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Show desolation in its train. Famine is again casting its blighting shadow over the sorely stricken inhabitants of the Emerald Emer-ald Isle. In Italy the misery is soap-palling soap-palling that starvation is depopulating entire districts, and from every quarter of the globe comes tales of ruined crops, destroyed herds and devastated homes. While no one country or district can be said to have escaped, it would appear as if the forces of nature had concentrated their principal efforts for evil upon the central portion of Europe. Germany, Switzerland, opart of France and in particular par-ticular Austria, are at present the par-ticnlar par-ticnlar sufferers. The phylloxera has for the first time on record secured a foothold in the vineyards vine-yards of the Champagne and of the Rhine, and threatens completely to destroy de-stroy these productive industries, and while in one portion of Austria the drouth is so intense that the cattle and horses ore dying by the thousands for want of fodder, the remainder of the empire, as well as southern Germany and Switzerland, is suffering from terrible terri-ble inundations. 8o appalling have the latter become that a special department of the government has been organized in all haste at Vienna for the purpose of dealing with the danger. The principal rivers have burst their banks in a number num-ber of places, flooding the surrounding districts, arresting railroad communication communica-tion and ruining the crops. ' The Lnko of Constance has risen to the highest lovel known for more than one hundred years, and many of the other island seas havo followed suit, rendering a suspension of navigation imperative. im-perative. And what in the eyes of the superstitious is worse than all, the Carlsbruecko at Prague, which for 600 years has' withstood the onslaughts of the Moldau, has just crumbled away into tho river, carrying with it the famous fa-mous and venerated statue of St. John of Nepomnk, tho patron saint of the ancient an-cient city of Prague and of the Bohemian Bohe-mian nation. Without attaching undue Importance to the fears and terrors of the Bohemians, Bohemi-ans, who regard as the worst of omens the disappearance of tho statue of St. John a statue which was visited every year by thousands of pious pilgrims it must be admitted that many Europeans have every reason to view the approach of the coming winter with fear and apprehension. ap-prehension. Now York Tribune. TrtE CLOSE OP' CENTURIES. " History Shows That Each Winds Up with Periods of Calamltlec History teaches tljat the closing years of each of the bygone centuries have been rendered memorable by a more than tmual amount of sorrows, troubles and Ills to which mankind is heir. Alarmed ' lest the century should pass away with- ; out the human race receiving its full quota of suffering, the powers of nature appear to have crowded into its conclud- : Ing years all the unspent hoard of pesti-, pesti-, lence, famine, war and catastrophes of ', every kind. Nor does the final decade ; of the nineteenth century seem destined to prove any exception to the rule. ' ' It has opened in a manner that cannot ; be regarded otherwise than ominous. Cholera has once more deserted the Ori-"ental Ori-"ental headquarters and invaded Europe from several points, bearing death aud |