OCR Text |
Show Cariosities of ShortIIanJ. TIIE HOME SENTINEL. BY P. TUB SENTINEL O. J !- - BY PROF. ELDON MORAN. How many of our readers ever saw slrt-hnnwritten swiftly? Some write four words a can reporters second for several minutes. Few speakers talk as fast as that. Stories are told of caes where the friction of the pencil caused bv its quick movement would sometimes set the pajier afire; but these are only stories. In taking n short hand report, the pen really moves no laster than in writ The differing common ence between the two is that insbort-hnm- l a single brief character represents nn entire word; sometimes sev eral. Some boys only fifteen who iave learned the art, can, by mnkiri he cooked marks rapidly, get down every won! of a speerh as fast R9 orRtor (Miv ers it. We know of jr,g ony tweve vei,r8 dj writing etters to each other in these funny characters, usingpostal curds. Quite a long letter can be written in this way; ns many words in fact, as would fill two pages of foolscap pacant per and then the COMPANY. T. JAKK'UN, .Ylauager. r. T. Bx tT, d .III, Alphonsb DarnET is thinking of a visit to this country this Baking Dimmer. Admiral Nelson said that he Sis success to being always fifteen ahead of time. owed min-jt- e The man who picks up the trains at long-lmn- We dont want any God bless yes, at a meeting in Brooklyn to raise money for the Johns- borne town survivors; we want cash. f the meanest men I ever knew have been prodigal of God bless ye a. said Dr. Talmage post-mast- rear! it! Business men, it is well know, em- ploy a great many short hand writers, and the time muy come when everybody will use this brief method in order to save time and labor. Instances are related of cases where The usual medical complaint against tj wn8 done under difficulties, ice water is heard at the beginning of (,ne hort .haml writ.r hnd to hold , the warm season, but most people Jli8 note t,ook nninst tll0 waj nml eem to prefer living comfortably for wrjte landing. Another was obliged less average duration of life than to write ill the dark had to feel his It is so easy forsomepersons living without the use of loo a longer way. It Js curious to notice the ex- to report a speech, that they can do period. tent to which ice water has been so, w hile to some extent thinking of something else entirely; just as you Adopted abroad. j ( Ix M itagorda county, Texas, nro a number of negroes who are natives of Africa. They were pirated and brought here from Guinea during the biief period of the republic. They preserve many of the strange custom i it savagery, use their own language among themselves and retain all the . luporstitions of feth-hism- In one of tho public schools of Atlanta, Gi., they have a uovel method of punibhlng boys who use bad language. IVhen any of the young men are caugnt aying anything profane they are made rinse their mouths with water which has been left standing in a quassia tup. The water is exceedingly bitter and makes a lusting impression on tho boys. Peter Tuexleu, of Catawissa Valley, Ohio, noted a peculiar flavor in his (oa, and Mrs. Trenler on lifting the kettle lid found within a beautiful trout bollod to death. Mr. Trexler had kept it for years in the spring to purify the water. Usually his wife got water from the spring in a bucket but being hurried this time she lowered tho teakettle, clapped the lid on without looking into it. and set it boiling merrily on the wood fire, and the truut wits in the put. The Esquimaux of the Hudson's Straights are in the habit of making offerings of various articles to spirits, md scraps of food, powder and shot, tobacco and the like are to be found on tho graves of their dead. But they are anxious to concilliate all the known inpernatural powers ns well as the unknown, and, therefore, they made similar offerings to the beacon in tho ihape of a man recently erected in that region. When two cannons, undoubtedly left upon the shore by some early explorers, were stood on end, bullets, shot and a lot of other rubbish fell out, which the natives explained had been put the as an offering to the spirits. Mrs. Reuben Frost, of Johnson county, Louisiana, has two genuine mudstones that were given her years ago by her father, tho famous huntsman, Lord Price. Their power of extracting the poison of rabid dogs has never been tested, though they will bo loaned to any applicant Mrs. Frost ctysher father killed In his lifetime upward of five hundred deer and found only three madstones, two of which ho gavo her when a girl. She further states that her father told her that a hunter could tell as soon as a deer was killed whether or not its stomach con-- , tamed the m Agio stone, as in every in- -' . AnnpA whAfA tnA ftfnnrt id tho huis itf can walk and talk at the same time. To the expert, iudeed, short-han- d writing is an easy task. We know a few lawyers skilled in stenography, who nre able, while addressing the Court, to write down their remarks in short-hanjust as they nre delivered. They nre able to think, speak, and write ull at the same time. This was not so difficult however as it because the hand kept pace with the tongue, and the tongue with the brain. Some reporters use short-hanfor telling fortunes. Make a mark ever so simple, and it will he sure to mean something in short-hanThis is true, and hns been tried hundreds of times. It is supposed that your pencil is guided by fate, and the words w ritten are indicative of w hat you will do, have or become. A school teacher once wrote a million. A candidate for office wrote and was sent up to it soon afterwards! A lazy fellow A student wrote wrote shirk. knowledge. A school girl wrote tall fellow and seemed satisfied! This sort of fortune telling which nmy lie indulged in at social gatherings, is often quite amusing. Good short-hanreporters who write are by no means rare. A few can write with both hands, but not two speeches at the time, ns some may suppose. The best court reporters, however, often write down what is said by two persons talking at the same time. But they only employ one hand in doing this, making, no doubt, pretty good use of their head also. Barnura onceexhibitedsman born without hands, who hnd learned stenography. , He had, of course, to write with his foot, and this he could do quite well. Strictly speaking, when he wrote he did not produce short-lmnnotes, but, instead short-lonotes. A curious feature of short-hanis that words often have a meaning when turned downside-up- . Thus the consonant outline for Jim, when turned upside-dowreads the word-sigfor knowledge. Further, if the reader Bhould for a moment stand on his head, the words Smith, John. Thomas would read respectfully, Science, Angel, Senate; .Jones would read sage; Jennie. image; Clara, reckon: Europe, pure; music, cousin; ink, camp; father, order; silver, vanishes; rainbow, beware; economy, nickle. The sentence Great John has his angel gilt, rends precisely the same, whether it is read forwards, or turned over and rend backwards. A editor who had never studied any brief system of writing, used often to claim, jocularly, to be a man! We knew a smart Aleck who, ns soon ns short-ham- l became popular. made pretense that he knew all about it. lie managed to get possession of a letter written in characters, claiming that he received it from one of his short-hancorrespondents. He would often nstonisfi persons wno knew no better, by taking his pencil and jerking off a few crooked marks which he would make le!ieve meant Kingdom of Heaven, "Policy of the Admind d d! Salt-Cree- k d left-hande- d d ot d J-- n-- j, n one-arme- d OF TACKS. A riants Migration. One of the most remarkable in- They Become Oxide of Iron and Act as a Tonic. stances of the apparent migration of tacks are not generally reCarpet of diet, says a plant, as if to keep company with garded as a healthful kind n.i insect, is the removal of the home- the Philadelphia Record, but many ly plant which botanists calls olanum rum have taken them into their rostratum from the vicinity of the stomachs in varying doses without sufeven fering aEy injury from them, but ltocky mountains eastward. artithis from benefit peculiar the deriving About the year 1807, says of food, if the word of prominent cle Youth's Companion, the farmers of is to be believed. In addito be physicians the Mississippi valley tion to the many carpet layers who fill at work, aware of a new pest in their fields, their mouths with tacksonewhile down their whose ravages were becoming alarm- and now and then slip throat by accident, there are three ing. A stocky, guadily striped beestreet who tle! which multiplied at an alarming colored men on Lombard nnd willing to startle a spectaable are rate, hnd begun todevourtheir pota- tor by swallowing a handful of to vines. Nothing could stay or exiron Picks with the greatest terminate the plague. The potatoes, nonchalance, as if they were the most deprived of their vines, rotted in the nutritious morsels. These men have ground, and an important crop was neither leathern intestines nor eopper-liue- d lost. stomachs, but they are able to This beetle naturally received from take care of a prodigious quantity of the lariners the name ot potato carpet Picks without any apparent disill effecP bug. It was found to have begun comfort or authorities assert that there Medical nn eastward march from the uncultivated strip of eastern Colorado and is far less risk attendant upon swallowwestern Kansas, and it has conse- ing a taek than is generally supposed, is someand that such a quently since .been known as the Co- times productive performance of beneficial result lorado potato-beetlefreak who swallows a tack or t It was found that in the region of The handful of them is seized with an aw its origin this betle hnd led upon normal desire for food, and it is to this solatium rostratum, a plant belong- fact that the harmlessness of the swaling to the siimegenus as the potato. lowing of t cks is ascribed. CuriousDoubtless the insect lmd been quite ly, the tacks invariably pass through content with this article of food. the stomach with their heads bowed But some settler planted a field of down in reverence and placed in the of the food so that they do not potatos and the beetle at once fell in center ouch the walls of the intestines. Even love with them. hen the point of the tacks penetrate Migrating eastward in eager search of its new food the Colorado beetle the lining of the stomach the result is not so dangerous as would be supposed. multiplied withnsronishingrapidity. The reason was explained in a very In a few years it hnd covered the simnle maimer yesterday by Dr. T. S. whole country, and had devastated K. Theso tick who said: Morton, potato fields clear to the Atlantic swallowers generally have very strong coast. Then some of the beetles, or Stomachs and tile amount of their eggs, were carried in vessels Juice in them dissolves the irou and tho across the ocean, and the insect beis a liquifiel mass similar in gan a new career in the old world, character to the oxide of iion which for it spread over the British isles we prescribe to sick persons as a tonic. and the continent in Europe. Really there it a certain amount of All this because some one had benefit attached to the swallowing of a potato field in Colorado. But what Picks and yet there is always danger in consequence of about the solanum rostratum so of a serious result I never known of heartlessly abandoned by its old such an act whohave has been compelled fripnd? One would suppose that, left any person free of the devouring attentions of to go to a hospital from such causes, the beetle, it would have been con- however.I remember a case of a hors tent to stay where it was; but this thatButswallowed a Pick has not been the case. The weed After his death we cut open his seems to have set out immediately 6tomach. there a solidified on a journey in search of the beetle. mass of a stony nature. When this The prevailing direction of plant hard substance was split open we found migration in this country is west- that the taek constituted its uuclous. ward. With the settlements of the A similar effect would take place in a country the plants of Europe and of persons stomach if the tack should eastern America tend to crowd out hapnen to stick for any length of timo the native vegetation of the west. a the walls of the intestines. But the solanum proves nn excepWork on Small Fruits. tion to the rule. Apparently it believes that its destiny is to be eaten: The principal early crop of fruit is nothing but the potato beetle will the strawberry. Some fruit growers eat it, and so it comes east to find object to cultivating the crop in the that insect. It hns spread over cu- Spring, as they claim that stirring the ltivated lands in Texas and Missouri, injures the roots; but experiand last summer Irof. L. U. Pum- ground ments show that where plants have mel found it growing at Watertown, runbeen grown In single stools A DIET sharp-poiote- d : ga-tr- io re-u- largo-size- d We-foun- Wis. Wherever it goes it is a troublesome weed and seems to increase i size ns it conies eastward. Water as a Substitute for Grace, From the Lewiston Journal. Sister Weymouth was one of the most notable women that ever lived in the good old Maine town of She was notable for her powers as an exhorter, which shone in the village ns brilliantly ns those of any licensed preacher whom the villagers heard, and for her quick wit, that found expression in many quaint ana pithy speeches, some ol which are treasured to this day, although she has long been gathered to her fathers and mothers. A worthless young man named Frost fell in love with Sister Weymouth's daughter. Failing to melt the stern objections of the young woman's mother in any other way, lie pretended to be converted under her exhortations, joined the church nnd was married to his hearts desire. Very soon the bad blood in Frost's veins asserted itself and the rascal deserted his wife after he hnd lived with her fiveor six months. Not long afterward his child was born. While the officiating person was giving the infant a bath Sister Weymouth came in. Look here! said she. Be sure to hold that babv under the water long enough to get all the Frost out of it! Blank-mout- prayer-meetin- h. g short-a-hnn- d Execution by Carbonic Acid. New York Letter in Boston Transcript. In one of the daily papers I read that in the neighboring town appli- cation has been vainly made to Mr. Edison and various electric light companies to provide for the killing of stray dogs by electricity. In Europe, it is well known that for this purpose carbonic acid gas is used. That reminds one that n clever chemist the other day ridici d by electricity as a crude istration, General George Washing- execution ton etc. Once pretending to write and bungling method of quickly and the Scriptural passage, Wisdom is humanely depriving a human bein'"-olife. a reporter justified in her children The was chance The really scientific way to cause marks by present. produced by Aleck, it so happened death is by carbonic acid gas. AH read as follows, I nin a dunce! The the apparatus needed would be to cell nbove smart young man in this case, have built one though he told a lie. had at least another, with n connecting tube and a stopcock between them. The gas, written the truth. which is very cheap, should be put in upper chamlier, and the prisoner, The common fly lays more than the with a good cigar, if you like, on n lOOeggs.and thetime from egg laying lounge in the lower. On turning the tomaturitv is two weeks. Suppose cock, the gas would descend, and one fly commenced to multiply and first slumler and then death Aonld ensue very quickly and absolutely replenish the earth by June 1. June painlessly. Compared with this the 13. if all lived, would give 130. Sup- electric appliances, with helmet and pose 73 of these are females, July 1 foot pieces, and damp sponges, and would give 11. 230 flies. Suppose chair especially constructed, are ab3,032 of these are females; we might surdly elaborate and curiously have on July 13, 813,720. d In the Parnell commission court the other day a youth was engaged in making sumo sketches for an Illustrated paper and behind him stood a burly gentleman, who might have been taken for a county magistrate The latter watched the young artist for awhile and then, touching him on the shoulder, ventured to observe that this and that and the other points of the sketch were not exactly what they should he. The artist simply replied by inquiring: The What do you know about it? gentleman persisted in kindly and persuasive criticism. At length the youth, convinced that, after all, the criticism was just indeed, the gentleman had and himself taken tho drawing-bloc- k made the necessary alternations with Well, you his own hand remarked. do seem to know something about it, Are you on any certainly, adding: answered tho gentleNo, paper? man, I am not on any paper, but 1 do a bit of painting now and then. My came is John Millais. lt of-ti'- n 1 f air-tig- (the ners kept down the previous Spring) and the soil Kept clean and loose, better berries and stronger plants have resulted. Where the plants are grown under the matted row system, the ground can only be cultivated between the rows, and to remove the grass and weeds from among the plants requires hard work, which is very laborious. To parti illy avoid this the rows may be thinned down on the sides by removing the surplus plant, until they are very narrow. The result will bo more plant food for the plants that remain, and more moisture if the season is dry. Instead of being injured by cultivation, the loose soil protects the plants and assists them to secure more moisture, and for every root that may be cut off a dozen rootlets will grow. As tho roots feed near the surface, only a light stirring of tho surfaco soil is necessary, but it should be often enough to keep tho soil loose and to prevent grass and weeds from appearing, as they rob the plants of moisture. Another objection is that tho plants are liable to become dirty if the soil is kept loose, but the rains will harden tho soil and a light covering of chopped salt hay or pine leaves will prevent all difficulty in that respect if applied after the fruit approaches ripening. Tho old wood should have peeu cut out, removed and consumed by fire before now, and the ground thoroughly cultivated. This being dono, the next work is to lop off tho ends of the branches, in order that the canes may become stocky and throw out laterals. All that is then needed is to keep the field loose on the surface with tho cultivators. One of the best fertilizers for the crop is a bag of superphosphate and 300 pounds of hardwood ashes per acre. Raspberries are treated nearly the sanm as blackberries. Currants aro subject to the attacks of the currant worm, which is destroyed by dusting t.ho plant with white helebore. Tho strawberries in this section is seldom injured by insects, but the blackberry is attacked by a parasite, especially the Wilson variety, for which no remedy is known but burning the old canes. Spraying the grape with a lime and copperas solution is said to be a preventive of rot. The rose bug does great damage to several fruits and can only be attacked by united effort and hand killing- Rhiladelphia Record. Tough on His Substitne. A Hartford clergyman tells this anecdote: Early in life, while occupy- ing another charge, he invited a clergyman whom the unregenerate would call conceited and dull to preach in his pulpit During the sermon our Hartford preacher doz.ed away in the sweet old way until he was suddenly called on to conclude the service with prayer. Accustomed to regard himself as the humblest of his Creator's instruments, nd forgetting that he had nut delivered the sermon, he began with: We beseech Thee to accept the weak and feeble effort that has been addressed to Thee, and more richly to endow Thy servant in the graces he so greatly tack. 1 The Cost of GTer,,iBK Canada. Trained to Boston JoumaL PhiUJelphl New. Some person with a taste Cr at On a side lot near the Forepaugb ; hns been examining the sal. turtles was grounds on Broad Street, there of the dominion, and find con-ary-lis- t ' a fakir yesterday whose outfit small population of Canada the that eistedof the stake and ring game, to support a cum-- is enormously amusement pays This simple and enticing official of which, machine, isbersome strike The played as follows: nre liberal more its people certain a gradually at in the ground placed It is o:ten, angle, which leads the uninitiated to becoming very weary. in remarked England that. laughingly Canada must have a vast deal of lip igation to attend to, since she finds, It it necessary to have fifty-simore than the mother country, and so many departmental heads ae- for 10 cents w hen a black-muthat no Canadian outside of politic, nnd walked middle-sizetell their num tier. TheCanadiaa hed. inan up cn said he'd bet a dollar he could put Commons consists of 213 members,, three rings out of five over the stake. who draw $1,000 each per session. do The fakir winked at the crowd and and the Senate, which has little took the man up. The except to look wise, has eighty stranger threw, five rings hers, who receive $10,006 each an- ns liually. The speakers of each house-orapidly, one alter the other, and, the this immensely overpaid national three of them were on the stake, thrower was in 00 cents. They Legislature receive $8,000 annualmembers and doubled bets and the stranger won ly; the Ontario the Quebec$50,000; nguin. Then they bet $10 even that j speaker, nine rings out of the first ten thrown Legislative Council, Legislature and could not be put over the stake. The the two speakers, $73,000. Then whole ten settled salely. and the the country is saddled with a who receives nearly fukir, as he handed $10in silver over, eneral, said: $85,000 annually, and spends a Im broke; whats your business? little ns possible in the country, Im a distributor at the post, sending to England for even 1 office. said the ring thrower. articles of daily wear and dout do anything all day long but consumption. His chief business-seemto be not to comply with fling papers into the mouths of fifty sacks. of the people whenever he has-chance to show his authority. There are also lieutenant-governor- i Disciple of Tolstoi-Neof Quebec and Ontario and ManYork Star. itoba. Nova Scotia, New Brunswick I had a curious conversation with the Northwest Territory and Prime a lady from Philadelphia, in reference Edward Island, each of whom a larger salary than is given to Miss Kate Drexels retirement from chief justice of the supreme-courthe to the world. It appears that Tolstoi, of the United States. And as the author, is in a large sense responcircle of costly sible for the change in the bright a fringe around the whom are of officials, many young lady's life. A bout three years useless, there is a small army utterly of paid she Tolstois began rending ago who, secretaries, etc., imThese made a deep books. have abundant perquisites. pression upon her, and she began of a country like the Dominion, to consider his tenets, which advocate political minis-te- rs extreme forms of early Christian so- having absurd.. is somewhat certainly cialism, and demand that people should live to the direction given to the Joung man who hod great posFamily Refrigerator. Go and sell all thou hast sessions The following, which is cheap, wilt and give it unto the poor. If she answer the purpose as well as a finds herself able to lead this life, she will probably will gather about her some women costly refrigerator, and Mtfke too. less an oblong ice, with the same mode of thought as use size hold will sufficient of to and then her entire box herself, spend fortune nnd the rest of her life in to be kept, and line it with or zinc. If missionary work among her red and tin, sheet-iro- n black proteges. is to be practised the joints-neenot be soldered, but the sheets-ometal must be lapped an inch and Sermons by Telephone half, and the posts in contact. thick white lead, and The jesting suggestion that telefainted with with a double row of phones might be used for churchei and the people stay at home, or foi small nails. This box should be 2 feet deep; 3 ieet would concerts, and only the singers be Across one end make a actually in the building is coming to hold the ice, say 18 inches-nidtrue. In a congregational church in one way and the width of Tunbridge Wells, England, wires the other; this shelf to be 12: have been placed connecting it with sick people and the aged, and with inches from the floor of the box. 0n doctors shops and clerks offices this shelf put nn ordinary tin pan whose engagements will not permit with sides 3 inches from the floor of them to be at church. Wires ari the box. On this 6helf put am , even being stretched to neighboring ordinary tin pan with sides 3 so little the and a tilt that it of towns, and, course, subscription are taken in the place of pew rentals. melted ice will run to one in which a There are many advantages in this hole must be made to let out the water into a vessel placed beneath plan. If the sermon is dull the can doze off without offensa for that purpose. Another box must-bmade enough larger than the first to the proprieties. He can sit down when he pleases or stand up, and so that when the first one made is otherwise be at liberty. Besides, h placed in it there will be an eight-in- ch can read or write during the prelim, strips on edge, one at each end,, iuaries that nre generally so tedious, and one foot from the end of box. Fill up even with top of St. Louis these strips with sawdust, chaff, or straw packed solid, set im He Kissed Me. the smaller box, letting it rest om A Nebraska paper narrates kbit these strips, and fill in the space with some packing used im educational incident: A high school Make a double cover the bottom. girl, class A, being told by her teachenough to come even with outer to parse the sentence, He kissed large side of a large box and hinge to back me, consented reluctantly, because of same. This cover should have opposed to speaking of private afspace filled in as before difairs in public. He,shecommenced, rected. Put the ice in the pan, cover with unnecessary emphasis and a with an old blanket, and you cam when fond lingering over the word that keep anything cold, and cold you raise the lid of the box the air brought crimson to her cheeks, is a will not tumble out half as fast as third pronoun; person, singular num- it will out of one of those ber, masculine gender; a gentleman, with vertical doors. I pretty well fixed; universally consid- made a creamer on this plan, using ered a good catch. Kissed is a verb, to set the milk In, and transitive too much so; regular in all day,, every evening; indicative mood in- and the milk never kept no matter soured, dicating affection; first and third how much thunder there was. plural number and governed by circumstances. Me oh. Exercise for Girls. knows me, and down she everybody went. The best walking exercises for An Absent Minded Man, young women to prnctice daily, asSacramento serts the New York Sun, are bending t tho body forward and back, to Some people are very the-kand left, without bending A few evenings ago some gentlees,to give suppleness and strength men were sitting in tjie reading-rooto the muscles of the trunk. A cerof an hotel when one of them tain amount of practice will enable-yocame across an item in a to touch your hand to the floor newspaper to the effect that a gold watch of a without bending the knees, from certain make and numbered 13,510 which position you should rise very Place one foot as far in had been taken from a thief arrested slowly. front ofthe other nsyou can without-tohe night before. down nn effort, and at right anThrowing great the paper he jerked his own watch gles to it bend the right knee all voin out of his pocket with the remark: can, throwing the weight on G!re! 1 believe thats foot and bending the knee; rewatch that was taken from that my fela number of times, always with peat low. and he proceeded to the chest held high and thrown examine the number on the inside of the case, good exercise for the knees n hen he recovered his of is to hold one foot up at right anpresence mind they all quaffed bumpers at gles with the knee, standing on his expense. one, and kick vigorously in such a way that the A sick man in a New York downward, not outward-Fo- r town the ankles, assume the position called in a homeopathic physician lor walking, but with the heels because he believed in that treat- touching, the toes turned outward. ment. The doctor gave him allo- Hold the body firm and motionless pathic medicines and on his and the feet flat on the floor, poisa recoveiy the patient refused to slowly forward and back as far as pay the bill the ankles will allow, which is very because b was not treated bv tie little, owing to their slenderness. system that he desired. He sued, and the ''vmrtaid h neednt I!ePeat theexereise on one foot, theing the other up by bending pay. x st legit-la-tor- s j j t-- blnck-mus-- mem-tnch- ed i f - governor-g- t s s t aides-de-cam- The-Ide- forty-seve- n s strict-econom- f slat-shel- e the-Mo- inches-high- sub-scrib- Globe-Democra- the-larg- e cut-hay- , patent-refrigerator- s t. ice-wat- er first-rat- per-so- Record-Unio- the-righ- absent-minde- d. u n -- the-othe- r out-Anot- the-oth- er and-quickltoe-poin- - , knee. |