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The past, the future fled to thee. To bid us meet no ne'er aain! Could this have been a word, a look. That softly said. "We part .n peace.'" Had taught my bosom Vjw ro d.ook, ith fainter sighs, thy soul'3 release. And didst thou not, since De ith :'oi thee Prepared a light and panglesj t!art. Once long for him thou ne'er shall see. Who held, and holds thee in his heart? ! On! who like him had watched thee here? Or sadly marked thy lazhis; eye. In that dread hour ere da.h appear. When silent sorrow fears lo sigh Till nV. was past! But v. Inn :io more 'Twas thine to reck of nunnn wio. Affection's heart-drops, gushing o'er, Had flowed as fast is no ". hey flew. Shall they not flo at, when many a day In these, to me, deserted towers. Ere called but for a time away, Affection's mingling tears were ours? Ours too the glance none saw beside. The smile none, else might understand; The whispered though: of hearts allied. The pressure of the thrilling hand; The kiss, so guiltless and refined. That Love each warmer wish forbore; Those eyes proclaimed so pure a mind. Even passion blushed to plead for more. The tone, that taught me to rejoice. When prone, unlike thee, to repine; The song, celestial from thy voice. But sweet to me from none but thine; The pledge we wore I wear it still. But where is thine Ah! where art thou! Oft have I born the weight of ill. But never bent beneath till now! Well hast thou left in life's best bloom The cup of woe for me to drain. If rest alone be in the tomb, I would not wish thee here again; But if in words more blest than this Thy virtues seek a fitter sphere. Impart some portion of thy bliss. To wean me from mine anguish here. Teach me too early taught by thee! To bear, forgiving and forgiven: On earth thy love was such to me. It fain would form my hope in heaven. Byron. Strange Creatures. In a greenhouse in this garden I have two tame toads, named Martha and Jane respectively. Also there is a tiny one called Babette, but she can hardly be counted, as she is small and seldom on view. These toads are strange and interesting creatures, differing much from each other in appearance and character. Martha is stout and dark-colored, dark-colored, a bold-natured toad of friendly friend-ly habit; Jane, on the other hand, is pale and thin, with a depressed air which suggests resignation born of long experience of circumstances over which she has no control. Some of this depression may be due to the fact that once, entering the greenhouse in the twilight, I t.rod upon her accidentally, a shock from which she seems never to have recovered, although, owing to tho adaptive powers of toads, beyond a flight flattening she took no physical harm from an adventure which must have been painful. Indeed, I am not sure that of the two of us I did not Buffer most, for I know of few things more upsetting than ihe feel of a fat toad beneath one's foot. Anyhow, since that day Jane has never quite trusted me. These toads I feed with lob-worms, or sometimes with woodlice and centipedes taken from traps made of hollowed-out potatoes, which are set among the flower pots to attract such creatures. In the latter case, the insects in-sects must be thrown before the toad, which never seems to see them until they begin to run, although, its ears being quick, it can sometimes hear them as they move along the floor behind be-hind it. When the toad catches sight of an insect its attitude of profound repose changes suddenly to one of extraordinary ex-traordinary animation. Its swivel eyes seem 4 project and fix themselves upon the doomed creature oft which it is about to lunch; its throat begins to palpitate with violence, and its general air betrays intense and concentrated interest. Presently, from contemplation contempla-tion it proceeds to action. By slow but purposeful movements of its crooked limbs it advances, pauses and advances again, till at length it reaches a posi-tiou posi-tiou which it considers convenient. Then, just as the centipede gains a sheltering pebble, a long pink flash seems to proceed from the head of the toad. That is its tongue. Another instant in-stant and the pink thing has twisted itself round the insect and retired into the capacious mouth, and there, once more wrapped in deep peace and rest, sits the toad, its eyes turned in pious thankfulness to heaven, or, rather, to the roof of the greenhouse. Rider Haggard in Longman's. Among Tahiti's Savages. At Tahiti, in the Society Islands, partly by reason of the extreme fertility fertil-ity of the soil which furnishes a subsistence sub-sistence without labor the inhabitants are idle and dissolute. They flatten their noses, and bore a hole through the middle partition of that feature to accommodate ornaments of flowers or feathers. Their ears are bored also, and the teeth of sharks and of human beings are inserted. Chiefs are distinguished distin-guished by large circular markings in tattoo over the whole body, while common folks are tattooed only about the loins. Another queer custom requires re-quires all women, except those of the royal family, to cut their hair short. All over Polynesia the practice of infanticide in-fanticide is quite general, but in Tahiti Ta-hiti it is particularly prevalent, young children being commonly strangled. Some mothers on the island are known to have done away with as many as ten of their children in this manner. Pigs, on the other hand, are greatly pampered, being fed by the old women lnd actually suckled by the young women. They are stuffed like capons with bread-fruit dough, and are slaughtered at festivals, but, as a rule, their flesh i3 reserved for consumption by the upper classes. The only other important domestic mammal is the dog, which is of a small species and has ! no bark at all, being bred chiefly for ' meat and not as a household guardian. I Weapons made formidable by the at tachment of sharks teeth are used by the natives, while small instruments of a similar description have been customarily cus-tomarily employed for torturing and cutting up prisoner of war. What Toons; Wasps Feed Vpon. From the Chautauquan: The wasp Is not a vegetarian like the bee, and our cement-maker has before her the problem prob-lem of supporting her young with meat rather than with bread. As her eggs are laid out in hot weather and as enough food must be stored In the cell with ihe egg to nj'"re the young bisect, bi-sect, the qurrtisn 13 how to preserve the meat fresh for so long a time. She meets the difficulty thus: After a tube is finished except one end, which is left open, she flies off on a hunt for spiders. She finds a fat, healthy one, pounces upon it, stings it and carries it off and places It in the mud cell. She repeats this process until she has placed as many spiders in the tube as, according to her judgment, will be needed. She then lays an egg in the cell and walls up the opening. The remarkable re-markable thing about this performance is the magic effect of her sting. Whether Wheth-er it is the result of a subtle poison or whether it Is a special spot in the spider's nervous system where the sting is inserted we do not know. Certain Cer-tain it is that after being thus stung the spider lives on in a paralyzed condition con-dition for weeks and even months. It can move only slightly and remains helpless in its mud sepulcher until the wasp egg hatches into a voracious grub, which at once falls to and eats with great relish the meat thus miraculously mirac-ulously preserved. Whether the wasp sting renders the spider insensible to pain or not is a question not yet settled. set-tled. However, the chances are in favor fa-vor of the theory that it does. Anyway, Any-way, we need waste no sympathy on the spider, the most bloodthirsty of all the little people of the field and woods. There is a sense of retributive justice in the thought of a spider helpless and at the mercy of a small insect which it would have mercilessly devoured had it been able. So we need not accuse our alert, industrious cement-maker of any unreasonable cruelty if she, like us, insists upon a meat diet for her young, nor need we have any fer of her sting, for she seldom use:: it i.a a weapon of offense or defense. (irassliopper Glacier. There are many remarki.'.ie graciers in that part of the Rocky mountain uplift up-lift that crosses the southern uorder of Montana. A part of this region has hitherto been unmapped and its more elevated portions were unvisited and unnamed until last summer, when a geological party piloted the way up the mountains and discovered some of the largest glaciers in the temperate regions of the western world. Here rises Granite Peak, which, according to Mr. Gannett, is the culminating point of Montana, 12.824 feet high. Among the glaciers found in these mountains and recently described by Mr. James P. Kimball is Grasshopper glacier, which derives its name from the enormous enor-mous quantity of grasshopper remains that ate found on and in the glacier. Periodically the grasshoppers that thrive in the prairie to the north take their flight southward and must needs cross the mountains. Their favorite route seems to be across this wide glacier, and in the passage scores of thousands of them succumb to the rigor of cold and wind, fall helpless upon the snow and are finally entombed entomb-ed in the ice. In the course of time billions of them have been the victims of this glacier. They are, of course, carried by the ice river down into the valley and deposited at the melting edge of the ice, and Mr. Kimball says that thousands of tons of grasshopper remains are the principal material at the lower edge of the glacier. We hear very often of rocks and sand as forming form-ing the terminal moraine of glaciers, but here is a glacier whose principal morainal material is grasshoppers. These insect remains are washed out of the ice in furrows wherever the sun's heat has grooved the surface into runlets run-lets of descending water. The grasshoppers grass-hoppers permeate the glacier from top to bottom. No fragment of ice can be broken so small as not to contain remains. re-mains. Most of the insects have been reduced to a coarse powder and the furrows of them washed out by the runlets and naturally disposed in parallel par-allel lines are very dark in color. Sights in Constantinople, Constantinople teems with monuments monu-ments and relics of past ages, which time has consecrated and not destroyed and which aw-ait the contemplation of the visitor. The column of Constan-tine Constan-tine the Great, erected in 330, still towers, tow-ers, blackened and mutilated, but erect, in the center of his ancient forum. Imposing Im-posing remains of the gigantic triple wall and of the moat still stretch from the Golden Horn to the Marmora. The ruins of Justinian's palace still rise from the edge of the sea and the palace of the Heblomon still crowns the seventh sev-enth hill. The monastery of Chora, now Kachrie Djami, and a dozen other Byzantine churches still present all the peculiarity of the 'Byzantine archi tectural school. The subterranean cisterns, cis-terns, the most enormous ever constructed con-structed anywhere, still exist, the chief or Royal cistern now called by the Ottomans Yeri Batan Serai, or the underground un-derground palace still standing, with its 336 marble columns in perfect symmetry. sym-metry. In the museum are the famous sarcophagi from Sidon, two especially, those of "Alexander" and of "The Weepers," unsurpassed among all the existing legacies of ancient art. Most precious of all the gifts of antiquity is the bronze serpent of Delphi, cast by the Greeks in 476 B. C, placed by them in the favorite shrine of Apollo, brought hither by Constantine 330 A. D., and still showing distinct, as If cut today, names of the immortal cities which fought against and defeated Xerxes. Most venerable of churches, Saneta Sophia, still soars heavenward with Its marvelous dome and its affluence af-fluence of mosaic and its unequaled churcbly history of more than 1,350 years. Giant Tront in a Barrel, From Greenville, Me., at the foot of Moosehead lake, comes a strange fish story. Cyrus Higgins of Olamon went fishing at Moosehead in a brook running run-ning into the lake, and for a time caught only little bits of trout. Then he felt a mighty tug at his hook, and thought he had hold of a laker that had wandered up the brook on the high water. After much effort, however, how-ever, he found himself unable to haul in his line, and began to investigate, thinking the hook had become fouled on some object at the bottom of the pool. With the aid of a salmon gaff he raised a barrel to the surface, and was surprised to perceive that his line led into the bunghole of the barrel. Further investigation showed that there was something moving about inside in-side the barrel, and that whatever it was it had hold of the hook. The barrel was then broken up, and out leaped an etormous trout; not a laker, but a real red-spotted brook trout the si: e of a laker. Higgins theory is that tbt trout went into the barrel when small, and, protected alike from fishermen fish-ermen and other enemies and with plenty to eat, it had grown and grown, until it became a giant among the speckled tribe. New York Press. There Is no calamity like Ignorance; and not so much by virtue as by understanding under-standing Is man made formidable an' fortunate. Titian. SMART CHINESE BOY. . BEATS ALL GRADES IN 'FRISCO SCHOOLS. Stands at ths Head of Thirty-Seven Thousand Pupil The Chinese School Examination Reveals Some Astonishing Astonish-ing Facts. There is a public school of Chinese pupils in San Francisco, and it has just made itself felt with something of a jolt In the understanding of the great white men who make the educational wheels go round in the "velly big city." At the recent examinations this school of Celestial youngsters reached a higher high-er percentage than any other public school having no grade higher than the seventh. The percentage was 100. One of its pupils, Wong Bock Yue, attained a higher percentage than any other pupil of any grade or color in the city. The highest average of any white student stu-dent was made by Robert Dougherty of the ninth grade of the Mission Grammar School. He got through with 94 per cent, or 3 per cent les than was attained by Wong Bock Yue, who is just promoted from the seventh to the eighth grade. There were sev- WONG BOCK YUE. eral of Wong Bock Yue's classmates who gained as high a percentage as Robert Dougherty, the highest white boy. The seventh grade of the Chinese school ran from 84 to 97, a remarkably high average. In the fourth grade (primary) an individual percentage of 99 was attained, while no pupil ran lower than 82. In some of the white grades pupils ran as low as zero, while one entire grade averaged only 16. Whether it is more difficult for a ninth grade pupil to reach 97 per cent than for a seventh grade pupil to reach 94, depends, of course, upon the relative severity of their respective studies, as, for instance, whether It is harder for a 15-year-old boy to learn multiplication than for a 13-year-c.J to learn addition. addi-tion. Assuming the most logical theory, the-ory, that each Is given work corresponding corre-sponding to his ability to grasp it, we must give Wong Bock Yue the credit which the figures stand for, and call him the top-notch pupil in the lists. There is a daily attendance of about 37,000 pupils in the San Francisco public pub-lic schools. Wong Bock Yue has, approximately, ap-proximately, 36,999 competitors. He holds a highfr reccrd than any. Is he the superior of them all in precocity? Wong Bock Yue's school is one of those unique places in the city which not even the old residents, who think they have seen everything of interest that Is to be found here, have ever discovered. discov-ered. It is a familiar fact that San Francisco contains many such odd corners; which no one seems to know the location of when eastern friends are to be entertained with sightseeing. The Chinese public school Is one of the most Interesting of them all and probably prob-ably quite the most novel to a stranger taking a survey of our city. It is presided pre-sided over by Miss Rose Thayer, who is assisted by five associate teachers. There are five grades in the school, most of them primary. Only Chinese pupils are In attendance. These number num-ber about 150. Superintendent Webster Is attracted by the unusual features ol the Chinese school to the extent of having formed some speculative ideas upon its effect In local education. He thinks that the ladies of the school are doing great work. He does not know in what degree to compare their pupils with the white pupils whom the other teachers of the city are given charge of, for, as he says, there are many clrcum stances which make the instructing ol Chinese children a very different matter mat-ter from that of teaching the whit idea how to shoot. AN EMINENT GERMAN. Paul Heyse of Munich will leave a great gap in the social and literary life of the fatherland. In the social life j of Munich he has for years been a inuuuueui ugure. Almost six reet tall and weighing upward of 200 pounds, he carried himself with the soldierly bearing gained by service in the army. Best known as a novelist, he is also a poet of much merit, as well as a noted wit. As a young man no one would have predicted for him a literary career. ca-reer. He never read books for pleasure pleas-ure and it required coercion on the part of hi3 parents to get him to finish PAUL, HEYSE. college. Early in life he had an unfortunate un-fortunate love affair and went away to hide his sorrow in Italy. There the literary fever seized him and shortly after he wrote his first book, "In Paradise." Para-dise." His best-known novel is "The Children of the World," which has been translated Into almost all the modern languages. The Heyse villa, near Munich, has been for years a center of attraction for famous people. Crisis in the Cljcaret Trade. In 1889 the total production of cigar-ts cigar-ts in the United States was 2,ls,x,uU0,-000. 2,ls,x,uU0,-000. For the next eight years there was a steady increase in the number produced. In 1897 it reached the astonishing as-tonishing total of 4,063,000,000. Then came the agitation against cigareU. and the tax was advanced from 50 cents to $1.50 a thousand. The effect was that in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1899, only 3,735,000,000 cigarets were made. In spite of this fact the exportation of American cigarets has steadily Increased. In 1889 the total taxes paid on cigarets amounted to $4,208,000, an increase of $610,000 over the previous year. sweat jaw power of animals Oarnlvorm Exercise Tremendous Foree In Their Conflicts. Not everyone has been bitten by a dog, a oat or other animal whose weapons weap-ons of offense and defense are their teeth, and consequently has not lived in dread of hydrophobia or lockjaw or blood poisoninj. Still fewer among our citizens have any comprehension of the great power required to inflict the wounds that all have beard of. even though they have not experienced them. The teeth, even of the largest carnivora, are merely the "spearheads," but the force which "works" these instruments in-struments is prodigious. It seems as if for the moment the animal threw all its bodily energy into the combination of muscular action which we call a "bite." In most cases the mere shock of impact, as the animal hurls itself on its enemy is entirely demoralizing or inflicts physical injury. A mussled mastiff will hurl a man to the ground in the effort to fasten his teeth in his throat or shoulder. Then, the driving and crushing force of the jaw muscles is astonishing. The snapping power of an alligator's jaw is more or less Intelligible. In-telligible. They are long and furnished fur-nished with a row of pointed teeth from end to end. But the jaws of a lion, leopard, tiger, otter, ferret or babboon are short and the long and pointed teeth are few. Yet each of their species has a biting power which in proportion to its size is almost incredible. in-credible. Sir Samuel Baker, who had a long and varied acquaintance with bites of the carnivora, noticed that the tiger usually seized an Indian native by the shoulder and with one Jaw on one side and the other on the other bit clean through the chest and back. "The fatal wound was the bite, which through back and chest, penetrated the lungs." Europeans are killed by the tiger's bite as well as lacerated by the cIpws. A Mr. Lawes, son of a missionary mission-ary of that name, was killed after be ing shaken for a few moments by a tigress, which then left him. He diei next day. In nearly all cases the bite penetrates to the lungs. This kind of a wound is characteristic of the attacks at-tacks of many of the felldae. Scarcely any bird recovers from a cat's bite for the same reason. The canine teeth are almost instantly driven through the lung, under the wing. The cheetah, which has a very small mouth, always bites through the black buck's throat. The leopard, when seizing smaller animals, an-imals, such as dogs, crushes the head; when attacking men it aims at biting through the lungs. NORWAY'S SKATING SOLDIERS. Now Branch of the Military Servloe Has Been Recently Organized, A letter recently received by a prominent Norwegian-American resident resi-dent in Chicago from his old home says that the Norwegian army has lately organized a highly trained corps of skaters. The men are armed with repeating rifles. They wear a specially constructed skate evolved after numerous nu-merous experiments with various types. The heel is so shaped as to enable the men to turn with great rapidity. As a matter of fact, they perform the "right about" in much quicker time than infantry, spinning round as though on a pivot at the word of command. The corps can be maneuvered ma-neuvered with a rapidity equal to that of the best-trained cavalry, and at a recent review one on of the fjords their evolutions astonished the military mili-tary representatives of other nations who were invited to witness the display. dis-play. For patrol and scout duty they are expected to be of the greatest use, as the ice season in Norway is of considerable con-siderable duration. The men are the pick of a skating nation, and they are commanded by an ex-champion. They are capable of traveling eighty miles a day on the ice, fully equipped. The Prison Bird. In the Paris Mueeum of Natural History His-tory at present there is to be seen the only living captive specimen of what African explorers have called the "prison "pris-on bird." The peculiarity of this feathered beauty is that he Is the most tyrannical and jealous of husbands, imprisoning hia mate throughout her nesting time. Livingstone watched the bird's habits while in Monpour, and in his subsequent observations referred to the nest as a prison and tho female bird as a slave. The neet is built in the hollow of a tree through an opening open-ing in the bark. As soon as it is completed com-pleted the mother bird enters carefully and fearfully and settles down In it. Then papa walls up the opening leaving leav-ing only just space enough for air and food to pass through. He keeps faithful faith-ful guard and brings food at regular intervals without fail. The female thrives under her enforced retirement. But if the prison bird is killed, or in any other way prevented from fulfilling fulfill-ing his duties, the mother and her little ones must die of starvation, for she cannot free herself from bondage. Normally Nor-mally the imprisonment lasts until the chicks are old enough to fly. Then the male bird destroys the barrier with his beak and liberates his family. "It is charming," writes Livingstone, "to see the joy with which the little prisoners greet the light and the unknown world-" The Loeost's Sons;. Washington Post: Mammy was shelling shell-ing peas when I went in to see her, and we exchanged remarks about the weather. I expressed the hope that the morrow would be cooler. "Law, no, chile," said Mammy, "it won't be no cooler while the hot bug keeps hollering. hol-lering. There he goes!" as the shriU, ear-piercing cry of a locust whirred out. "There he goes again. I been hearin' him all day, and he certainly means hot weather, the hot bug does." And if ever a name fitted down to the ground it is that of hot bug, for, except ex-cept the wail of a fretful baby, there Is no noise in all the world quite so comfortless, so dreary and so hopelessly hopeless-ly hot-sounding as the cry of a locust. Various Kinds of Hospitals. The sign "Doll Hospital" has long been more or less familiar, and likewise like-wise that of "Umbrella Hospital;" and to these has been more lately added that of "Hat Hospital;" all Indicating, of course, places In which repairs are made. Not Their LantMge. Dorothy was greatly surprised to learn that one of her grandfather hens bad hatched out a brood of goslings gos-lings "I I shouldn't think they'd mind her very well." she exclaimed slowly, "for how can they ever understand under-stand her dialect?" Judge. SnaU Tm in Paris. Parisian gourmands devour 109,00V pounds of snails daily. Sane men who finally succeed in raising tfce wind are unable to atop It. ;jt! jg a WICKED PLAY. MESSAL1NE IS SENSATION OF LONDON. Will Hardly Be Acceptable to American Patrons of the Theater Bad In Plot and Said to Be Vulgar Is All Right Artistically. (London Letter.) Just after the dress rehearsal or Messallne, Isidore de Lara, the composer, com-poser, asked me if I thought the opera would go in the United States, and I asked him what made him think that it might not. He said, oh, perhaps, the plot would be considered too er too high-colored. All I could say was that after our acceptance of Olga Nether-sole's Nether-sole's Carmen, of Tristan and Isolde, and of the Old Testament, it did not seem to me that we had one right, logically, log-ically, to object to anything. But that, of course, we were nothing if not illogical, illog-ical, especially as regards religious literature, lit-erature, drama and the opera. De Lara's question, and his underlying reason for asking it, is a good index to the sort of opera that Messallne is both as to plot and presentation, both as to story and the musical interpretation interpreta-tion of that story. The libretto is one which calls for the literary equivalent of the soft pedal. If you are reading it you will do well to put cotton in your ears; if it is being read to you you will find it advisable to hold your nose, and either shut your eyes or take oft your glasses. Mental near-sightednesB becomes a distinct advantage, and a deafness of the intelligence an unmit igated blessing when one has to encounter en-counter such a story as Armand Sylvester Syl-vester and Eugene Morand have chosen to set forth in words, and De Lara has elected to copiously illustrate in music. George Moore, the novelist and critic, wrote a sentence once about d'Annunzio, which, at the time I read it, sounded rather meaningless. He said: "The habitual color of d'An-nunzio's d'An-nunzio's mind is a delicate mauve. It has all the iridescent glories of a ruined sunset." Paraphrasing Mr, MME. HEGLON. (As Messaline, Empress of Rome.) Moore, I may say that the habitual color of Messaline is a hot purple, and that It emits the phosphorescent glories of a decadent inventiveness. The only way to get through the opera without blushing until you are sunburned and freckled is to take the score and attend strictly to the music, and even that is not an entire relief, for, as I said, De Lara's music exactly illustrates the libretto. And you cannot help getting a notion of Immorality from his use of the chromatic scale, and of licentious ness in the chord of the diminished seventh. I know quite well that what I have just written will amount, as far as some people are concerned, to a very good advertisement of the new opera. There are some birds and animals who have an inborn taste for whatever is specially and unmistakably decayed, and the worse it is the better they lik9 it. That sort of taste will, I think, find ample gratification in Messaline, and I can say that I truly believe that the kind of people who. possess that sort of taste will not, of course, be made any the worse for seeing even such an opera as Messallne. So much for the work from the out-of-date standpoint of the decencies. From the purely no, I should say the merely artistic standpoint, the work is somewhat beautiful and entirely remarkable. re-markable. I do not know of any other opera that is so complete and successful success-ful a character study as is this one, both, from a dramatic and a psychological psycholog-ical point of view. Thanks to De Lara and the librettists, Messaline Is not merely a musical opus with an alleged plot attached, but not joined to it; it is a consistent dramatic conception, carried out with an amount of care and elaboration which results in an impression im-pression of reality equally convincing, brilliant and detestable. Thanks to Heglon, who created the title role, and to Renaud and Alvarez, who interpreted inter-preted the two male parts, the three main characters are not merely three modern singers in antique costumes, who sometimes sing and sometimes act, but who never do both at the same moment. mo-ment. They are three people of the days when Rome was rotting. Especially Es-pecially is this true of Heglon; in Messaline; Mes-saline; she is the wickedest woman of a wicked era. A character who has stepped across the centuries and brought with her her whole surroundings surround-ings of pomp and wantonness, of luxury lux-ury and cruelty, of beauty and evil. Both with her and with Alvarea there is as much dramatic action and elaboration as if the opera were not an opera, but a play. Imagine the direct opposite of the Wagnerian school of acting, a schobl which makes a kiss last for thirty-two bars of music, and requires an attitude or a gesture to last out fifteen minutes, and you will understand un-derstand what I mean when I say that in stage naturalness Messaline, as interpreted in-terpreted by Heglon and Alvarez, is a dlstlnat departure and likewise a relief. re-lief. And now for the story. I wish to say that I am partly cribbing from the precis of a London contemporary. It saves time and nausea. FLORENCE HAYWARD. To Repair Chairs. When your cane-seat chairs begin to wear out mend the break the best yon can by weaving in cords, or, if very bad, replace with a piece of canvas securely se-curely tacked on; put on a generous layer of cotton batting or curled hair, and cover with a piece of any kind of upholstery goods, an embroidered pat tern, crazy patchwork or a large "log-cabin" "log-cabin" block. Finish the edge with furniture fur-niture gimp, and fringe if desired. The back may be finished with a similar paneL Women Thieves. According to the Paris police there has been a marked increase of late in the number of women thieves in that city. It seems they cannot resist the temptation offered by the displays In the large shops. Music Boxes for Bicycles. Music boxes for bicycles are now manufactured by a firm In Hamburg Germany. REASON'S WHY HORSES SHY. Hamoroii Explanation of Their Pear of Newspapers. The mortal terror of newspapers to which even the most Intelligent horse Is a prey is cortainly a mystery. It a horse meets a torn newspaper lying in the middle of the road he is seized with a conviction that it is on the point of tearing him to pieces, and accordingly he falls Into a spasm of terror. I presume that the scientific explanation of this fact is that the prehistoric horse was severely abused by the newspapers of the time, and that his descendants have thus inherited inher-ited a horror 0 newspapers. But, like most scientific explanations of familiar mysteries, this would not be worth noticing. no-ticing. Why should the prehistoric newspapers have insulted the horse? Did the cave men lose their money on horse races and then write abusive letters let-ters to the newspapers, pointing out the untrustworthy character of the horse? It is very doubtful if they did anything of the sort, chiefly for the reason that newspapers did not exist ir. prehistoric times. To come back to the horse and his fear of newspapers. It may be said that the newspaper terrifies ter-rifies him because it moves in the wind and he thinks it is alive. But the leaves of trees move in the wind and the human boy moves with or without wind under the very hoofs of the horse, yet the horse is not afraid of these things. Clearly he is not afraid of a stray newspaper because it may be blown across his path. Moreover, he is as much afraid of a newspaper that does not move as he is of one which is In motion. The true exhibition of a horse's fear of a newspaper is that in the code of equine etiquette It is considered con-sidered good form to appear to be afraid of newspapers. All animals have their ideas as to what is good form and cling tenaciously to them. The dog does not bark at very young children, because it is contrary to canine etiquette eti-quette to do so. The cat, who is an inflexible stickler for good form, plays with a half-dead mouse merely because playing with half-dead mice is considered consid-ered among all cats of good breeding to be the correct thing to do. The horee, knowing that if he did not pretend pre-tend to be frightened nearly out of his life by a newspaper he would be regarded re-garded by all other horses as an ignorant ignor-ant and ill-bred beast, shies whenever a newspaper flutters into his path. Pearson's Magazine. ROSA BONHEUR'S HOUSE. An Amusing Story Illustrating; Her Influence In-fluence Over Her Class. The house in the Rue d'Assas which Rosa Bonheur owned for forty years is to be bought and torn down by the municipality mu-nicipality of Paris, says the New York Commercial Advertiser. After the artist art-ist removed to By, near Fontainebleau, the house in the Rue d'Assas was converted con-verted into a temporary home for poor artists. Men and girls were received, but no one could stay longer than two weeks just time enough to enable them to find cheap and suitable accommodations. accom-modations. The house was surrounded surround-ed with flowers, an oasis in a dull, dirty street, and at one time Mme. Rosa's menageries added to the din of the neighborhood. A monkey, dogs, cats, a sheep, a goat and a pet lamb were among the smaller "models" who were introduced to the visiters by their mistress. mis-tress. An amusing story is told of Mme. Rosa's influence over the class of young girls who had been hei father's pupils and in whom she took a great interest. She dressed in men's clothes and wore her hair cropped closely like a boy's, but the girls of her drawing class adored Mme. Rosa, and their sole ambition was to resemble her. One morning Rosa Bonheur entered en-tered the classroom with her firm step and expansive smile; she stopped short and raised her hands in horror. "What folly is this?" she cried. "Have you all gone mad?" They had all cut their hair short to do honor to their 'beloved mistress' closely cropped pate! It waa not a joke. Rosa was furious. "Good by, my little Imbeciles; I will not teach such a roomful of scarecrows," sh said. "When your hair grows again you may send for me," and she left them. It took many tears and a committee com-mittee cf penitent, short-haired young "imbeciles" to placate her, but they never tried to imitate Mme. Rosa's oddities odd-ities of dress again. ONE WOMAN'S OCCUPATION. She Has 10,000 Froics ou Her California Califor-nia Ranch. At Stege, a little station about twenty twen-ty miles from San Francisco, a frog ranche Is located, named after the first owner of the land roundabout. The Stege ranch extends from the bay shors up to the ridge of the coast range ol mountains, which Incloses both shores of San Francisco bay. In the lowef portions of the ranch a great number of springs gush out of the soil in copious co-pious volumes. It was the springs that determined the first location of the ranch. The site, overlooking an expansive ex-pansive view of the beautiful bay, was capable of vast Improvement. A dozen acres, Inclosing the springs, were surrounded sur-rounded with a hedge of cypress. Ths grounds were laid out with taste and soon presented the rare beauty incident inci-dent to the profuse vegetation of a semi-tropical climate. Three pondi were formed by confining the waters ol the flowing springs, some acres In extent, ex-tent, and stocked with frogs. A fene high enough to prevent the escape ol the inmates surrounded each, and the ponds were filled with aquatic plant and mosses. Then hundreds of frogs were placed in the ponds, and from the original stock the increase has been so great that, though thousands are sent to market yearly, the withdrawal! have no sensible effect upon the vast numbers. Some Interesting Curiosities. Some interesting discoveries have been made in Lough Derg, Ireland. As a number of men were engaged dragging drag-ging a portion of the lake adjoining Terryglass for the remains of a man had been drowned, the search party happened on a lot of peculiarly interesting inter-esting curiosities, amongst them being the head of an old Irish elk in a fine state of preservation, with enormous antlers, the tips of which were eleven feet apart. The teeth are three Inches long. The other discoveries included a well-preserved dug-out boat or canoe, supposed to be of great antiquity. The articles are attracting much attention at the Carrigahorig barracks. Pet Snakes. Huge snakes, from twelve to fourteen feet long, are domestic pets in the residences resi-dences of Manila. They are petted for their skill in catching and devouring rats. . Hall from Kansas Soldier. The mail matter that comes to To-peka To-peka from Manila sometimes nvoibers a hia as 1,000 pieces a day. |