my means can give you, you shall have; but this house shall no longer be your home. And was it this—this—that you were about to confess to Grace? Have you in no way helped Harvey Barclay in extorting money from her? Oh, Helen, rouse me from this nightmare! Tell me I am dreaming a foul and hid- eous dream—that your beauty is not a mask to cover treachery and deceit— that your loyalty is not an empty name —that your stcry is but a cruel test to my devotion! Helen, my wife—my love—save me from madness and de- spair!” The sternness had vanished from his face and voice. He opened his arms and outstretched them toward her. For the moment he refused to be- lieve all that she had said—refused to think that his senses had rightly heard. But she made no step forward—no effort to respond to his advance. His arms fell; he threw himself into a chair, and his head sank om his breast. He heard the rustle of her skirt; the opening and closing of a door. He was alone. Alone? No. Never- more alone. Henceforth he and misery were inseparable. CHAPTER XXVI. He took no heed of time as the mo- ments passed. He sat as if carved in stone. In the rocm above h'm lay his fath- er, and about him the physicians fighting the grim spectre that threat- ened its approach. Ah, if death would but come to him now—this moment! How eagerly he would welcome the rider of the white horse!--how gladly inhale from its nostrils the death which means de- struction and decay! From the sick-room he was ban- ished. His father would not miss nor note his absence; nor could he dream goo The weras that Helen, in cruelest mockery, had uttered, recurred to him —‘That pale-faced girl, who loves you yet! . And this love he had thrown from him, to accept the cheat and mockery his wife had brought him in-its stead. His wife! Oh, empty, barren title! As the word shaped itself, even in his thought, it broke down the barrier of his restraint, and his misery @ caped its bonds. To the horror of the girl who knelt beside him, great sobs rent his frame— pitiful to hear at all times, but most pitiful when they burst from a strong man’s breast. Then, indeed, must he acknowledge himself but born of wo- man! For a time she would let the storm have its way; but when the sobs had died away, and only the bent head ani a quivering of the body showed the force of the hurricane, she slipped into hfs hand a little piece of paper. One end was burnt. “Forgive me, Harry!” she whispered. “You have trusted me so little, dear, that I feared you might think I held this still, and I wanted you to destroy it yourself. You see, I put it in the flame and snatched it out again. Don’t think I blame you, Harry. Only I wish—I wish that you had asked me, dear, to sign it. Tell me, do you need more money? Can I help you?” He raised his head then and looked down at her with wondering eyes. “What are you talking of?” he said. “Has all the world gone mad to-day? And what is this?” and he read the pa- per that he held. It was Grace Hamthorne’s note, and signed by Grace Hawthorne's name, indorsed by Harvey Barclay, and a name new and altogether strange to him. “What have I to do with this?” he said, bitterly. “This concerns you and your lover!” “Harry, Harry!” she pleaded. “Don’t fear to acknowledge the truth to me! I would rather die than betray you. Are—are there others of these to which you have signed my name? Is it this that troubles you?” A new and terrible light burst upon Harry Reynolds’ bewildered brain. “Any others to which I signed your name?” he repeated, slowly. “Any others to which—” And then, closely and narrowly, he examined the signature on the paper in his hand. His face became more ghastly as he looked, and in his eyes there crept an expression which never had been har. bored there before—a man who knew that deadly wrong and double treach- ery had been done him, and who rose up at last prepared to meet his foes | and deal with them as they deserved; for the signature yas one he recog- | nized at last. It was his own counterfeit of Grace Hawthorne’s name. It was this note | which -had caused his father’s illness. | Perhaps he suspected and believed him | guilty. It was for his sake, not Har- vey Barclay’s, the brave girl had | shielded him! The weakness which a moment ago overmastered him was gone. His strength returned. Words of indig- nant denial of his share in the wretch- ed deed sprang to his lips, but he forced them back. If, at such cost, Grace, an alien, to the name, had saved his honor, should he not save it still? He rose to his feet and put her, gently, from him; but, frightened at something she read in his face, she clasped her hands tightly about his arm. “Harry!” she cried, “what are you going to do? Did I do wrong to give you this? It was a very sudden im- pulse, dear, but I wanted you to be sure—quite sure—it was destroyed!” “Thank God you brought it to me, Grace!” he said, in a deep, hollow voice, which jarrei against her ear in its strange, unnatural sound. “I have forfeited your trust for a little while, child; but perhaps, one day, I may re- store it.” He stooped and kissed her forehead, and as she felt his kiss, a little bird, long silent, sang out a tiny song within her heart. CHAPTER XXVII. Up and down the length of her lux- urious room Helen Reynolds swiftly paced, one moment regretting the madness of her confess‘on, the next» exultant in her power to meet and de- fy her husband, when the door slowly opened and admitted him into her presence whom she had so grossly | wronged. That something new—something be- yond the terrible scene of the morning —had happened, one glance into his face sufficed to tell her. For the first time in her life she feared him. One other man, in all the that the fight he fought with life was.| past, had roused in her the element of bitterer one above with death. A clock struck, but he took no notice of the hour. A door opened, but he did not raise his eyes. On the carpet swept the soft rustle of a woman's dress. Helen had re- turned—to torture him afresh, perhaps with some newly-remembered omis-~ sion from her torture-scroll. He shuddered, but otherwise sat mo- tionless. Suddenly a hand, half-timidly, fell upon his shoulder—a faint odor or crushed violets was wafted to him—a voice breathed his name. than the “Harry!” It was Grace, not Helen, who stood before him; Grace’s hand which touched him; Grace’s voice which spoke to him. It was like a breath of heaven, a ray of sunshine falling athwart the dark- ness of his thought. “Harry!” said the voice again. fear, had wakened the coward in hez which lay dormant beneath her brava- do of courage; but he had made her flesh shrink and quail. This man seemed to make her soul recoil in terror. She paused in het walk. He elosed and locked and ‘barred the door behind him; and then he crossed the floor so near her that only a smalt table, covered with innumerabl> costly trifles, separated them. He swept a clear space. In doing so a vase of old and rare china fell to the floor, and was shattered into a thon- sand pieces. He paid no heed to it, but on the space that he had made he spread out @ crumpled sheet of paper he had held tightly in his hand. One glance told her all. It was the forged note. Now that she knew the worst her strength rose to meet it. There was still at her heart the same eold, deadly shrinking, but she forced herself to lift her eyes from’ the table And in its tone was tenderness and | to his face, and rest there with defiant pity, sympathy and love. Yes, love; and, all unconsciously, it threaded its way into the soul of the tortured man and lighted one tiny ta- per upon the altar about which all had been blackness—the black horror of despair. questicning. “Who did this thing?” he asked. “I don’t understand you,” she retort- ed. ‘What have I to do with that pa- per?” “That is for me to ask and for you to answer, and I will have an arswer, and He made no movement; he spoke no | the truth, cost what it will.” word. She fell upon her knees beside him and laid her head upon his sleeve. She had so often done so when a child; she had been content thus for hours, his arm about her waist. The action recalled to him that long- gone past. It seemed as though all the “First, tell me what the paper is,” she said. A g’eam of fire kindled in his eyes. “Then, have it so,” he answ>-red. “You wish to know what this paper is. It is the living proof of a wife's foul treachery, ‘the exponent of a lving le. Oh, woman! Are you woman o1 gulf that lay between them had ben | are you fiend. Here, in this very room, wiped out. you asked me for the signature upon this sheet. Here you pretended to de- stroy it. Here, in my presence, smil- ing in my eyes, you h‘d it, like a ser- pent, in your breast, until you could give it into the hands of one as un- scrupulous as yourself, and make it the weapon to strike at the heart of your husband’s honor! Did you think to escape the consequences of such an act? Do you know that as I look at you all your bequty seems changed to me? I seem to see the serpent’s seales. I seem to hear the serpent’s hiss. Between us yawns a great, im- passable gulf, and in its blackest depths you would hurl the honor of th- name ycu bear.” “The name I bear,” she echoed, scornfully. “And what is an empty name? See,” pcint'ng to the paper— “how readily another may filch it from ws! It is an accompl'shment upon which you pride yourself. You say you wrote this name and I stole “it from you for purposes of my own. How will you prove this? It seems a strange, unnatural story—does it not? You wrote Grace Hawthorne’s name in idle jst. Your friend raised money on it for fifty thousand dollars. The day the note falls due you sail for Eu- rope. A coincidence, merely, the lat- ter, you explain. You were in no wa; desirous of being absent when the note was taken’ up, whose existence was alike unknown to and unsuspected by you. Perhaps you will drag the mat- ter before the courts. Perhaps you would lay the guilt upon your wife. To do so would not rob her of, the name of which you are so proud. That you would drag it and her through the mud in order that your own skirts be cleaned. But suppose your wife denies the story? Suppose she declares her- self the innocent one? Suppose that Harvey Barclay supports her proot, and tells how and where you signed the note? Are not two witnesses bet- ter than one. Meantime, agitation, they say, will prove fatal to your father. Do you not think, Harry Rey- nolds, we had best let sleeping dogs lie? You hold the note. The proof of your forgery is in your own hands. Grace Hawthorne alone believes you guilty. At what cost could you con- vince her of your innocence?” Twice Herry Reynolds essayed to stem the breathless torrent of her words, but from his ashen lips escaped only a low, gurgling sound. The air appeared to have converted itself into hammers, which struck incessantly against his temples and prevented thought. “This—this is your infernal plot!” at last he was able to'gasp out; and then the room again grew dark to him. He reached out his hand to steady himself against the table, but, with a groan, dragging it with hin» he fell, a dead log upon the floor, while aroundc were scattered glass and china—fit emblem of the frailty of his own hope, and the shattering of his brightest and most beautiful dreams. Helen, bending over him, thought, for the moment, that death had inter- cepted in her behalf to keep her secret; but as she wrenched from his rigia fingers the paper he had ciutched in his fall, she felt the skin warm to her touch. A hasty knock sounded at the door, She thrust the paper into her bosom and rose to open it. Grace stood, pale and breathless, on the threshold, with Andrew close be hind. “What has happened?” gasped the girl. “Harry is ill,” answered the wife, calmly. “If Dr. Hope is with Mr. Rey- nolds, let him come up at once. Mean- time, Andrew can lift him on the lounge.” But, ere she had finished speaking, Grace kad sped on her errand—a dull, dead weight of an awful fear upon her heart, where the bird's song had sung to silence. The physician looked very grave as he felt the pulse of the unconscious man. Surely, he thought, there must be some skeleton hidden in this splen- did mansion, to cause father and son alike, within twenty-four hours, to be stricken with sudden and desperate illness; and, involuntarily, he glanced toward the young, beautiful woman who so calmly awaited his verdict and directions. » “The brain is affected, Mrs. Rey- nolds,”” he said, finding the face he studied an inscrutable mask. “Your husband must be kept perfectly quiet, and his recovery must be unattended by the slightest agitation. All excit- ing causes, if any exist, must be ban- ished. His youth and strength will, doubtless, soon reassert itself. Mean- time, I leave this prescription for him. Please give it according to exact di- rections, as in itself it is a powerful poison, and must be carefully admin- istered. I could trust it to no one but yourself; I will see him again in a few hours. Of course, his father must know nothing of his illness.” Helen bowed her assent and under~ standing; but. when the door had shut behind, him he stood in the attitude he had left her, only with her eyes fixed on the white face resting upon the pil- lows of the lounge. The dark eyes ‘were open now, but they had a restless gleam of vacancy, and seemed un- mindful of her glance. Neither pity nor remorse was written in her own face; only a desperate hardness gath- ered there, “If I had loved him, he might have saved at last she murmured, halt aloud. “‘He is worthy only a good wo- man’s love, and I’m not a good wo- man. And besides, besides, all I haa to give belonged to Harvey long before I ever looked upon your face, Harry Reynolds—to Harvey, who would trick and cheat me now—who, perhaps, at this moment is pouring his love-story into Grace Hawthorne's ear.” The thought roused her to action. She opened the door of her room and ran swiftly down the stairs. * But the haf and lower part of the house were deserted. Grace was in her own rooms, and Harvey Barclay had left the house. But she must see and speak with him; she must tell him that all was known, and explain the bold step that she had taken for his sake. Reascending the stairs, she tied on her hat without one glance at the mir- ror, reflecting the beauty of which she was so vain. For the first time in many weeks she found herself in the open street, for- getful of her enemy. For the moment Tom Windom’s existence was blotted out. Her whole soul wes absorbed in one purpose. 2 She made no pause in her rapid walk until she reached the house where the young officer lodged. To her unutterable relief, the ser- vant, with a wondering glance at the beautiful, richly-dressed lady, in an- swer to her hurried question, told her that Capt. Barclay was in his rooms. Should she call him down? But, to her still greater wonderment, Helen pushed past her, saying that she would be her own messenger. But the amaze depicted upon her face was increased ten-fold on that of Harvey Barclay, as his unexpected visitor announced herself. “Helen!” he cried, springing from his chair. “What has happened? Tell me quickly!” A ghastly fear was in his eyes. Had she confessed to her husband in that terrible scene which doubtless had been enacted between them?—and had he thrust her from his home, and had she fled to him? Just when his hopes were brightest, were they to be over- thrown? “Tell you quickly!” she retorted. “Why did you not stay to hear?” And then she told him all. His face cleared as he listened. She had not faltered in any portion of their plot, in any hideous detail of her perjury. “What is to be my reward, Harvey?” she asked, when she had*done. “How did you win Grace Hawthorne’s prom- ise to become your wife?. What power do you hold over her? She does not love you. Since you told me her secret I have discovered it for myself. She loves the man whose name I bear, whose name I hate, though it has been the stepping-stone to all my ambition once coveted. Oh, Harvey, I am ready to renounce it ‘all! Harvey, you will not betray me? You do not mean to marry that girl? Tell me this—swear it to me! And yet, what is your oath worth? It is empty as the air which catches it. But swear it to me, Har- vey! I have not sinned for you for this—not for this!” ‘There was real suffering in her tone. Already she was reaping her punish- ment in the horrible doubt which tor- tured her in the knowledge she pos- sessed, that this man would*ruthlessly sacrifice her should the need arise. She knew him to be weak, false, un- scrupulous; but she loved him with a depth and passion which grew as he dragged her with him to deeper depths of infamy. (To Be Continued.) STOWAWAY BRIDES. These Are the Women Who Have Risked Hardship to Join the Men They Love. Stowaway brides are not as rare at the barge office as one would believe. It 1s quite, easy for a girl to slip on beard an outgoing steamer and stow herself in one of the bunks below decks, lying quietly there until well- out to sea. A case happened a little while ago, the girl coming to meet her fiance here. As both were poor, the former resorted to this perilous expedient to accomplish the desired end. One would think that such a heroic endeavor would deserve a better re- ception; but, upon arriving, having been worked very hard on shipboard for passage, the maiden was so changed by the ordeal of love that when her betrothed met her he re- fused to marry her. A-few days later, while being taken back to the ship for deportation, she leaped into the bay. Rescued gallant- ly, she lingered a prisoner in the char- ity hospital, but died some weeks lat- er, literally of a broken heart.—Ains- lee’s Magazine. , A Diplomat’s Inspiration. . “Why is it,” she asked, “that when you are playing whist against papa you make so many blunders? You never seem to make misplays when he isn’t in the game! Are you awed by him?” “Well, not exactly that, Miss Rock- ingham,” he answered. “You see, 1 found out, some time ago, that your father likes to win, and I want him to have a kindly feeling for me. I hope to—to have a favor to ask of him some of these days, and—” a He hesitated. She looked up into his face, and then, somehow, his arms got around her, and she whispered: “Oh, Edward! How did you ever guess that you had any reason to hope?”—Chicago Times-Herald. Modern Witchcraft. In the West country, only last week, a field of standing barley was ‘‘over- looked” by a crone who had long been supposed to desire to add the field to her own adjoining acres. When the owner of the barley sent his men to cut it down, the cutter would not cut; then the horses would not move. So he borrowed a neigh- bor’s cutter. It fell to pieces. It was repaired. The neighbor’s horses and men were put on, and. the barley was cut down. These horses and men had not been included in the ‘‘overlook- ing.” ? And this is seriously believed, even by educated farmers of to-day, to be due to occult influence.—London Daily News. Trying to Interest Him. Maj. Rasch, M. P., told a new war story in addressing a public meeting at Springfield, Essex, recently. In com- menting upon the hospital service, he observed: “Here is a specimen of the value ot ladies at the front. Recently, at a mil- itary hospital, a lady sat down beside a bed and commenced reading aloud in a very impressive manner. This was too much for Tommy, who called out: ‘You’re wasting your time, miss; it’s no good talkin’ to ’im—e’s been dead an hour.’”—London Express. Most Ladylike Joke. “Haye you heard the latest remark of the emperor. dowager of China asked Frisbie of his wife. “No, What did she say?” “She said: ‘Dear me! I wonder if my crown is on straight?’ "—Harper’s On the Links. “You ought to be ashamed to swear so dreadfully at the caddy. He is the minister's little boy.” “It’s all right. His father believes in infant damnation.”—Life. * A great many women transfer to their baby the love they once had for ‘heir husband. BOER PERSEVERANCE AND BRAVERY EXPLAINED BY PROF. LOMBROSO. He Says Their Blood Is Richer than That of Other Nations—Calls Them a Select People Superior to Europeans— Scientists Startled at Figures. Many theories have been advanced in explanation of the dogged persever- ance with which the Boers have car- ried on their struggle to maintain their independence, and now Profes- sor Cesare Lombroso, the distinguish- ed criminologist, comes forward and assures the world that the one great reason why the Boers are such stub- born fighters is because their blood is richer than that of other nations. His article on the subject appears in Nuo- va Antologia. According to him, the Boers of to- day have in them the blood of four nations, namely the Dutch, the French, the Scotch and the German. Dutch blood preponderates, but with it, we are told, is intermingled the precise quantity of French, German and Scotch blood which is needed in order to produce such valiant warriors as the people of the Transvaal. In order to obtain exact knowledge of the point Professor Lombroso made a chemical analysis of Boer blood, and then he compared the results which he had obtained with those obtained by Herr Kuyser, a Dutch scientist who had been working in the same direc- tion. The conclusion at which he has arrived, is that the Boer blood is com- posed of seventy-eight per cent Dutch blood, twelve per cent of French, twelve per cent of Scotch and three per cent of German. All obtainable statistics, he maintains, point to the correctness of these figures. In con- clusion he asks: “Such being the .chemical composition of their blood what is there astonishing in the fact that this mixture of the four best na- tlons of Europe, in a climate which is not enervating and in which an ener- getic mode of life is necessary prom- ises to form of the Boers a select peo- ple who will prove themselves the bul- wark of liberty and civilization and who will be a race superior to all th of Europe?” Scientists attach a ¢ deal of weight to Professor Lom- broso’s views on a matter of this kind. Nevertheless this article has startled them a good deal, and for the simple reason that the figures which it con- tains are, to say the least, bewildering. The Boer blood, says the profess is composed of four elements. Quite possible, reply the scientists; but how can seventy-eight per cent of Dutch blood, twelve per cent of French, twelve per cent of Scotch and three per cent of German make 100 per cent of Boer blood, for do not these fig- ures, when added together make 2 total of 105. The misleading figures, it is thought by some, may be due to a typographical blunder, but such does not seem to be the general opin- ion. “The supposition that there is a mistake in the figures,” says a French writer, “is hardly tenable, since st2- tistics are an exact science and a sta- tistician like Lombroso is not likely to make a mistake of this kind. No: the figures themselves, are correct, although the theory based on them may seem highly improbable. They furnish, indeed, as they stand at pres- ent, an additional argument in favor of Lombroso’s theory that the sur- prising valor of the Boers is due to their blood, since it can readily be seen that a nation ought to be un- usually brave whose blood is above par and is rated at 105 per cent.” A plausible explanation of the puz- zling figures is that the seventy-eight ought to be seventy-three. The Boers in this case would have five per cent less of Dutch blood than Lembros> assigns to them; yet by this simple change they would be freed from the charge of being abnormal, which is now brought against them by certain phiistines, who maintain that those persons cannot be normal human be- ings the elements of whose blood ex- ceed 100 per cent. Fighting Seals with Dynamite. The seals and sea lions which infest the mouth of the Columbia river have created such havoc among the salmon fisheries that a crusade with dynamite is soon to be begun against them. The animals are both shrewd and bold, and it is said that a seal will police a set net with great regularity, and take a bite out of the throat of every salmon it contains. Frequently when a fisher- man is taking his net into a boat and is about to gaff a fish which is entan- gled in the meshes, a seal will rise and bite its throat. The seal herds con- gregate on a certan sandspit in the mouth of the river, and it is proposed that dynamite mines be sunk in the sand and connected with the main- land by wires. When the animals are ashore the mines will be exploded. Similar plans are laid for the destruc- tion of the sea lions, which do not gather with the seals.—San Francisco Chronicle. : . Queen Will Confer Orders. The queen is going to confer the first class of the Order of the Bath, G. C. B., upon Prince George of Greece, governor general of Crete, and Sir John Fisher, commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean squadron, will pro- ceed shortly to Crete to invest his royal highness with the ribbon and m- signia of the decoration. Americans Leaving Cuba. There are not half as many Ameri- cans in Cuba as there were one year ago. The mails from the United States are 50 per cent lighter, and are drop- | |