The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, January 17, 1897, Page 21

FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, JANTTARY 17, 1897 19 &7 P Some g al there is Each step | tal To heights v nuary 10, 1897. The Judge Out Bushwhacking. 0Oid Judg from a campaigner at least les was Commencing two months prior to a general election— ce be held—L people on the street with- which ied the of itious inquiry, preceded and concluded by a hearty shake of the and. oon as the campaign fairly this handshak became more gen , and no one escaped eeting and from | one to six of the Jud ction cards. “Tam a great believer in cards,” the Judge would sey. “Personal solicitation beats speech- making to death. A shake of the hand is the nearest road to a vote, and many a vote is lost because its owner telieves you didn’t beiicve it worth while coming for. I tell you, my boy, at every campaign | v [ make it wy business to interview every voter in it in this cout v hand before election.”’ Judge was telling me tuis one even- ing as we were hurrying to meet an en- gagement in one of the mountain townsin the extreme northern part of ihe State. It was growing dark; we bad a long distance before us, and I was praying that we would find but few voters along the way for the Judge to shake hands with. I was about to congratulate myself upon the few stops we had made when the for me 2 d I still ¢ an see the end, all clear. me to my home, wind opened, | very voter in this county will | ining on; gain the haze. d turned, it there; t shine, w cloud from sun? pose lies, which must be won. cloudy gloom ; faith to loom. s star is hid, m d the dark, 1d cease to climb? ak in God’s own time. in fog, nd show fear ? n see, wa e on ells eternal day. MARY C. BANTZ. Julge called my attention to some little ack spots away up on the mountain side, at least three miles distant “*Hold u said the Judge. my i “Them’s '?';:u are not going 'way up there?” Well, T guess T am,” said he, as he climbed out of the buggy, removed his overcoat, rolied up his pants, 100k a hand- ful of cards, and, before I had a chance to furiher, disappeared in the I waited in that mountain road four hours, Night came on and I could see the dim flicker of the cabin lights, which I hoped would serve the Judge as guides. At the commencement cof the fourth hour I had about made up my mind to go in search of the old man. Ashe weighed over 250 pounds I became alarmed lest he should have lost his footing or fallen into some prospect-hole. Just as I had hitched the team and prepared myself for the journey I saw | coming down the road a sigint I never ex- pect to see again. With his clothes in shreds, his hat gone {and his face scratched almost beyond | recognitien, the Judee approached and, chaparr | said: | “Chinamen, by Gaa1 JupsoN Broste. ! From the middie ages to the present | day the highest price paid for silk goods that M. Georges d’Avenel, in the Revue des Duex Mondes, has been able to find was $83 a meter, given by Louis X1V for the clotis of gold material for a dressing- gown. leaning up against the wheel of the buggy, | | naturally turn in search of a great artist | | of necromancy, yet the fact exists that | Charles Humpbries of the Third Artillery, | two weeks, having been ordered hither | I | | | | | i‘ | 4 \ | i | | i | | complish the tricks with a degree of skill | | sion of arms fluttering off into the domain { there to reign chief among them, but the | | was while a | made, even the great church organs with | foot here and pull out a stop there,” says | so.” | play any | remunerated him | his own pocket in giving the entertain- | | ment. | writer, “but T have a great deal more here | { points of the star. s nor the ranks of amateurs are places to which the mind would | since the death of Herrmann the greatest | prestidizitator in the United States is an | amateur, in the army, and he is Captain | now stationed at Augel Island. The captain has been here only about from New Orleans, where he was stationed | for a number of years, and where heis famous in bis pastime of legerdemain. He is a short, stout man, about 40 yearsold, and be laughingly says that he is the only fat magician in the world. Since Herrmann died there is left in the field of black art principally Keller and | Bancroft. Both of these the captain | vastly excels in the number of tricks he perioims, their average high grade of in- tricacy or the marvelously deft manipula- tion, movement of the hands, which he commands, and which enables him to a unsurpassed by Herrmann himself. Itis a little curious to contemvlate an officer in the severe and dignified profes- of the wizards and the jestersand coming | captain made his entrance into the field appropriately and reasonably enough. It a lonely military post in 1871 that Capiain Humphries conceived the idea of endeavoring to give an enter- tainment for the amusement of the peo- ple at the post to while away thelong winter evenings. He is a natural musi- cian, though an uneducated one. By ear sound he can play any instrument ever their many stops and requiring the opera- tion of numerous pedals with the feet. *‘I donot know what moves me to press my the cavtain, “but I feel that I want a | sound and that I will get it if Tdosoand It isin this inspirational way that | orms all his music, and he can air by hearing it once performed. | But Cartain Humphries did not feel | sausfied with the entertainments he gave | he per | with music alone, and he turned to medi- | tate something else he mightdo tolend | interest to the programme. He hit upon legerdemain. He got books and studied | it. He became interested, discovering that be had a surprising adaptability for the | He pursued his studies so far and | me =0 enthused over it that be finally went to New York and placed himself un- der the tuition of M. Hartz, then rated as the greatest living artist in his line. Cap- | tain Humphries was very apt, and Hartz was proud of his pupil who mingled | strangely a genius for sleight of hand with | the more somber knowledge and practice | of the science and arts of war. However, it was from Hartz that the captain learned much and books from all parts of the | world have been teaching him new things i ever since. Being in the army and not dependent opon magic for his bread, the captain studied and experimented without ex- periencing that oppressive feeling of hav- 2 to turn his knowledge into money. While pursuing his investigations with this freedom facilitated his attainment of excellence, it militated against affording him a reputation in the art. He persisted in continuing in the ranks of an amateur, h he held himself in readiness mi respond to the call of charity, or any | other worthy cause, he would not accept pay for his services, the only amount he | would receive being such sum that barely for his expense in get- ting up or as would cover the outlay from No doubt if the captain had left the army years ago, as he stated be was at | one time tempted to do, and had gone upon the professional stage, he would now be better known to the public as an entertainer, but family intluences with- | held him from this and he has continued | a modest amateur, practicing necromancy | for charity’s sake and for the lightening of heavy hours at the numerous military posts with which he has been connected. ‘With a disposition of the merriest in the world—the very soul of good nature, Captain Huwphries holds himself in readiness to give his entertainments when called upon for the raising of money for eleemosynary or kindred ends, and there is | no doubt that during the coming winter | San Francisco will t:ave an opportunity of witnessing some of his perfermances. | Thé money he has invested in the expen- | sive parapbernaiia of a magician it iy as difficult to estimate as it is to enumerate the number of tricks that the captain can perform. But he has thousands of dollars 1n this kind of property. “I have not got | all my things bere,” said the captain to the | than any vprestidigitator in the country ever carries on the road with him: I can | give a different entertainment every night for two weeks, and give no trick twice; have enough here to do shat, and I know no man on the road carries that much, for that is a greater number of shows than he gives, and since he is repeating the same thing all the time, he don’t have to take along so much.” This equipment is enormously expen- ve. Most of the tricks are mechanical and the devices cost big sums. They are delicately made; there is small sale tor them and they come high. The captain | performs a trick called “The Cabalistic Ster.” The star has six points which an assistant holds in his hand somewhere down among the audience. Nine persons in the audience each take a card from a pack until the nine cards are selected. The cards are then returned to the pack with the knowledge of their faces remaining solely with their seiectors. The captain then fires a pistol at the star and six of the cards selected appear on the several There are three cards left to be found and the captain takes a r, throws the pack in the air, shoves the rapier through it and the three cards appear on the end of it stabbed through by the blade. This is a very mystifying trick, but before the magician with all his sleight of hand can do it he must pay $40 for the star and $20 for the sword, Mauy of these appliances the captain bas made himself, as he has also invened numerous of the tricks. It is likely, how- ever, that if all his material was to be pur- chased outright piece by piece from the dealers, $10 000 would not buy what he has. He states that there is a rich field for the inventor 1n magic, that the magic of to-day as compared with that of the time of Blitz shows an enormous advance, and that if he had the time to spare aside from his official duties he could bring forth some things which would astonish the multitude of magicians. But these investigations require long application, and the captain finds that all the spare |old g Successor of Herrmann. EITHER the United States army | time he cares to give to it may be con-|and the duplicate given to the Cardinal. sumed in giving entertainments and keep- ing his apparatusin repair. Unlike a pro- fessional, he is always hampered by lack of a proficient assistant, who is tha lelt band of the performer. He hopes, how- ver, to train one of the men at the island nto fitness for this, so that his entertain- menis may be given with that smoothness which can only be attained by the aid of a trainel assistant. Another drawback which the captain | always experiences in comparison with | the professional is that he has to get the stage ready for the performance himself. This takes nearly all day, and at evening when the show is to be given, instead of being fresh be frequently complains of being tirea. The professionzl does not have to bother with these things—they are all attended to for him. The captain, | however, hopes to so shift much of this work on his assistant in the instance of his San Francisco exhibitions that he will be relieved in a great measure of the strain. Notwithstanding all these obstacles the captain always gives a wonderful enter- tainment. One of the most marvelous of his tricks is the shooting of three half- dollar colns, loaded in the big barrel of an old pistnl, into a beer bottle with a corked mouth, the bottle being held at a distance in the hands of one of the audience and covered with a cloth. The only way the coins can be got out of the bottleis by breaking it. It would be a rare exploit to get the coins in the bottle in full view of the audience, or | in any manner, but to fire them into it is an act which puzzles the most observing. Of the clever tricks done in the changing of one thing to another there is a long list: The changing of ink and water from one receptacle 10 another by a wave of the | wand, these being at opposite ends of the ball; the changing of sawdust to candy; | of cotton placed in two cans into milk, sugar and hot coffee served to the audi- ence. He has developed the hat trick to a prominence hitherto unattained by any magician; he takes an endless variety of objects out of the hat, among them be- ing a live canary in a big cage. He say he can take anything out of the hat that he can handle, though he does not seem to be himited by even this, for among the objects he takes from the hat1s a 13-year- the captain does and under his direction the cards perform strange actions—the proper card called for by the audience springing out of a pack upon touching it with a wand. Solid metal rings, separ- ated and shown to the audience, are thrown into links of a chain in an instant. The instantaneous growth of flowers from a pot of sawdust is another trick. In- creasing of the size of a handkerchief in the washing, decreasing !t in the wring- ing, burning it to cinders and the restitu- Innumerable card tricks also( | It was an expensive trick to perform, | but it made Houdon’s fame and fortune. It was in New Orleans also that the | captain expressed a desire to do the gun trick.which Herrmann recently elaborated into having a troop of soldiers fire at him, he catching the bullets. A bona-fide sho! | gun is taken Ly some one in the audience; an assistant brings him powder on a plate, which is examined and placed in the gun; then wadding is put in and several bullets are next brought, which are marked, then droppea by the auditor into the gun, the captain reserving the right to putina paper bullet after all the rest are in, which acts merely as wadding. The audi- tor is then told to take aim at the captain on the stage and fire; when this is done the captain spits the bullets out of his mouth. He was prevailed upon not to do this trick in New Orleans through a curi- ous though potential reason. There, almost all men carry pistols. It was thought that it might be possible that some drunken fellow in the audience would draw his pistol and say “Well, if you can catch bullets, catch this one.” 1t is a dangerous trick to do, not because of any inherent dangers, but from the sug- gestions it might make to the audience. The captain has done it often, however, | and may do it in San Francisco. 1t was while serving with a light battery in Wilkesbarre that the movement of the | army was stopped to attend an exhibition given at the Grand Opera-house there by the captain. An order had come from General Hancock ordering the troops | away on the day before the captain was to on a special train_from Scranton and the | citizens were so disappointed at the order which would take the captain away that | an enormous petition to hold the troops over the next night was telegraphed to General Hancock. The general replied that he would not make any formal order to stop the movement of the army to go to a show, but that all those in the army | who desired to attend the captain’s per- formance might do so. This was a way of cutting around the bush, as no further ad- | yance of the corps was made until after | the magic. | The captain’s affection for children is very great and he does many things to amuse them. He astonishes the little ones by eating their mud pies, breaking | to pieces their playthings and suddenly | ! restoring them whole and such surprises. JOnce when at a fair he was asked by a | Iittle girl to take a chance at ber grab-bag, the captain paid a nickel for the privilege | of doing so. He put in his band and pulied out an empty piece of paper. “Oh,” said tne child, “that ain’t fai | you must take another chance for noth- | | ing; the prize in that paper has come un- | wrapped.” Captain Charles Humphreys. tion of it from the ashes—these and hun- dreds of others the captain includes in his repertory. In his experience the captain bas met with some odd incidents. Some years ago while stationed at Fortress Monroe he w: giving an entertainment at the theater at 0ld Point Comfort for the benefit of the | Johnstown sufferers. The show included the Indian box trick, which, though old, is always mystitying. The entertainment was to run two nightsand the audience was so confounded with the box trick that he was requested to give it again on the following night. This he consented to do, but next morning he found that popular curiosity had become so intense over the trick that during the night some one had gotinto the theater and smashed his box in an enceavor to see whether the thing came apart or not. The captain was in a quandary, for it required bighly seasoned wood to muke 2 box, but the quarterma: ter came to his aid and farnished him with lumber and a carpenter made the box, using wrought nails and clinching them on the inside. When the box was finisned it was inspected by the officers in the army, who expressed preat surprise that the box should be so made that it would be impossible to get it apart with- out knocking it to peces. The captain holds a flannel bag, into which an auditor drops his watch; the bag is then banged upon the floor until the watch is broken to pieces; a pistol is fired at a loaf of bread, which, when broken open, reveals the watch in its cen- ter. The captain performed this trick once in New Orieans, and the gentleman to whom the watch was returned placed jt in his pocket without looking at it, not thinking that it was his watch, but believ- ing it was some other watch, and that the captain, whom he knew, would return to him his own property after the show. He waiied around until 2 o’clock in the morn- ing, looking for the captain, and finally re- solved to go home. Then he pulled out the watch to note the time and was aston- jshed to find that the instrument which had been returned to bim was really his own. This trick was done by Houdon be- fore the Pope, the magician taking the watch of a Cardinal. The real watch was demolished, but Houdon had previously, at great expense, got a precise dupli- cate of the Cardinal’s watch made by the same watchmaker who had made the Cardinal’s, and a fac-simile in every re- spect. The original was broken to pieces “Oh, no,” replied the captain; “this is | a very zood prize;’ and turnimg over the | paper he showed the little one three dol- | The girl was | lar preces upon the paper. aghast. I think I'll try another of those | prizes,” said the captain. |~ “Ob, no,” said the girl, swinging around and holding shut the mouth of the bag. Then she made off and got quietly into a | dark corner. The captain crept softly up behind her. She had all the prizes out of the bag and was diligently searching them all over to find if there was another three- dollar one among them. The captain is the first magician who adopted the costume of knee breeches in appearing before audiences. This has since become the regulation habit. fe intends changing one of the buildings on the island into a theater with a stage erected, upon which during the evenings of this winter he will give entertainments and from which the residents and visitors upon the island will witness some of the most marvelous performances in magic which the present century affords. Of the goou he has done through his abilities as an entertainer there 1s no estimating He bas afforded many hours of bealthful amusement to thousands of people and he has moved innumerable dollars from the pockets of those who could afford to give to carry comfort to the needy and solace to the poor. Joux S. BENNETT. The Worst River on Earth. “The scourge of China” is what they call the Yang-tse-Kiang River. During the last 200 years its floods have fourteen times forced the massive dams of the cen- tral provinces and each time covered its banks with thousands of human corpses. 1n 1833 its inundation ravaged the prov- ince of Hu-Pae to an extent which can be | retrieved only be the labors of many sue- cessive generations. Another terribie flood occurred a few years since, which spread its havoc over an area of 350,000 gquare miles in the most densely popu- lated districts of Cnina. The loss of life on that occasion has been estimated at 750,000, even after deducting the hundreds of tnousands that succumbed to the sub- sequent famine or those slain by maraud- ers and hunger-crazed cannibals. ——— The greyhound seems to have been de- veloped in level, treeless and shrubless countries, where a moving object is visi- ble at a long distance, and great speed is therefore necessary to enable a predaceous animal to overtake its prey. show for the benefit of the City Hospital. | The Thirteenth Artillery band had come | | | | fect adaptation of means to the end. | January Woods. | ) JPANUARY in California is a peca- | 270 liarly lovely season. Already the | LI\ days are teginning to lengthen, and there are delicious hints of the com- ing springtime in the midday air. Here | on the bank, amid a tangle of ferns and | toadstools, I have'found a tiny spray of | the Smilacina stellata, a so-called ‘‘false | Solomon’s seal,” 1n reality a very thor- | oughly individual member of the lily fam- | ily, that we are to blame for characteriz- ‘ { [ ing as *“false.” Wake-robin, too, is begin- ning to unfurl its broad leaves, and the dainty little parsiey is peeping up from the earth. “Wild potato,’’ tine country- folk call it. 1n a week or two its meek | white flowers wiil dot the canyons and marshy fields. The bulbs and tubers are | always the earliest spring flowers to ap- | pear. Tkey are torifty folk, and when summer begins to wane they make pro- | vision for the young plant by storing up, under ground, a supply of food for the | next season’sstart. The young Solomon’s seal does not have to wait, before blossom- | ing, until it can accumulate sufficient sab- stance from soil and air and water to put forth its dainty bells. It gathers suste- nance from its thick tuber-like rootstock, and obtains luxuriant growth while yet its less provident companions, the an-| nuals, are getting a frail hold on life. So we have the wild hyacinth and the tril- | lium, the poppies and the blue-eyed grass | marching at the head of the floral proces- sion each season. It is interesting to studv the methods of | self-preservation which each plant finds | out and avails itseif of; there is such per- | The | buibs and tubers, for instance, the wake- | | robin, Solomon’s seal and the little white spring beauty are very delicate plants, re- quiring large supplies of air and water. A little later in the season, when the sum- mer vegetation is at its greatest luxuri- | ance, the supply will not be suflicient for them. They would have small chance for life if they did not get this early start, and would be choked and crushed and starved out of existence by the hardier Ilate-| comers. So they store up a supply of starchy substances, not as do the trees and | shrubs, in a thick covering of bark, but | under ground, where it will be free from | the depredations of gnawing rodents, who, as well as the vlants, like a little starch now and then, and feel the need of a win- i ter food supply. With the aid of ~this supply the plants begin growing early in ‘ tue season, and have attained to vigorous | development before the arrival of the| floral crowd. Still anotber variety of pro- | tective measure is exhibited by the wild } | | gooseberry, with 1ts delicate pink whips of branches, where the dainty leafbuds are just beginning to swell. The gooseberry | stores up its nutritive supplies in its slen- ] der woody stalks, and the gophers, the | woodrats and the spermophiies know it. Their sharp little teeth would soon end the life of the pla ere it not for the forest of formidable little thorns that grows along the stem and make every branch of the gooseberry a scourge for the unwary. These thorns protect the plant’s foliage, 100. The leaves come out early in the spring, when most creatures are hungry for a little fresh salad, and the bushes would soon be stripped were it not for the spikey guardians that even human visit- ors find it difficult to overcome. The only creatures for whom the thorns have no terrors are the fertilizing insects and the birds, who later on eat the iruit and disseminate the seeds. The mischief wrought by small, hungry, gnawing teeth may be seen in the red- woods everywhere about me here in the canyon. This is not the forest primeval. That feil years ago before the ax and saw of the early woodsmen; but these trees are from fifteen to twenty years old. They grow straight and beautiful, sending out their drooping branches in symmetrical whorls to a height of thirty feet or more, when every tree suddenly divides and sends up two shoots instead of tha single royal mast the woodsman sceks. They will never make first-class timber, for years before little vandal woodrats gnaw- ing the bark compelled the tree in repair- ing the mischief to grow double instead of maintaining its original singleness of pur- pose. This is the lowest level at which redwoods grow, and these fifteen-year-old trees are still mere saplings; butthere are | yet some mighty stumps remaining in these woods to show what woodland giants once sheltered this sparkling stream. A balf mile below us the red- woods suddenly cease and only the green bay tree flourishes, just now in a stormy fragrance of blossom; and lower still the alders grow, giving place in their turn to great oaks and huge sycamores, sturdy giants of the lower streamside. Just now the sycamores are bare and hoary, stretch- ing out mighty battle-scarred arms toward the sky, pointing and beckoning the be- holder onward and sceming to demand of every passer-by the question of the wise old stoic, *Who is he that shall hinder thee from being good aud simple?” The oaks, too, have not the brooding, mystic veauty of the redwoods, the shiningsplen- dor of the laurels, nor the slim grace of the alders, but they have a wondrous indi- viduat charm that is all their own. Mighty growths they are, t0o. One hoary mon- arch, standing just where the canyon widens to the plain, spreads out its hage | age-twisted branches to a span of ninety feet. Growing everywhere along the banks, and close down to the water’s edge, clam- bering over scrub-oak and willows, cover- ing ferns and winding about stump: grows the vetch, getting, like its liliace- ous comrades, an early start. A member of the great pulse family is the vetch, and as much of a trial is the formerin this day as it was at the time when, Scrip- ture telis us, the enemy sowed it while the husbandman slept. For the veich is the ancient tare, a nuisance wherever it gets a foothold. It is a feeble, clinging thing, with a frail stem that could never hola itself yp did it not send out at intervals little clinging tendrils, really highly specialized leaves that catch and cling here to a blade of grass, there to the wav- ing frond of a brake, yonder to a low swinging branch of wild huckleberry, thence to a twisted bough of the manza- nita, until the plant at last clambers over the whole underbrush like the absorbing Gue e S | way upward from ocean’s depths. RALIST RGA 3 AT L air-gourmand that it The vetch has a curious and interesting provision against pillaging insects, ants and other creep- ing freebooters, who would steal its sweets without fertilizing its flowers. Like all of the peablossoms, it is fertilized by bees and small-winged beetles, but its low- lying stalks and the position of its blos- soms enable the ants to climb to its store- houses and rifl its honey cells. So what tbe plant did in the first place to secure fertilization by honey-sucking insects it now does to protect itself from unservice- able robbers. It secretes a drop of honey at the base of each pair of the littie barb- like appendages growing at the base of each leaf. The ant, crawling along the stem, guided by the sense of smell, for ants cannot see, comes upon this sop thrown out to stay its progress, stops to sip, 1s turned back from further ascent by the barb-like leaf appendages, and never reaches the honey-filled blossom that in- vites the bees. It is dim and chill here among the red- woods, for the sun never penetrates to this tangle. The water of the bright little stream flings itself joyfully down the rocks as though eazer for its plunge, miles below, into the smiling bhy. We talk of “Mother Earth,”’ but we migit, with per- haps even more truth, speak of mother water, for ali evidences are in favor of the belief that the first life appeared, not upon the earth at all, but born and nur- tured upon the broad bosom of mother sea, even before the land had pushed its The green scum on the surface of still pools, the slime-molds covering stagnant bot- toms, furnish us some indication of what thid primordial vegetation was like; but by what long processes of evolution have come from that common ancestor the miniature forests of the mosses covering yonder rocks, the ferns mantling the banks, this wild begonia here at my feet, the osiers yonder in the stream, the tow- ering redwoods themselves! Only here and there are we able to read a line, a agraph, never a complete page of the wonaerful story. Above my head on a branch of a tall redwood isa last year's bird’s nest, a bluejay’s home from its structure. A moment or two ago a rabbit stole up from the water's edge, and as [ watched it skittering away to cover I heard the whistle of a thrush far away in the brush. A gray and white wood rat just sprang from a branch close at my hand and ran to a tree not adozen feet away. I think the bright specks I see yonder. separated by a dash of dirty white, are his watching eves. The canyon is full of life, with the vivid tender springtime green for its background, the talking water a har- monious second to the blending music of its myriad sounds. A very wise man told me once that all life came from proto- plasm and that if we knew the conditions we could make the protoplasm. Not a bad idea that, but I fancy that if some day we should stumble upon the conditions, make the protoplasm, exploit it in the pewspapers, press the button and set it all a-going, there would soon coms a time when the wonder would again be beyond our ken. Life itself is a greater mystery than its causation. A Legend of the Strand. *Tis said an author who had starved to death Went walking, some years after he had lost his breath, In spirit up Fleet street, then down the Strand, nd found himself before a bookman’s stand. hav’s this?” he mused, as in his hand A book He took. “Dear me, my verse!” he cried, and kissed the tome; “You killed me—cost me hearth and home. To publish you I spent My every cent. No man would buy, And I Was soon a shadow of my former self, Whilst you lay snugly on my dusty shelf. Heigho!” he sighed, “Thou wert my pride Andruin.” Quoth the book: ‘Not sql You died too soon to really know. 1 have becore A rarity and worth a wondrous sum, And through me now You wear a laurel on your brow.” E’en as the volume spake A mortal came, the little book did take, And as the spirit watched him from the shade Some twenty pounds for it he paid. «Egad!” the author cried, as back he sped To Hades, “I have on my head Enough of hay entwined to feed a horse! I'm proud ot it—oh, yes I am, of course— But what a shame to decorate An author's pate And leave his stomach to aisintegrate!” Joux KENDRICK BANGS. Not Born for the Scaffold. A curious case is told in the law records of Bristol, England. An elderly lady being found dead in her ped, a man named Lee was charged with the murder. There was little evidence against the man, except that he was in the house when the crime was committed. Never- theless, Lee was convicted and sentenced to be hanged. The scaffold was tested and found all right. Lee was led upon the platform still protesting his inno- cence. The rope was adjusted, but when the hangman drew the bolt the trap re- fused to fall. He stamped on it with his foot, but it stiil refused to move. Finally Lee was led to one side whils the trap was examined. Then it was found that the trap was all right; in fact, would iail of its own weight. Again Lee was placed upon ir, and again it refused to work. Tried again and again, it still refused to act. Then the Sheriff ordered Lee back to his cell and telegraphed the Home Sec- retary ior mstructions. The case came up in Parliament, and it was decided that a, Lee could not be hanged he should be im_ prisoned for life. A few yearsafterward a tramp confessed to the murder for which the authorities had trie 1 to hane Lee. NEW TO-DATY. CONSURMPTION '0 THE EDITOR : I have anabsolute Cure for CONSUMPTION and all Bronchial, Throat and Lung Troubles, and all conditions of Wasting Away. By itstimely use thousands of apparent- Iy hopeless cases have been permanently cured, So proot-positive am [ of its power to cure [ will send FREE to anyone afflicted, THREE BOTTLES of my Newly Discovered Remedies, upon receipt of Expressand Postofficeaddress. Always sincerely yours, T. A. SLOCUM, M.C., 183 Pearl St., New York. ‘When writing the tor.ulease mention this paper.