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lotus Funâ€"A Montreal ! Business With E? .C‘I’So ho is Mr. Shaw, ur money ‘3 over a score of 'd goods to the we names would L “ Shaw and his,” is painted windows of No. treal, but neither '3 can be found 3, and inside is of barrels and ot contain goods. thering of angry emanding their rmed that Mr. For Mr. Shaw n0 t yet set eyes on l‘nere is a story tricks that are he short mercan< liaw 8:. Simpson. Simpson, who is , man, came to 6 St. Lawrence he at 102 Found- elv installed as 10h. Mr. Ham- llontreal, in fact Story, He was F' William Allan but agency, and paged from 3301 {nonths’ term for indling concern. m, was regularly skillful guidance [,0 business. The las to advertise pers, soliciting film the farmers. the business for cnlars werealso country, in fact kept steadily ddressing these 0 appointed in m having some hese reputable sen for the in- to have in get- farmers. Most these agents. 0 do their busi- Shaw Sr. Simp- he agents 5 per every new cus- 3 even salaries . To still fur- ’: said that the well kncwn and duce exchange - do this. Mr. n. When any AW 2” - as on his way . Mr. Shaw is e Old Country, w at all. usiness methods he agents, de- .‘ness of such a e produce they . ly poured into :gs, beans,peas, honey, apples, nact every class . essrs.Shaw and - reputable city . en dealing for comers. Cars mdaily. They lyze the trade er seen before. . . ble or unreas- red to be the . did business. r goods on trust ing they could rrel were sacric . market value were sold at 7 s when the mar- y went 2 and 3 al value. One en. They pur- of 45 boxes of 'n here, and sold Montreal at 10% uce merchants 7 a vantage of the o o 03 were gomg ce as fast as n offered it, ther and asked t. ‘y who happen- ' the attention that he was a 'lton disappear- at he had dis- manager was .1: some of the . sent in prod- and asked for none there for pasted on the Hat bills were every month. re wereanum- 03 BY Mr. Simpson I]; n, in 30‘- g flit he would :~ not. yet put .rter called at er morning it at of 120 boxes firm was sent Grand Trunk eight cars on ontaining hay, hat the firm ls Iy $7000, and tempt to hold ; in Long pond. do of the pond 1y a hundred neral course of clay and very‘ axes of various om various cir- motion toward is is the mark and the bodies em. Some of tons’ weight are] rods. haV‘ Py before them. ined with these D- 22.7.- “will“! "'~“._ Youuufrohfs . â€"â€" fl “ or Such 18 the EM Ob, all the little child?en . That this green earth “qr-0d. A blessing on their prose“? They are so neartn God- “ c a: 3 so far from he 1“” They are so near to The guiieless littlc chi’dl‘enl b0 Innocent and wise- Another world than on?3 Around about them “05' The happy litt'c childl‘cn That frolic o‘er the sod. CY are so near to llcfiifn' We are so far from god 0h. trust of little children} 0.11. faith to them magieil‘lfcc Th'S earth without thclrlfi Would be but drcar and'lv“ The happy little children; _ They comelikc flowers in Tne Winsome little children .‘Vhb gambol all the dag. , T‘190.,When the light is ”“0311 Their Weary heads the!“ ' They are so near to Heavel. W e are so far from God ! V 3115; 0h. for sorrow’s childril . W ho throng the crowded “99' FY; 'm attic and from when , They come with naked 109‘“ On. haggard men and would ‘ :} nd ye who ceaseless PM? .3 1:5..- heed for these your Cluld’en’ ‘ l hey came to you from God '1 {103' may be fit!‘ from Heal?“ \ 1 hey came to you from God. The fragile little children. By holy angels sent, , ill? Y came with benediction. B or briefest season lent- They cannot linger with us. We cannot hold them 10ml They see the courts of Heaven And hear c :les'ial song. The llght of God‘s own glory Is in their shining eyes. They bring with them a hill From stars of Paradise. But blcst the home forever Where these Sh'lll intent. That home is sacred. ht I)" Where such as these 1 av: W Oh. wounded heal ts Ind Dream, :l‘hat uchc beneath h : rod. W e nearer grow to Haven. . Whun these have gone to God. THE POTAI‘O suowu ' Mammal. Muir was troubled. She WBS sorry to leave Benny at home, andlhankif!‘ giving only one week distant H‘s cough was a bit troublesome. The g°°d family doctor advised staying at home from school a. few days. Benny and Mrs. Muir were planning to makeâ€"well, they expected to makesweral somebodies glad on the day that evrbedY. old and young, who is a child of the near Lord, should give thinks, for “Heisgoml,” In His own way He will provide. It may not be in our wayâ€"in my wayâ€"butHemll surely provide for His children. Just what Benny and his mammaintend- ed doing must remain a secret. Mrs. Muir went away, calling back: “My little boy must be brave and pleuant though. If Aunty Margaret should be so ill I must remain with her until after Thanksgiving. My boy understand: we may not always have things all ourway.” .Tears dimmed her pretty blue eyes. She did not hear the little cry or Benny’s- “Oh, dear, dear; with mamma gone things are so lonesome.” Somebody at his elbow said cheerily: “Benny, Miss Evelyn doesn’t wantairuit shower this year.” “ l\ot want a fruit shower,” echoed Benny. “ Why, Mrs. Myer. This fruit shower was to be the loveliest one yet Mamma said I might buy my fruit in cousin Jack’s fruit store. He keepsthe best and choicest great yellow, sweet or. anges, and lovely pippins. I should think Miss Evelyn would like it.” . ".Miss Evelyn appreciates the love her little pupils give her and she hopes even one will assist in giving apotato showerâ€"" . “A potato shower! Who wants pots. toesâ€"” “ Numbers of hungry people living in our city who have no work to do or money to pay for potatoes. Our ladies are col- lecting warm garments. Your momma said that all contributions might befieftin your store-room and packed in thanks. giving barrelsâ€"” “I don’t like to wear old coats,” said Benny. “No; you are a fortunate boy; you mamma clothes you warmly. Miss Eve. lyn’s sister teaches in the Chace school. A dear little girl came to school yesterday She was cold and half starved. Benny I thought you might answer the doorâ€"” ’ “ Oh, so I will, and take the things into the store-room. You cannot always be here. Mrs. Myer." . “ Of course I can’t ; I do need your help,” replied Mrs. Myer, smiling. Quite early in the afternoon the front door-bell rangâ€"“ting-a-ling, ting-sling" A little girl, bright and happy locking handed Benny a bundle, saying : “ It’s 111’ gown (I’ve grown out of it), my hood ml warm hose. I sewed some buttons real tight my own self on the pretty apron." .“ Did you really ?” inquired Benny thinking, “ what beautiful hands she has.”’ At the next ting-a-ling, ling, Benn opened'the door for a little wide-awake who said he had fetched a coat and pair of trousers. “ Do. you know boys who have no coatsE?” inquired Benny. “ ver so many have shabb , coats thamdon’t keep out the col)d. ragga you heard about the potato shower 9; “ I sbpuld think I have heard. Our Miss Evelyn doesn’t want a fruit showerâ€"" f‘ ()ur Miss Newton doesn’t want on either. I don’t value potatoes, but I’ve never been hungry and no supper in th: ho‘useâ€"n k d f h l ‘ That in 0 un must ful,” said Benny, gravegllysf be dread. The third caller brought in a bundle of same comfortable things for a grandma; Five busy days passed rapidly by. Benn received every day a little note from Mrsy Muir. She said nothing of her return home. Benny had hidden in one of the barrels thé ladies were filling in the Muir store-room A SWeet, beautiful, silver-haired old lad. looked over the potato heap, the sacks oyf flour and meal. the contributed articles 0‘ clothing. She and : “A beautiful, generou; flaringl" t' lad “ us in lme, ies, to rescue m 1i boy. I see you have him i.n a. barrel. Reallye I cannot spare him,” called somebody Benn ’ loved. . y u oh, mamma. 15 it truly you '2” shouted Benny. struggling to climb out from the barrel. “ Mrs. Myer and I have been 30 busyâ€"there’s the fruit showerâ€" I .had to ing bread. , then the short day ended and Benny y to her sisters, and being warmed by the fire pnswer the door; papa said the ting-a.- blngs were wearing out the doorâ€"I’ve ought .potatoes and not bananas ; you dcpht mind do you?” ~ ‘ e little folks kept cominv carr in Egskets filled with potatoes, lfilrnips yand ans. 7â€" - Benny kept his ears‘ open. He heard one brown-eyed little girl say to a com- panion : My tpacher did not want a fruit 2223“} It t’is pluch funâ€"giving a fruit er 0 a sac er shower is better.” you love, but a potato “ My teacher didn't want a. fruit shower 7W8 kept still as miceâ€"never told about. tucpotatoes. I do believe everybody is 812112 potatoes,” said a. second little girl. We boys are giving a meal. shower. Mr. Thorpe told us he was fond of hasty pudding when he was a boy; hasty pudding is mush. Hunggy fplks like mush with syrup or.good mllk, .Sald a. wide-awake boy, easing down from his shoulders a sack of meal. . here was no lack of places to send con- tributions. In many poor homes little wan faces told a pitiful storyâ€"a. little child lack- thh his momma sat in one chair, the little boy learned how one little bit of leaven will increase and spread. MISS Evelyn taught fortunate childrenâ€"- {03% dlmpled, pretty boys and girls the light of happy homes. Miss Evelyn’s sister saw daily the little people who must learn to suffer pain and woe early in life. Miss Evelyn’s pupils every year gave her a. fruit shower costing at least ten dollars. She shared the fruit with friends, but in ’92 she learned of a. real need for potatoes existing 1n the Martin street community. The great- er number of the recipients of fruit showers readily assisted Miss Evelyn in substitut- (ing for the fruit shower a. generous potato sh 0 wer. “ Your mashed potatoes are nice. mam- ma, but I could never eat cold boiled po- tatoes,” said Benny, positively. “ More than forty years agoâ€"” " Is it a. story, mamma ‘2" f‘ No, Benny,” replied Mrs. Muir. “ The Irish people suffered a great famine, known now as the potato famine. The potato crop failed in Irelandâ€"many people died or suf- fered from hunger.” “ Didn’t America. send food to Ireland '3” “ Yes, indeedâ€"” ' “ Then the Irish people were thankful. I see momma,” said Benny. “ It- was one of God’s ways of providing, Ireland was given a. big potato shower.” On Thanksgiving morning a. basket of fruxtâ€"pale-green grapes, rich yellow-coated oranges, pale-gold bananasâ€"came to Benny with cousin J ack’s compliments. Best of all, Miss Evelyn ate dinner with Benny and shared his lovely treatâ€"cousin Jack’s fresh- est and choicest fruit. PEARLS or TerH. Joys are our wings; sorrows our spurs. Judgment is forced upon us by experi- ence. Vi ho bravely dares must sometimes risk a. fall. They lose the world who buy it with much care. A blush is beautiful, but often inconven- ient. ' A precious book is a foretaste of immor- tality. The universe is not rich enough to buy the vote of an honest man. Greatness of any kind has no greater foe than the habit of drinking. There is a. divinity within us who breathes that divine fire by which we are animated. Commonly those whose tongue is their weapon use their feet for defense. 0, he is as tedious as a tired horse, or a railing wife ; worse than a. smoky house. There are some kinds of men who can not pass their time alone ; they are the Halls of occupied people. A millstone and a human heart are driven ever round ; if they have nothing else to grind, they must themselves be ground. The circumstances of the world are so variable that an irrevocable purpose or opinion is almost synonymous with a fool- ish one. Whoever in prayer can say, “Our Fath- er,” acknowledges and should feel the brotherhood of the whole race of mankind. It is not money, nor is it\mere intellect, that governs the world ; it is moral charac- ter and intellect associated with moral excellence. Remember the wheel of Providence is always in motion ; and the Spoke that is uppermost will be under; and therefore mix trembling always with your joy. We must despise no sort of talents ; they all have their separate uses and duties ; all have the happiness of man for their object; they all improve, exalt and gladden life. A sunbeam kissed ariver ripple. ‘6 Nay, Donght shall dissever thee and me 1” In night’s wide darkness passed the beam away, the ripple mingled with the sea. Invention is a. kind of muse, which, being possessed of the other advantages common of Apollo, is raised higher than the rest} Genuine good taste consists in saying much in few words, in choosing among our thoughts, in having order and arrangement in what we say, and in speaking With com- posure. It is shameful for a. man to rest in igno- rance of the structure of his own.body,_ es- pecially when the knowledge of it mainly conduces to his welfare, and directs his ap- Plication of his own powers. Jim Webster’s Luck. “ Sam, can yer lend me a dollar that yer has no use fur?” said Jim Webster to Sam Johnsing. “Certainly, Jim; [’56 pleased to accom. modate yer,” said Sam, handing J 1m a. dol. lar. . . . Jim was so surprised at his luck in getting the money that he bit the coin to see if he Was awake or merely dreaming, and in do- ing so discovered that the dollar was made oil d. . _ “eBis heath is a counterfeit, Sam ;J didn’t ,’ think ou’d do me that way, . “ I gnaw it’s a counterfeit, J 1m; yer asked me fur one I had no use fur, au’ I giy’e it, to Vet ; 1’se always kind to my friends. â€"â€"-â€" “ Your husband is so magnp'tic a man,’ said the visitor.” I know. it, responded the wife. I found a steel hairpin sticking to his coat collar the other day.” “I'M for building a. part of the ‘ railway, arrived at Vi.- ' ms countrymen on the last Pacific Mail steamer. This gentleman is J. J. Galetzski- The others in the party are Mr. Koralofl' who has been cperating Siberian mines and «Ego cgiléenglneers named Ivanol'f and Alim- . . are on “ burg. y the way to St. Peters- The S1berian railway Mr. Galetzski is nowengaged 1n contructimg, is a. costly en- terp‘lse and when completed it is expected that it Will have an important effect on com- merce and Civilization. It will be the Ion”- est line of track ever laid. A person cafn get on a car and ride more than 5 600 miles without change when it is built. I At the inception of the work the supposition was that it would be finished in 1805 ' when some progress had been made the belief was that the 13” spike Would not be driven unt111897aand now Mr. Galetzski has in- formed. acquaintances here that in 1900 the Transmbsrmn Railway may be completed. As the difficulties are greater than antici- pated when encountered,‘it may be that the proyect Wlll be accomplished at the beam- ning of the century. a Mr. Galetzski began work on his pa. rt of the line two years can On the Olth o . .. of \Ia . 18_91, the Czarowitz turned the firstLSOé’, laid the first rail, and drove THE FIRST SPIKE at Vladivostock. Work was then ushed at_both ends of the line. In Russia. the railwaystarts from the station in the Ural Mountains where the European line now terminates, and on the railway, by means of a. Junction, a. continuous journev can be made to Moscow and to other European eltles. Mr. Malowansky said that about 200 versts of the road had been finished by Mr. Galetzski, 400 more are partially finish- ed, and the serveyors are in advance for 400 additional versts. A verst is a. Russian mile, being equivalent to two-thirds of a mile in this country. Ten thousand Chinese and Coreans are employed by the contrac- tors, they being considered as handy for railroad buildlng in bleak Siberii as in America. The other workmen are convicts and ticket-of-leave men. The price paid per verst by the Government is 60,000 rubles, amounting to about $3,000,000 for the sections under Mr. Galetzski’s charge. The work is very expensive, as a great deal of blasting of solid rock must be done. Whole mountains of rock have to be moved and deep gorges have to be made. Much difficulty was experienced in getting the material to Siberia. A large part of it had to be shipped to the Pacific coast and then up to Vladivostock. Transportation across Siberia under existing conditions is slow and cumbersome. The DEEP SNOWS IN WINTER impede and stop work. These facts make the magnitude of the Russian Government’s , huge undertaking more impressive than the ' mere statement of the line’s extraordinary length. The steppes are uninviting in ap- pearance, and dangers abound. Tigers and other wild animals have been shot along the line not far from Vladivostock. To now reach a. city of European Russia takes forty days from Vladivostock, and when the rail- way is running one can go to St. Petersburg from that Siberian port in twelve days. The idea of having this railroad was in the mind of the Czar twenty years before work was begun. A commission which was appointed by the Emperor in 1887 unanim- ously recommended the project on commer- cial and strategical grounds. It was fore- seen that the cost would be immense, but the Russian Government decided to bear it alone, accepting no foreign capital. The benefits that will accrue to Russia areexu Ilike an aerolite into this immense place, Government is to relieve the crowded dis- tricts of European Russia, so that WHEN THE CROPS FAIL the famine may not effect as many as it has in the past. Hundreds of thousands of toilers can hardly keep body and soul to- aether in Russia, and if this surplus labor were put on the fertile areas of Western Siberia, that country would be developed. European Russia would be relieved of so much human weight, and the emigrants to Siberia could maintain themselves much more comfortably than now. Thus the interests of the empire would be advanced. One part of \Vestern Siberia which is capable of being converted into a garden. is as large as France,, and its soil is rich enough to support as large a population as that country has. Such districts are badly needed by Russia, for it has been found that in some of its European districts the agri- cultural population has increased far beyond the ability to secure freeholds. This super- fluity of the Russian population has aggra- vated the sufferings during each famine. The Siberian farms that are awaiting such settlers are inaccessible now, but the rail- road will bring them within reach. The mining regions of the Altai Moun- tains will also be aided by the railway. Mr. Koradofl“, who is with Mr. Galetzski, is credited with the belief that gold mines will be developed there which will compare well with those of California. Australia, and the Transvaal. Steam communication will give an impetus to this district, where enormous quantities of precious metal are supposed to be concealed. One of the remote regions to which the railway will probably bring population is the valley of the Salengs. River, on the southeast shore of Lake Baikal. It is the warmest district in all Siberia and has been called the Siberian Italy. Its fertility is unsurpassed, yet because of the lack of carrying facilities the ground there is un- used. LONBON THROUGH FRENCH EYES. A Graphic Pen Picture orthe Big Capital by Henri nochcrort. M. Henri Rochefort has lived so long in London that his opinions on the British capital would form very interesting read- ing. The exiled editor, however, has not yet put his experiences across the Chan- nel into literary shape; but he has recently contributed to the Revue Illustree an article on M. Sinet’s art work, in which he inci- dentally alludes to London life. “ London is a city the strange peculiarities of which it would be almost impossible to describe adequately. When, four years ago, I fell which I had already touched after my escape from New Caledonia in 1874, a French refugee who had long lived in Eng- land gave me this brief description of the British capital : “You know Paris well, of course,” he saidâ€"“ London is its exact op- posite.” This odd opinion is, nevertheless, perfectly accurate. London is Paris upside- down. The cafes there close when ours begin to open. The houses, which with us are often seven stories high, have here two landings on an average. The drivers here go to the left and ours to the right. It would seem as if a. whole people had said in an asideâ€"as the French do so and so, we must do the contrary. “ The Sunday rest, which for the major- ity of the English people is a. sort of cellular imprisonment for twenty-four hours by the clbck, ives to this formidable agglomera- tion ofshumanity an aspect which cannot be conceived. Not a. shop opened since Saturday, when many close at 2 p. m. Not a vehicle'in the streets, except an occasional cab rolling along from time to time on those vast roads, and marking more emphatically the solitude which it traverses in taking a pected to more than repay the expenditure. [ late traveller to a railway station. In this Among the advantages which the railway will bring about are the colonization of Siberia, which is a. vast unpopulated portion of the earth; the development of agricul- ture and of the Siberian mines ; the open- ing up of new markets for Russian industries, and, in short, to make Asiatic Russia. a source of revenue instead of constant expense, besides increasing Russian influence in countries bordering on Siberia. By building up Siberia the railway will aid Russian extension in Asia. Part of the trade of China, Japan, and Corea. will be diverted to Russia. To transport freight from Shanghai to Vancouver, thence over the Canadian Pacific and across the Atlantic to Europe, takes thirty-five days. Through the Suez Canal to Genoa and Marseilles requires forty-three to forty-six days. When THE SIBER IA‘T RAILWAY is finished freight can be transported from Shanghai to Europe in eighteen to twenty days, and this saving of time will divert trade to the new line. Russia thus ex- pects to cut into the business that now falls to the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, and Germany, Russia. had once a great caravan route across the desert, but the increase of facilities for ocean carrying caused {it to fall into disuse. One draw- back for the Siberian line is that the port of Vladivostock, to which all of its freight must come, is closed by ice during several months of each year. . The estimate by the Russian engines rs was that the railway would cost from $30,000 to $67,000 a mile. Some parts are to pass through a. country where engineer- ing difficulties are great. The outlay is to be from 350,000,000 to 400,000,000 rubles. The line will run close to the fifty-fifth par- allel of north latitude from Zlatausk and Miask as gar as the Yenisei River. Branches will ther extend for about sixty miles to connect with the important towns of Tomsk and Omsk. The road will then follow a more southerly course to Irkutsk, go along the southern shore of Lake Baikal,- and through the valley of the Sealing River, cross the valleys of the Lena and the Amur to Lake Collan, where excellent coal has been found; thence run eastward to the steamboat station of Srejetinsk on the Amur River and aloug that stream south- eastward to Khabarofi'ka. There it will turn southward along the ri ht bank of the Ussuri, run to Gralfsky, an terminate at Vladivostock, in latitude 43 ° . Some doubters say that this road will be a constant drain on Russia for years after it Is built, and that it will not begin to pay for half a century ; but even if it brings in no direct financial profits it is certain to. be productive of good to the Russian empire. Although Siberia. contains barren and al- most useless wastesit has millions of fertile soil, which with easy cultivation will yield immensity there are six millions of inhabit- ants, fifty Cannebierres, and 200 Rues de la Paix. This famous Whitcchapel, where Jack the Ripper perpetrated his deeds, and which is generally supposed to be modelled on the plan of the Place Maubert or the Rue de Venice, is at least double the width of our biggest boulevards.” M. Rochefort then alludes to the hustle and tumult of London during the. week days, when streets are thronged with traffic ; and to the fogs, when little, save the lights on the cabs, carriages and carts can be discerned, and he leaves his readers to imagine what efi'ects a painter can find in such a colossal heap of objects and colors. Gold From the North-West- Alate despatch from Montreal says :â€" Minerals are plentiful in the North- West, and this was verified this morning by the visit of a miner, Mr. A. A. McRae, from Edmonton. He is in the city at pres- ent and he carried with him several beauti- ful nuggets of fine gold, worth at least $500, which he found in the Saskatchewan River, twelve miles above Edmonton. Messrs. G. Baillie 8: Sons, jewellers, of Fortification lane, melted these nuggets this morning, and they say that rarely in this city has so much been melted at once. It has a beautiful yellow color and not so brittle as some of the gold found in other parts of the world. It resembles very much our Nova. Scotia gold, and it is 24 carats fine, better than that of the Mint, which is only 2'2 carats fine. Mining is carried on up the Saskatchewan River about forty miles, and a company will go 60 miles further. The Mackenzie and Peace rivers have not yet been explored for gold. The miners generally separate the gold from the sand and put into nuggets with quicksilver. Then it is submitted to the action of fire, and the quicksilver evapor- ates. Mr. McRae had about two pounds of it, which he found only after a few weeks’ work. It is valued at about $20 an ounce. Silver is also found in the mountains, and coal is very cheap, coating on delivery only $2.25 a ton. Their Terrible Grief. “‘So the colonel is dead '2” ‘ ‘ Y es. ” ~ " His family must be plunged into grief.” “ Well, I should say so. Why. do you know, the funeral was a very exclusive afi'air, and right in the midst of the cere- mony in came a whole cavalcade of his poor relations in the dowdiest kind of duds.” Autnieâ€"“ You should be excused when you leave the table.” Little Nephewâ€" “ Should I? I thought, from the way you acted about that third piece of pie, that, you’d be glad to see me go.” ’ “M _, . immense: harvests. One purpose of the HERE AN D THERE- Two expressmen in S ' . pokane a few da ago had a dispute over a dime, which ti? sulted in a fight. Two hours later each paid in the police court a fine and costs amount- ing to SW; and the question of who owned the dime wasn’t settled either. A Sacramento policeman was held u d r lbbed of $1.50 while on his best affgw { d ays ago, and the audacious footpads who l a. .complished the feat got safely away. ‘ . Candied flowers of several sorts are among the most expensive delicacies of the modern confectioner, but the old fashion of using the candied petals of the orangg blos- som in tea seems to be almost forgotten. If a. few of the candied petals be put into the tea. before it is steeped they give it a. flavor noticeably peculiar, but once esteem- ed very fine. “ Not for Love, nor Fame, nor Favor, but for Cash,” is the refreshingly frank and direct statementof the reason for the ex- istence of the Gurdon, Ark., Cannon Ball, which its “ Editor and Prop.” Mrs. Anna E. Nash, keeps standing in large type at the head of the page in the place occupied as a. rule by the “ Pro Bono Publico” order of euphemistic motto. . “ If I had a ton of mica,” said a dealer in odds and ends,“ I could sell it right out at a good price.” Mica whether new or second hand, in the block or split, has a constant sale. Small sheets are cheap, but large ones fetch a. price high in propor- tion to their weight. It is cheaper than it used to be before mica was found in paying quantities, but it still sometimes retails at five dollars a pound in the block. Most persons buy it thus and do their own split- ting, though the mica splitters do it with less loss. Artists buy a good deal of mica in large sheets and paint on it. Thisis es- pectially a fad of amateurs. . The erratic Missouri River is threaten- ing, and will most likely soon accomplish, the complete destruction of the town of East Atchison, Mo., on the opposite bank from At’chison, Kan. The stream has been eating a. new channel for several months, and during the past summer has washed away over 300 acres of land. It is now Within an eighth of a. mile of East Atchison, and the destruction of the little town, with many thousands of dollars worth of valuable property, is regarded as inevitable, and the people are moving away as rapidly as pos- sible. Sixteen miners returned to Seattle from the Yukon gold diggings last week, bring- lng with them, as the result of the season’s work, about $45,000 in gold dust and nug- gets. The share of two or three of the party was about $6,000 apiece. They report that there were about 300 men engaged in placer mining on the Yukon River last summer. Some new diggings were discovered on Birch Creek, 275 miles below Forty Mile Creek, from which two halfbreeds took out $2,000 worth of gold in six days. The Indians did not molest the miners this year. News was brought to Seattle a. few days ago of the birth of the first white child in the wilderness of the Yukon River. It was born last spring to Mrs. P. Beaumont, wife of the keeper of a trading post at the outlet of the Porcupine River, within the Arctic Circle and almost on the eastern border of the Territory. Mrs. Beaumont is the only white woman that ever crossed the Chilcat .Mountains and deScended the Yukon. The first unmarried white woman to penetrate any considerable distance up the Yukon was Miss Mellen, a missionary, who took charge of an Indian school at Forty Mile Creek last spring. A man of truly royal blood, son of one of the Kings of Africa, died in new Orleans last week. He was Alexander Beckwell, a. centenarian, who was lured away from his African home eighty-five years ago and sold into slavery in Virginia. He was 17 years of age when kidnapped, and was of splendid physical proportions. The fact that he was of royal blood, told by his cap- tors and attested by the conduct of his fellow slaves, marked him always from the mass of slaves, and the facts of his history were never lost sight of. His first master named him Alexander because of his ap- pearance and history. He has lived in New Orleans since the war. The cigarette is to be banished from Georgia if the House of Representatives has the power to enforce its will. A bill forbidding the sale of cigarettes in the State was passed by that body last Friday morning. As introduced the bill only made it unlawful for any person to sell Cigarettes, but the Committee on Hygiene and Sanita- tion, to which it was referred, emphasized the rigid moral sense of the House by amending it so as to include under the ban cigarette tobacco and cigarette paper. Then the House passed the bill by 101 to 45. It is interesting to note that this same body has been using every effort to encourage the cultivation of tobacco in the State. Grocers everywhere assert that there is little or no profit in retailing sugars, and houskeepers confirm this by saying that there is small economy in buying sugar by the keg, The tradition touching the small profit in handling sugars at retail is cer- tainly more than 100 years old, for a writer in the middle of the last century affirmed that London grocers of that day were often out £60 or £70 a. year for paper and pack- thread used in wrapping up sugar, and some grocers would not sell sugar to a cus- tomer who did not at the same time pur- chase some other article. It is not unusual for merchants in Canada at this time to sell far below regular retail rates certain articles not properly belonging to their trade. ‘41..” Just in His Line- “ W'hat do you call this?” asked Officer McGobb, as he pulled a dangerous-looking bludgeon out of the pocket of his prisoner. “That is called a ‘life preserver,’ ” an. swered the derelict. “ An’ fwat right have you with a life pre- server, 01 would like to know?” “ Because I belong to the floating popula- tion; see?” But the officer refused to see. Luck of a Horse Shoe- “Phwere’s the horse shoe ycz had aboove the dure, Mrs. Dolan 2” “ It isn’t me that knows.” “ Didn’t it bring yez luck?” “ Troth an’ it did that same. The schrin that helt it bruk this mornix.’ an’ dhroppas it on the rint collector.”