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x two schemers vjqh what tingled web we weave when first we practice to deceive the widow smith sat np labs reading the country paper usual the weekly budgu did not interest her but on this oc casion she read and re read a certain part of its columns and laid it down at last with a igh jmiffi fort fa itifj aff i wants a wife does he she mused aloud tired of linn alone its a peaty chance for some one to get a good husband ef hels what he advertises then she resumed the pipsr and studied it carefully a good pervider thats one pint oiddleged and wellto do laws 1 ef it wasnt for the the widow stopped abruptly and looked around with startled expression it must have been the oat she said to herself im as nervous as a mouse im sure thereaint any harm in it i dare say hell be glad of it when he finds out fce hadnt been so particular that he waeted a widow without any thenshebroke off abruptly and sat think ing ive heard tell she mused that a man who amounted to ennything wouldnt have to advertise for a wife all alone in the world v poor man 1 i feel uncommonly drawn to ward him likes peace and quiet sodoi were of a mind there idanswer if it wasnt for the jyi the dock striking startled her after a long fit of thinking she went to the clock- shelf and look down a pen and a bottle of ink then she looked in the lamily bible and found some writing paper it took the widow smith a long time to compose that letter when she finally bad it to her mind she copied it after which she read it a great many times i hope i hevnt done wrong she said to her conscience but i can almost see the band of providence pintin tho way a widower an welltodo alone in the world it would be almost wicked not to try then she wonnd up the clock put the cat out and was soon dreaming of a new adorer mr josiah brown a comfortable farmer who lived in the next township was the man whose advertisement for a wife had enlisted the sympathy of the widow smith he had been in the lonely and forlorn state of a widower about a year and was tired of single life he cast his eye figuratively speaking upon all the widows in his neighborhood but they found no favor in his sight so he advertised in the weekly budget and bad haif a bushel of letters in answer to his demand all the answers had attractions but there was only one tha seemed to fulfil his expectations it was tiny little missive aud signed widow smith she dont hum and haw an beat round the bush but comes right to the point like a man he said to himself so he wrote to her and in due time a second letter cane it pleased him more than the first shes mrs brown no 2 he chuckled she says shes small i like leetle wimen has a farm an a good house an of course is all alone in the world or she wouldnt have answered at all says her friends call her a good housekeeper shes a master hand to write begins every word with a capital an she apointed a meetin at gabriel simpsons 1 sho i ive known gabe sence we was boys together i wonder ef hell help me out about this the good man ohoked abruptly and seem ed flurried she wont mind arter were joined ill appoint next thursday to meet fri day aint lucky an saturdays too near sunday ill tell sinpson to keep dark till i come there wonder if the widder is good lookln wonder if bhell be dis- apdoiated tho widow was first at simpsons and held his best ear for private audience then she was all- smiles talking over pickling and preserving recipes with mrs simpson who was an old acquaintance josiah brown drove np with his span of grays best sunday coat on best foot fore most the widow was observing him from behind the curtains of the sittingroom win dow wo11 she said with a lone breath ho ainr to say hansomo hes a leetle bowlegged an has a cast in pne eye i don- no as id have him if it wasnt for tho before she had finished mr simpson was presenting mr brown and then all hands eat down to a biled dinner i like good vittles said the widower with a knowing glance at his visavis tho widow and he passed his plate for the third time s do i responded the lady with a viv id blush mr smith uted to say he couldn t bear to eat away from home cause we had such good meals i mr browa beamed at her after dinnor he took mr simpson to one side pretty as a picture an plump as a partridge looks like she could keep house for me and tho ugh i ugh i ugh y a severe fit of coughing interrupted mr- browns recital simpson smiled know ingly- you ro in luck if you get tho widder ho said but 1 canc eay its fair to not tell her about tho h ush 1 whiipered brown nervously itll de all right ill make hor a good husband and sho wont mind the another sovere fit of coughing which nearly strangled the good man nipped his discourse in tho bud i say simpson ho enquired presently hab the widow any none in the land of the living inter rupted mr simpson hurriedly mr browa rubbed his hands with satis faction toon the two joined the ladies and the courtship proceoded with such alac rity that tho day was set and as a neutral ground simpsons house was tendered for tho occasion bat mr brown visited tho wido w at he lonely house several times and tho widow mo company with mrs simpson spent a day at the brown homestead and was much im pressed with its peace and quiet she whispered to mrs simpson im so thankful i am going to marry into a home where there aint any h nsh 1 hes looking at us cautioned her friend then both ladies lauphod hcartly as if they knew something that pleased them im mensely there are nobody but grown up i believe yon told me yon hadnt any they are all in the grave yard 1 every one of em poor thing i sobbed the wi dow with the handkerchief to her eyes it took some time for mr brown to undo the muchljf he was compelled to support the clinging forts and dry the tears he had drasm forth by hie carelessxemark shes a tender heartedlittle thing 1 he said to simpson shell come around all right when she seee the here he sneezed yon old fraud 1 thjught simpson but he only sold politely of course she wilt they were married quietly only the im mediate friends of the family being present at the ceremony and they went to a town where nobody knew them and spent their honeymoon prowling around in each others company seeing the sights and were as old folks in love usually are not that eith er of them was old no indeed when they went back they first located at the brown homestead as they couldnt live in two places at once the widow had decided to sell and invest her money in more land in the neighborhood of her new home a plan highly approved by her new partner the first cloud on the horizon of their new lives appeared when they reached home it was no larger than a mans hand or a boys hand in fact that was just the shape it took oh the white walls mr brown looked frightened but he asked boldly my dear dont you think its kinder lonesome in a house where there isnt any j y a curious interruption happened a troop of half grown boys rushed in at that moment to welcome the bride they did not go through the ceremony of knocking and seemed very much at home they could have sung we are seven exactly as to mumbers who are they j gasped the new mrs brown iii dont know faltered mr brown his legs shaking like castinets run horns boys run home wheroll wo go pa inquired the youugost a cherub of five oh gasped the bride faintly i thought yon wanted a quiet home i have been basely deceived i you said you hadnt any bays dont make any noise asserted mr brown an i thought as long as you hadnt any oh good heavens i who are they what do you want i weve come ma were all here 1 shouted a chorus of voices as a whole school ful of girls lushed in please introdnce us to our new pa but new pa had fainted and hung limp and speechless over the arm of his chair the noise brought him to ho askod if the earthquake had done much damage and seemed in a dazed condition for some time indeed the shock of finding him self the trovitpoint of seven daughters was too much his first intelligent words were those of reproach simpson had been sent for aud was present mr brown looked feebly at his distressed wife and said you told me you hadnt any j no dear i said they were all in the i graveyard so they were boarding with the sexton they are real sweet girls seven of them yon must love them for my sake saven and seven makes fourteen fig ured iho eldest male cherubim its a good thing the house is largo enough to hold us all a peace was pavohod up several peaoes in fact and after a while the new couple found that what cant be cured must be en dured mr brown took the longest to come aronnd but when he did he gave in fully in a moment of confidence his wife told him that she knew beforehand all about the boys and had taken her own oue from that bit of design mrs simpson had told her just like a woman never can keep a secret said mr brown severely oh no dear answered his wife be cause though she told me all about your little scheme sho never said a word to you about mine and mr brown was obliged to admit that hs was fairly beaten at his own little game a chinese funeral an extraordinary scene was witnessed in tho east end of london the other day at the funeral of a chinaman named sutpoo aged 26 years who has for some time past lived at a place called limehouso causeway the neighborhood is a chinese colony where many opium dens are known to exist in the dead mans mouth were placed two silver coins while some small cards with holes punched in them and printed in chinese characters said to be prayers were placed in the coffin chinese fireworks were exploded from the windows of tho coac ies and pn the arrival at the east london cemetery a pail containing roast pork roast fowl rice ap ples oranges a bottle of gin chinese chop sticks papers on which were writen chinese characters and small cups was emptied the contents being placed around the grave the paper and chopsticks were then set on fire anof tho mourners with hands clasped bow ed before the flames at the request of mr chivers the coroners offi er for poplar tho eogliah clergyman connected with the ceme tery then read tho burial service in english and the chinamen thongh they did not un cover listened to it attentively the body was thon lowered into tho grave into which tho chinese threw some earth threo times io alternation with food and fruit the bottle of gin was then served out in small cups to tho willing bystanders this is tho first chinese funeral it london at which an eng lish clergyman has officiated the body was not taken into the church theoollie- probably the namecollie or more proper ly speaking coltsyis derived fro n the term colly or black that originally fceiog the color their use has always been as a shepherds or cattlekeepexs dog and it is from the lonely intimacy ot solitary eirep- herds that the dog has obtained his know ledge of and affection for man and his way i away on the mountains miles fjrpm every one else the shepherd with no one 6 talk to bnt bis dog has evolved that almost human sagacity which is so great feature ofthecollie steadfast faiiffful thoughtful he his become and were he endowed with the power of hutato speech he would equal nay excel many members of the human family though actual spsech may be denied there is nearly always bet een the shepherd and his dog an ability to communi cate instructions on the one hand and to understand even to anticipate them on the other to that speech is needless tfiese dumb signals are all that are required in days and districts where different breeds wefe scarcely known one krhdof dog was kept to do all kinds of work and- to this we- owe the versatility of the sheep dog which may be trained to meet all demands upon him to be a tender of sheepor a hunter of deer a watch or a retriover a participant in the hunt of otter of tox or of badger- ready infaoi foranythingonlandor water such adaptability is wonderful and indicates keen intelligence and quick powers of in- stinct the real wellbred bred fijsm a working strain will kill a rat or a weasel and up to a recent time in the hebrides this dog was trained to hunt seals a passage in adamnanuss life of stcoiumb- would seem to show that thirteen centuries ago the monks of iona employed the collie in this work to watch a sheep dog at work is a most interesting sight especially in the lake coun try of england or the highlands of scotland the careful way in which he will gather in all the sheep even though widjlyscattered the gentle yet firm control he has of them and the readiness with which sign from or word uttered by his master is obeyed is remarkable it is no uncommon thing for dogs to be left alone wish a flock for days or to gather a flock from a whole mountain side not one to be missing shepherds can tell many tales of the sagacity of collies they will during tho dipping season guard the undipped sheep and sepal ate one by one as rapidly as they are required until the whole have passed through the tub and a recent writer tolls how one of these jogs will gather into a certain hollow only indi cated by a slight wave of his masters hand all the sheep scattered over the hills and valleys for miles around in one case when the hirsel or upwards of twelve hundred sheep were counted four only were miebinj and the good dog on being directed to go instantly and find them darted off and was over the ridge in a fewminutes within half an hour his bark was heard from the top of a steep ridge to the left and he was seen bringing the four to complete tho talo of the faithfulness of the collie much can be said the ettrick shepherd tells how at one time he had several hundred lambs which he was taking to the fold they scampered off over the hills in threo separate divisions and in opposite directions defying all efforts to find them night came and search had to be given up but the dog remained at his task and in the morning he was found in a gorge standing over all tho lambs which he had gathered during the night and the story of the drovers collie which losing his master in crossing by tho river ferry in the north of england for nearly two years re gularly went backward and forward on the ferry seeking in vain for the lost shepherd refusing all the blandishments of others merely accepting the food given mm is but one proof more of the collies faithfulness theoecouldbe multiplied indefinitely every shepherd could recount talcs equally won derful and the exception would hi to find among the true shepherds dogs not the show specimens whichmay not be quitepure as some have suggested those which would have failed to do what these have done of course some dogs are endowed with more sagacity then others hut the more appears to be predominant the boniantio- the romantic spirit has ever arisen in times when people were discontented with tho then existing state of affairs it primarily mani fests itself in its negative character in the it is expected that the forthcoming russian budget will show a surplus of from twenty to twentyfivo million dollars the rochester district of the genoseo con- ference of tho methodist episcopal church has passed a number of resolntions condemn ing dancing as immoral and a violation of the spirit of the new testament their action has naturally excited a good doal of discussion in which the secular press are taking sides against tho clergy there is much to bo said no doubt both for and against tho modern danco but it is a very poor argument in its advocacy to say as a rochester newspaper does that in the dance per st thero is nothing immoral an act is to be regarded witn reference to its conse quences and if it could bo proved that done while ur brown was showing off his roomy honjo he hazarded a remark ing led to evil the fact would bo sufficient i its kind er lonesome in a house where to condemn it aoross tin eussian frontier george kannan contributes to the oenury an illustrated description of his trip across the russian frontier and the following ex tract shows what the author and the artist found when they reached the boundary a pioture of suoh a scene as tho one described here forms the frontispiece of the number wo sprang out of the tarantns nd saw standing by the roadside a square pillar ten or twelve feet in height of stuccoed or plastered brick bearing on one side the coat of arnia of the european province of perm and on the other that of the asiatic province of tobolsk it was tho boundary post of siberia no other spot between s paters burg and the paotfio is more full of painful suggestions and none has for the traveler a more melancholy interest than tho little opening in the forest where stands this grief- consecrated pillar here hundreds of thousands of exiled human beings men women and ohildren princes nobles and peasants have bidden good bye forever to friends c mntry and homo no other boundary post in the world has witnessed so much human suffering or been passed by such a multitude of heartbroken people more than 170 000 exiles havo trav eled this road since 1887 aud mote than half a million since the beginning of the present century as the boundary post is situatud about half way between tho last european and the first siberian etnpo it has alwayr been customary to allow exile parties to stop here for rest and for a last goodbye to home and country tho russian peasant cvnn when a criminal is deeply attached to his native land and heartrending scones have been witnessed around tho boundary pillar when such a party overtaken perhaps by frost and snow in the early autumn stopped here for a last farewell some gave way to unrestrained grief some comforted the weeping some knelt and pressed their faces to the loved soil of their native country and collected a little earth to tako with them into exile and a few pressed their lips to tho european side of tho cold brick pillar as if kissing goodbye forever to all that it symbolized at last the stern order stroisal form ranks from tho nndor officer of the convoy put on end to the rest and tho leavetaking and at tho word march tho gray- coated troop of exiles and convicts crossed them selves hastily all together and with a con fused jingling of chains and legfetters from 200 to 400 squaremiles of tho peat moved slowly away past the boundary post i pine forests of georgia are cleared every into siberia year clocks watches and sun dial etweeu the sun dial and the little gel led caaed ticking pocket time piece is a long period of invention thirtyone years ago the first americail watch was made it was a cumbersome affair constructed under difficulties jbat was a wide development from even the horologies devices that fol lowed the snn dial eirliest among these was clepsydra ox water stealer a tran sparent graduated vase filled with the puis liquid of nature which slowly stole away through a little aperture in the bottom the receding surface marked the going of the hours the- clepsydra was used in an cient china and egypt- under toeptolemtesc pompey introduced it into roman courts and the britons used it when caesar went among these the mechanical ingenuity and skill of many halloas were employed i in the constructions of the clepsydra it was devised in statuary with tears flowing from the eyes it was made in floating forms that arose and fell with the- water audpeinted to tho hours engraved upon an upright scale ati improvement lyastriade in chiskind of time pleoe by the introduction of a little wheel on which the water fell thus edm niunlcattog motion to the hands upon adial finally the clepsydra grew into an ingenious and complicated water clock a thousand years ago a persian calipll seht one to the emperpr charlemagne which had a striking apparatus- with the completion tifeaoh twelve hours twelvedoors in the face -open- ejdffom whioh issued twelve automaton horsemen whe waited until the striking ceased and then rode back again tho time keeper of the puritans was but a modifica tion of the primitivesdepaydra- finesand was suhstitued for the water the invention of tho clock is claimed by many different people and attributed to many eras the chinesvdeclarb they own ed docks 4000 years ago thegermana insist that tho first mechanical clock was made by them only eight centuries back the word originally signified bell and tho french cloche still retains its meaning clocks were regarded as curiosities until the eleventh centurywhen they were placed in all the monasteries in this manner arose the fashion of piacing clocks in church towcrs even the use of clocks by saintly men did not keep the common folk from regarding them as the devils own handy- work in the early part of the fifteenth century it was discovered that clock work could bo set in motion as well by the gradual un coiling of a spring as by the running down of weights and that these motions could bo made insochronousby the balance wheel acting upon the escapement bat it remain ed for galileo to discover the great principle of tho pendulum and reveal it to mankind applied to the olock the pendulum added greatly to itt accuracy until after tho revolution scarcely a olock ticked on amer icas coast snn dials and hour glasses suf ficed for thoso blow days of religious rigor now the american clock tells the hour even in far off jerusalem in the chinese oapital in the heart of siberia the first watch devised was called a pocket clock or nuremberg animated egg it was made in 1477 by peter hele a clockmaker of nuremberg it took a years labor to make it when t was finished it varied nearly an hour a day from true time it required winding twioo a day and the price asked for it and similar onos subsequently made was 1500 it was the size and shape of a goose egg it had only one hand and no watch with more was made for many years nothing was known of hair springs in the days of the one handed watch hele invented the fusee but for 125 years the fusee chain was made of oat- gut a material peculiarly susceptible to at mospheric changes the application of the coiled hair spring was the most important improvement in watchmaking it is attributed both to dr robert hooko and the astronomer hughens jewels were first used in the construction of watches in 1700 previously the pivots rah on metallic bearings whioh soon wore out making constant repairing a necessity the diamond ruby sapphire chrysolite garnet and agate are the precious stones used for the bearings upon which the pivots rest pivots of brass or steel will run for genera tions in jeweled bearings without any per- ocptible wear very rare watches are jeweled with diamonds sapphires and ru bies for all practical purposes garnets and aqua marines newer as well montana is beginning to supply garnets no article of modern manufacture and luxury has seen such wondorfnl changes as the gold and silver watch of today in frost of the hair glacier the finest feature of a trip to alaska is the lialr glacier at the head of glacier bay nor is there probably in the whole world a really accessible region u here the phenomena of glacial action con be better seen by the touriafc the excursion steamers go up the bay to withjn four hundred yards of the ice precl- pictrin which the glacier terminates stand ing waist deep so to speak in five hundred feet of water a blue white cliff across the bead of the bay two miles in length by three hundred and fifty feet in height a vertical- wall of ice like azure- tinted marble rent fissured and constantly breaking down with tiranderoaa crashes like the discharge of whoieparks of artillery and an outrush of hevy swells which rok the yssert lice a skiff and would overwhelm smaller craft fragments ot ice some of them no larger- than a bolfof hay whileothers greatly exceed in sz3 the steamer from which we watch the mouth of this iceriver flaat down the kay in endless procession and sometimes so 11 thechannel as to obstruct navigation it is estimated that not less than a hun dred thousand tons of ice break off daily- tcbip the glaciers front which nay in strictest truth be regarded as a river of ice its sources in the eternal snows of the alaskan alps its mouth in the ocean lwidtbv the muir glacier varies from two to eight mile and its length is estimated at forty miles fifteen tributary glaciers flow into it from out of a3 many alpine volleys but the entire glacier may bo regarded as theontlet of that vast ere or snow-field- wbich covers all the high areas of this lofty range there is opportunity to land and climb- the moraines on each side of the ice stream vast masses and windrows of boulders and -gravel- which the ponderous glacier like seme gigantic ploughshare has turned up it is practicable also to climb upon the glacier ftself and oven to cioie it though huge fissures or crevasses render the passage dif ficult even dangerous thoforward motion of tho ice stream has been estimated rather than measured at from one to two feet a day clambering up the crumbling moraines or rambling over the wide gravel flats strewn with boulders and utterly barren of vegeta tion or skirting the worn and torn bases o the inclosing mountains one gains a vivid- idea of what the whole surface of the earth may have been like daring the long millen niums of the glacial epoch all round to the north the west and the east the landscape is a maz3 of gray rocky peaks and white snow fields rushinp torrents turbid with glacial silt brawl tumultuously past or broil up from baneath the ic9 cliff the slowly moving mass a thousand feet in thickness cracks loudly at intervals boulders roll and rumble along the stony beds of tho torrents the tides ebb and flow leaving huge blue blocks of ice strand ed on the beach seals rise from the water amid the ice- cakes with a soft whieh and stare ith lim pid wjndering eyes at the steamer while- at irregular intervals of two or three minutes resounds the deep roar of an ice fall such h the front of the mui- glacier a blowly shrinking relic of the oarths great ice age a little miniature picture of what was once universal scenery spurning of what is living and present and in the attempt at blinding tho eye to what is ac tual and in so far ungainly thero is there fore always a touch of unreality about tho romantic this negative repulsion from the actual and present also gives essential oolor to its positive features namely in making whatever comes within its pale essentially different from what is habitually present in the living the romanticist thus looks upon the past because it is past and not present and upon the works of fancy became they are fanciful and not real but both mutt have tie power of carrying him away from the oppressive reality to that which is different from ic another esscntialattributo of the romacto spirit is tiedeairmgntitudoof mind though tie romanticist looks for fiopatt because ic is past and upon the fanciful because it is nut real he does not look upon tbom dispass- ionotsly but longingly with the futile deairo of which ho is balf consoious to make them present and actual and while on the one hand disporting himself in roussoauerque nudity or wrapping himself closely in the sable oloak of wei ther he robb the present and actualof its vitality by means of his mor bidly powerful imagination on the other hand his desires have not diminished the rem tsness of tho past and of the realms of fantasy having shed over both the par ticular light natural to him personally in his fervent longings and having destroyed his clearness of sight with regard to the present and disturbed its just proportion he has not gained in the power of penetrating into the past which he has also robbed of its true consistency in emasculating his energy of dispassionate retrospection harpors magazine she caught him on the fly at eight oclock the other morning a wife followed her husband down to tho gate as he was starting for town and kindly said to him william you know how sadly i want a bluo bunting dress yes dear he remarked but you know- how hard np i am as soon as i can see my way clear you shall have the dress onfl a new- hat to boot be patient be good and your reward shall be great forty minutes after this he omerged from a restaurant with a big basket and a fishing rod bound up the river in the basket were a ohicken pickles cake fruit pie and a bottle of liqour of rioh color and he was just lighting a fine cigar when his wfe came along what you here f he exclaimed 5f es i was just going to tho market where are you going whats in the bas- kot i was going to carry this fishing rod to a friend in fenchurch street ho modestly an swered and that basket this basket well i was going to t ike- it to the orphan asylum as a present to tho children it is a donation from six business friends william i dont believe it sh dont talk so loud william shall talk louder yet she exclaimed ill bet you are goin fishing mary havo i ever deceived you he plaintively asked i never have as proof of my sincerity you can take this bos- ket to the asylum yourself and ill doit she promptly replied as sho relieved him of it maryhadn you no sir i hadnt you had better make haste with that fishing rod as the man may want it and be careful how you stand about in the hot sun sho left him there he watched her take the car for home and then he retivl fishing rod and crossed tho street ati said lu an acquaintance tom im suffering from neuralgia and the excursion is off till next week too had but we can never tell what a day may bring forth there were chicken and pickles and other good things on the table at dinner but ho never smiled even when she wished that she was an orphan if that was the way thoy wero led ha nover betrayed the gloom of his hearo it was only when she handed him the bottle he had so carefully tucked into the basket aid saw it labeled good for little ohildren that he said mary it is an awful thing for a wife to get the impression that her husband is a designing impostor it must be she replied as she took np the other chicken log christian intelli gencer tho poor in windsor havo good reason to bless the generosity of princess christian twice a week during the winter months thoy ore made happy by tho dinners which she provides for them at the town hall browbeating lawyer to opposing wit ness were you ever arrested for felony the witness desperately yes lawyer aha i what was that felony witness arson lawyor what building was it that you set fire to witness the be palace at st paul