Sweating Gold Coins

1899

This Trick of Swindling is Easily Performed

Sweating a coin is merely robbing it of a portion of its legal weight without in any manner altering its appearance. Manifestly gold coins alone would hardly appeal to the sweater, for silver would hardly pay for the trouble. In countries where paper money in employed, sweating has taken no root. Also in countries like England, where the largest gold coin is a sovereign, the practice would hardly become epidemic.

On the Pacific slope at one time the nefarious business assumed such proportions that the government found it necessary to pass measures against coin sweating, but even then the manifest injustice of arresting a person for merely "passing" such a coin, such person being almost certainly quite innocent, appealed to legislators to such an extent that the law was made only to affect the actual manipulator of the unlawful process. The consequence of this has been that the authorities have had the greatest difficulty in securing convictions against the malefactors, who have debased no end of coins.

The process of robbing a coin of a part of its metal is simple. The goldpiece is merely immersed, or suspended, in aqua regia, a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids, which attacks the metal at once. The manipulator keeps the piece in the bottle only a short time, for a few minutes suffice for the mixture to absorb and hold in solution as much as a dollar's worth of the gold from a $20 piece. The coin is then washed in water and polished with whiting, as otherwise its surface would betray the ordeal through which it had been passed, showing "pockmarks" in great variety.

The process is continued with other coins until the acid is "saturated," when it will absorb no more of the metal. The coins are exchanged for silver or other currency, as only an expert could detect the small subtraction in weight, and the silver is then re-exchanged for more gold, upon which the operator performs his little game in due course. It is only necessary for the villain to boil down his acid to complete evaporation, when the residue in the kettle will be found in the shape of a gleaming button of pure gold, varying in size according to the amount of acid and the charge it carries in solution.

In San Francisco the government secret agents have waged a long and bitter war with sweaters. They have captured many who were guilty enough in all conscience, but against whom no conviction could be obtained for lack of evidence, and they have placed others beyond all worldly temptation for various terms of years.

One of the lone kings of this nefarious business, who finally was obliged to sojourn for a rest in the penitentiary at San Quentin, was named Goodrich. He was an exceedingly modest and retiring man. He occupied an ordinary dwelling and conducted his operations on the roof. After many long weeks of vigil on the part of government detectives he was taken into custody, not redhanded, but at least black fingered by the acid. His apparatus was found most cleverly concealed behind movable bricks in the chimney on top of his house. At the time of his capture a small bottle of greenish fluid was found, and this, upon being carefully reduced in fumes, yielded up a button worth fully $10. A few coins were discovered in the man's pockets and also in his residence. These, to all appearances, were honest coins. Under the microscope they were found to be fairly cross hatched with tiny lines, which had been produced by the process of polishing to remove the traces where the acid had eaten away the metal.

Insidious as this acid thieving may appear, it might be regarded as crude by those who are acquainted with the "tricks that are vain" exercised by the "heathen Chinee." John Chinaman is numerous in California. He gets his long hands on many a golden disk, and with great reluctance does he ever relinquish his grip, He has never learned the "art" of sweating the coins with acid, but he accomplishes his purpose in his characteristically patient manner. He simply places many coins together in a buckskin bag and then proceeds to shake and toss and otherwise agitate that receptacle by the hour or by the week until he has worn off by abrasion $10 or $20 worth of fine dust of gold. The coins wear one another. They present the appearance when at length they emerge from the sack of having been regularly abraded by pocket to pocket circulation, and therefore to all intents and purposes nothing illegal has been done. As a matter of fact, no Chinese has ever been apprehended or put on trial for this work. It is doubtful if the authorities have ever taken cognizance of the practice. Only a few people ever realized what the sly Celestials were at when witnessing the hourly agitation of the coins. It is of course unlawful to bore a hole through a gold coin or to perform any other mutilation, but Mr. Chinaman cannot be said to mutilate the money he wears out so artfully, and therefore he pursues his course serene and unmolested.

There have been clever rogues from time to time who employ a slender tool with which to "gut" a coin. Their method is to make a small incision in the edge of a coin and then patiently dig out the inside, after which they refill the hollow space with baser metal. "High art" like this has become almost obsolete, for the acid business has frequently proved safer and less difficult of performance. Laws will multiply and detectives will wax more and more like Sherlock Holmes, but the makers and administrators of penal regulations will be obliged to arise early in the morning to prevent for all time the effort of man to accumulate his "pile" for "nothing."

"Specialties" at Beehive Store

1899

All retailers like to have and announce their specialties ; and sometimes, it seems, such commercial specialties may take on a very general character. A travelling man tells the Washington Star that, while visiting lately a small but enterprising town in West Virginia, he came upon the following sign:

"THE BEEHIVE STORE,
"Ronceverte, W. Va.

"Dealers in General Merchandise and Country Produce of Every Kind.

SPECIALTIES: Coffins, Caskets and Burial Supplies; Salt, Bacon and Lard; Hides, Furs and Live Foxes."

In addition to these somewhat diverse specialties, the proprietor of the store carried on the business of a fire insurance agent. — Youth's Companion.

She Was in Earnest

1899

"When she will, she will, you can depend on't," is a line which many men have quoted of many women. The saying is often unjust, and the woman is often justified, but now and then the cap fits perfectly.

Not long ago a fast express was bowling over the sands of Arizona. Just how it happened was frequently explained and never understood, but as the train sped along the side of a parched river, it suddenly left the rails, rolled down the bank and landed in three feet of muddy water at the bottom of the river-bed.

Within the cars there was some natural confusion. Men, women and lunch-boxes were thrown into a heap, and not an umbrella nor parcel was left in the racks.

One by one the occupants of the rear car extricated themselves from the mass, and sought for means of escape, while stanching various wounds caused by broken glass. Every exit was jammed tight. Just then, in the midst of the doubt and confusion, rose a woman's voice in emphatic demand.

"Let me out! Let me out! If you don't let me out, I'll break a window." — Youth's Companion.

Perfect Day (poetry)

1899

By Ninette M. Lowater

Fair was the blue sky overhead,
Fair was the earth below;
Soft as an infant's breath, the wind
Went wandering to and fro.

The creeping grasses clad the earth
In garniture of green;
A summer day more fair, more sweet,
The earth has never seen.

Yet something still it seemed to lack
To satisfy my heart;
Lovely, but lifeless as a thing
Created by some art.

But lo — I heard a gush of song,
The whirring of a wing,
And into happy, joyous life
The whole world seemed to spring.

— Youth's Companion.

Lazy as a Beaver

1899

A writer in Forest and Stream declares that a visit to a beaver village shattered some of his long-cherished opinions. He had always heard beavers praised as models of industry, and he found that they were shirks. Worse still, not a beaver could he discover that used his tail as a trowel in building. It was hard indeed to see the early teachings of school and text-book so disproved. Nevertheless, he found his visit to the beaver settlement, near one of the Hudson Bay Company's posts, very interesting.

This northern country is completely covered with a network of lakes and rivers, and with a canoe it is possible to travel anywhere.

At length we reached a little lake, on whose shores we landed. Near us was a small clearing, and toward this we quietly advanced. From its appearance one would have supposed that a gang of woodchoppers had recently been engaged here. Creeping quietly forward, we caught sight of the rising village. Some of the houses were finished, while others were nearly so. A few of the beavers were leisurely building with poplar sticks and mud, but the majority appeared to be taking a holiday.

The houses are dome-shaped, and may have served as models for the huts of the Eskimos farther north. More interesting than the houses were the beavers themselves, ranging in size from the ten-pound kitten to the full-grown adult, which would probably weigh fifty pounds or more.

The tail of the beaver is about one foot long and is well adapted to its use as a rudder. The feet are well worth notice, the front ones being small and flexible and the hind ones closely webbed.

The incisors are important to the beaver, for it is with these that he cuts the material for his food, his hut, and the dam, if there be one. His food in winter consists of the bark of the birch, poplar or willow, which he has stored up during the summer and autumn. In summer he feasts on the young shoots and the juicy root-stalks of the many water-plants that surround his home.

Altogether he is a social and contented little animal. He has furnished the Hudson Bay Company with thousands of dollars, moralists with many valuable illustrations, and Canada itself with a national emblem. — Youth's Companion.

A Diver's Escape

1899

The diver's greatest danger, says a writer in Chambers's Journal, is the possible entangling and choking of the air-pipe on which he depends for a supply of oxygen. The writer gives an experience of his own, which he styles the "closest shave" he ever had. The gates of a lock had been repaired, and he had gone down to see that all was finished satisfactorily. With twenty feet of dirty dock water above him, he felt the great gates, each many tons in weight, which were to be shut while he was down, in order that he might see whether all worked well. He says:

When ready I sent up the signal, and in a few moments felt the gate upon which my hand rested begin slowly to move. It was not long before I realized that I had made a serious mistake.

As soon as the huge masses were in motion I was gently lifted off my feet by the swirl of water in the narrow lock, and irresistibly sucked toward the meeting point of the gates. I made vigorous efforts, by clutching at and pressing against the gate surface, to save myself from being carried along, for once between the gates I must be crushed to death. On I went, however, into the rapidly narrowing gap, but fortunately I went through it, although the gates were so nearly closed that, as I passed through, I felt a leg knock against the end of each gate.

Once on the other side I was pulled up by the air-pipe tightening against the end of one of the gates, and was just congratulating myself on my escape when I suddenly realized that the pipe was still between the closing masses. A death hardly less horrible, and certainly more drawn out, than the one I had just escaped now threatened me, for with the pipe crushed flat I should be a prisoner until smothered for lack of air.

I had no knife or I could have cut the pipe, slipped off my weights, and trusted to the chance of a shoot upward.

At the very last moment, when the gates were almost closed, an inspiration came to me. I had a hammer slung to my waist by a lanyard tied to the handle. It was the work of an instant to thrust this between the meeting gate-ends.

Almost immediately I felt the jar upon it as it took the strain, and I found that there was no diminution of the rush of air into the helmet. My frail connection with the world above was uninjured.

Before I could make up my mind what to do next I felt the hammer loosen in its position, and the gates begin to open again. As they opened I was again carried through by the current, and placed on the other side — the right one for me. I hurriedly gave the signal to be hauled up, and was thankful enough to be at the surface. — Youth's Companion.

His First Oration

1899

The author of "Little Journeys to the Homes of American Statesmen" tells of his experience when a new teacher inaugurated "Friday Afternoons," to be devoted to "speaking pieces." He had been well drilled at home, but his spirits ran lower and lower as the fateful Friday drew near.

Thursday night I slept little, and all Friday morning I was in a burning fever. At noon I could not eat my luncheon, but I tried manfully, and as I munched the tasteless morsels, salt tears rained on the johnny-cake.

Even when the girls brought in big bunches of wild flowers and corn-stalks and began to decorate the platform, things appeared no brighter.

Finally the teacher went to the door and rang the bell. Nobody seemed to play, and as the scholars took their seats, some, very pale, tried to smile. Others whispered, "Have you got your piece?" Still others kept their lips working, repeating lines that struggled hard to flee.

Names were called, but I did not see who went up, neither did I hear what was said. At last my name was called. It came like a clap of thunder — a great surprise, a shock. I clutched the desk, struggled to my feet, passed down the aisle, the sound of my shoes echoing through the silence like the strokes of a maul. The blood seemed ready to burst from my eyes, ears and nose.

I reached the platform, missed my footing, stumbled, and nearly fell. I heard the giggling that followed, and knew that a red-haired boy, who had just spoken, and was therefore unnecessarily jubilant, had laughed aloud.

I was angry. I shut my fists so that the nails cut my flesh, and glaring straight at his red head, I shot my bolt:

"I know not how others may feel, but sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote. It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment. Independence now, and independence forever."

That was all of the piece. I gave the whole thing in a mouthful, and started for my seat, got half-way there, and remembered I had forgotten to bow, turned, went back to the platform, bowed with a jerk, started again for my seat, and bearing some one laugh, I ran.

Reaching the seat, I burst into tears.

The teacher came over, patted my head, kissed my cheek, and told me I had done first-rate, and after hearing several others speak, I calmed down and quite agreed with her. — Youth's Companion.

Tracing a Counterfeit

1899

The tracing of counterfeit bills back to the person responsible for their issue is a curious and exciting employment. The experts assigned by the government to this work are among the most skillful members of the secret service. The protection of the currency depends in large measure upon their efficiency, and the pains they take are almost infinite. A curious story told by a government employee in the New Orleans Times-Democrat illustrates the difficulties which they meet and overcome.

One day a bank clerk in Cincinnati detected a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill in the deposit of a small retail grocer. I was sent for, and undertook the case.

I found that the grocer received the bill from a shoe-dealer, who had it from a dentist, who had it from somebody else, and so on, until I finally traced it to an invalid woman who had used it to pay her physician. When questioned, she said the money had been sent to her by her brother, who lived in New Orleans.

I looked up her brother's pedigree, and was certain that he was my man. He had a bad record, was the proprietor of a dive, and was just the sort of person to be a confederate of counterfeiters. I came to New Orleans with the handcuffs in my pocket, but I was a little premature.

The man proved to my complete satisfaction that he had received the money as rent for a small house he owned in Pittsburg. That was discouraging, but I couldn't give up after going so far, and took the next train for Pittsburg.

The tenant of the house turned out to be a travelling oculist, who spent most of his time on the road. He was then away in the West, but I saw him on his return, and he at once recognized the bill. It had been given him by a patient in Cincinnati, the very point from which I had started.

The patient was a boss carpenter. I dot his address from the oculist and made a bee-line for the city. I had a premonition that something was going to happen, and I wasn't disappointed.

The carpenter was an honest old fellow, and told me without hesitation that he had received the bill from Mr. —— for repairing his barn. Mr. —— was the small grocer in whose bank deposit the counterfeit had turned up. I flew to his store as fast as a cab could carry me, and found it closed. He had left town.

Afterward it was shown beyond question that he was the regular agent of a gang. His shop was a mere blind. That the bill which he gave the carpenter should get back again into his own till after travelling all over the continent was one of those miracles of chance for which there is no explanation. — Youth's Companion.

Paul Jones's Flag, and Dewey's

1899

One of the remarkable features of the reception given to Admiral Dewey at Washington was the display of the flag which John Paul Jones, the first of American naval heroes, is said to have carried on the ship Ranger, when he set sail from the Delaware River to make a name for the infant American navy. This flag is now preserved in the National Museum at Washington.

There is evidence that it was indeed the flag which John Paul Jones flew on the Bon Homme Richard in the famous fight with the Seraphs off Flamborough Head. In that combat the flag was shot away and fell into the sea, whereupon Lieut. James Bayard Stafford jumped overboard, recovered the flag, carried it back to the Richard, and nailed it to the masthead.

It is believed by many, on the supposed authority of John Paul Jones himself, that this was the first American flag, of the pattern now employed, that was ever flown. In a letter of Jones's, which is quoted in his biography by Hamilton, the following passage occurs:

"America has been the country of my fond election from the age of thirteen, when I first saw it. I had the honor to hoist with my own hands the flag of freedom the first time it was displayed on the Delaware, and I have attended it with veneration ever since on the ocean."

This, however, seems to refer only to the first flying of the flag on the Delaware River. This particular flag is of English bunting, two and one-half yards long and a yard wide. It contains twelve stars, arranged in four horizontal lines of three stars each on a field of blue. There are thirteen stripes, alternately red and white.

The flag was made in Philadelphia by the Misses Mary and Sarah Austin, who worked, it is said, under the instruction of General Washington. It was presented to Capt. John Paul Jones, and immediately flown by him. This must have been as late as 1777.

A part of honor was assigned to this venerable flag in the reception to Admiral Dewey and the members of the crew of the Olympia. The space between its unfurling on the Delaware, with its twelve stars, and the triumphant bearing of the Olympia's flag, with its forty-five stars, into Manila Bay, was not a long one, as the history of nations goes, but it was a proud and honorable one.

The later hero of the American navy is no less worthy of honor, surely, than the earliest one, and Paul Jones's flag not only honored the Olympia's in the Washington procession, but was honored by it. — Youth's Companion.

The Hero of the Brazos

1899

Near the city of Hempstead, in Texas, there lives a farm-hand who has proved himself a hero of peace, and whose name should be remembered by the people of his country with all the gratitude they willingly bestow upon the heroes of our armies.

One of the great rivers of Texas is the Brazos, a stream subject to vast floods, which often rise so suddenly that the people living near it have no time to escape the rush of the waters.

In early times a colony of Franciscan friars established a mission on a mound near the bank of the river. They built a church and a village, and taught the neighboring Indians. A hostile tribe, however, swept over the country, ravaging and burning, and there seemed to be no salvation for the friars and their converts behind the feeble defences of their mound. But of a sudden the waters of the river rose, and terrible floods swept away the savages and saved the little garrison.

Then the friars, so the story goes, saw plainly the working of the Lord, and they called the river which had enveloped them Los Brazos de Dios — The Arms of God.

But the Brazos is not always merciful. During the recent floods in Texas its waters played a mighty part in the destruction of life and property. One night, as the flood was beginning to overspread the farming lands, a young man named Fritz McGee was wakened by the distant roar. He rose, hurried out, and after some difficulty, secured a single frail rowboat and started alone on the work of rescue.

All through that terrible night be worked among the negro cabins scattered over the flooded bottoms, and before morning he had rescued seventy-five human beings, men, women and children, and had conveyed them to high and safe ground.

It is doubtful whether a single man ever before saved so many lives, one by one, in so short a time. Fritz McGee, farm-hand, rowing his fragile skiff through the darkness over the turbulent water, is a figure to stir the noblest feelings. — Youth's Companion.

Good Business Men

1899

Richard Cadbury, who died in Jerusalem in the spring of the present year, was one of those hard-working men who build up their own fortunes, and in doing so make the fortunes of many whom they employ. When his father died, thirty-eight years ago in Birmingham, England, Richard and his brother George found themselves the proprietors of a grocery business, one of the features of which was the manufacture of cocoa and chocolate. In it were employed a dozen men.

The sons determined to devote themselves entirely to the making of chocolate and cocoa. To-day the firm employs twenty-four hundred people in its extensive works on the outskirts of Birmingham, and the populous little town of Bournville is wholly dependent on the Cadbury enterprise for its existence.

It was, however, in relation to his workmen and workwomen that the best side of the successful business man was manifested. As prosperity came to him he allowed a share of it to fall in their way. And he not only showed by his conduct that he believed master and men to be one in aim and interest, but also that he recognized a higher Master of the business than Richard Cadbury.

The day's labors were always begun by gathering the people together for a few minutes of quiet acknowledgment of dependence on the goodness of God, and His ever-mindful care.

Richard Cadbury and his brother had a personal interest in every worker. When the women left the firm to get married, — the only thing they ever left for, — the brothers knew just where they went and how they were getting on. Such simple friendliness between employer and employed is the best check to the spirit of suspicion that in the present day divides the worker from the capitalist. — Youth's Companion.

Narrow and Heartless

1899

There are two sisters whom everybody who will read their story here has met, in cities or farmhouses, at home or abroad. They have eyes and ears, the full complement of all the senses belonging to ordinary human beings, but they go through life blind and deaf.

Every morning, when they rise, God opens the world before them like a full book to tell of His power and love. The sunshine, the wind, every flower in the field, every insect in the grass, all the countless living things about them, have some word to speak of Him. They see and hear nothing of it all.

Around them, all through the days, press multitudes of men and women, each working out a little tragedy or comedy of life, each differing from the others, mean or noble, pure or vile, but all alike struggling along a path where help may be needed and life's burdens made less hard to bear.

These women have brains and hearts, but they never use them for the benefit of a single soul. They hold out no helping hand, they give no friendly thought to any fellow-traveller.

Why?

One of them is made blind by her sense of her own importance. The petty cause of her importance is known only to herself. There was a man of title among her forefathers; or she has a larger sum in the bank than her neighbors; or she numbers some fashionable woman among her acquaintances; or she has costly gowns. But she wraps herself in this remembrance as in a robe of state, and so struts proudly through life.

Her sister has a grievance; usually a different one each day; an aching limb; a small income; an idle servant. These cover her as his cloak covers the monk. She thinks, dreams, talks under their pressure. These women thus shut themselves in and are kept apart through life from the influence and help of nature, of their fellow-men, and of God.

It would be wise to ask ourselves, now and then, if we are in their case. Do we give out healthy, happy influences to people about us as we go through the world? If not, what cloak do we wear that shuts us in to our own littleness? — Youth's Companion.

November In Georgia (poetry)

1899

By Francis Barine

Is this November—late November, too?
The woods have scarce a bough stripped wholly bare;
And soft and clear and kindly is the air,
And Summer's skies are not more deeply blue.
No richer roses in her garden grew,
Nor are these her "Good-by," — these roses rare:
The year has many roses yet to wear
Ere Winter comes, even here to claim his due.
Here Summer lingers — all the garden-ways
Are fragrant still. The bamboo's tangled green
Is mirrored where the warm brown water shines.
The distant hills are unobscured by haze —
Across a league of rolling land between
How clear the sky-line rampart of tall pines!

Yet there is something in the air to-day —
What is it? — sighing Summer's day is done,
Though Psyche float and circle in the sun,
And wayside-weed and garden-bed be gay.
Here waves the cotton-sedge, grown ghostly-gray—
There stretch the withered corn-fields. One by one
Queen Summer's brilliant courtiers vanish — none,
Except the roses, to the end will stay.
It is as if, arrested, Summer stood —
A fugitive queen, yet royal — with raised hand
Commanding silence, wherefore not a breath
Breaks the deep stillness of the waiting wood,
While with sad eyes she looks across the land
For his approach whose coming is her death.

— Youth's Companion.

An Incomplete Education

1899

Ignorance, even dense ignorance, is often to be met with in this country of public schools, but it is seldom that one finds a man in all his senses whose mind does not contain some suspicion of a world beyond his potato-patch or logging-camp.

Among the European peasantry, however, education is often absolutely unknown. Sad to say, a conversation which occurred between a French conscript recently taken from his farm and the adjutant of his regiment is not unique, although it may sound so.

"Come!" said the adjutant. "You are a Frenchman — a soldier; do you know why you are here instead of working in the fields? I ask you why you are here — a soldier? You give no answer. Have you never heard of the Germans?"

"No, my adjutant."

"You have never heard of the Germans? What is Germany?"

"I don't know."

"Are you a Frenchman or a German?"

"I don't know."

"This is wonderful! Where were you born?" "At Vaucouleurs, my adjutant."

"At Vaucouleurs, and not a patriot! Did no one ever tell you of the invasion?"

"No, my adjutant."

It would be hard for a Jacques of Vaucouleurs to grow up in the United States. — Youth's Companion.

Melting of Winter Snows in Alaska

1899

Daily Freshets

To most people who live in the temperate zones, the annual freshets occasioned by the melting of the winter snows and by the unusually heavy rains of spring are a matter of familiar observation. Under a higher latitude and in the neighborhood of glaciers, other phenomena are to be studied.

An English traveller in Alaska has the following to report about the rivers of that country:

The Takheena, like most streams of glacial origin, was subject to a daily rise and fall. The distance of its sources caused the water to increase in volume and in swiftness from noon to midnight, after which it continued to decrease from midnight to noon.

The daily rise measured from six to ten inches, according to the heat of the weather; the daily fall measured from five to eight inches during the time the fine weather lasted.

After a few days of cloudy, rainy weather, I found the river falling from day to day about as fast as it had risen during the fine weather.

It is worthy of remark that during fine weather I invariably found the wind during the daytime in the Chilcat valley blowing up from the sea. It began in the forenoon with a gentle breeze, which gradually increased to a smart gale, that died quite away by sunset. During the night there was either no wind, or else it blew in the contrary direction. This regular movement of the atmosphere no doubt has much to do with producing the regular daily rise and fall of the river. — Youth's Companion.

Temperate by Common Consent

1899

Who can name a county which, without making "prohibition" an issue or legally forbidding liquor-selling, has not for thirty years contained a saloon? A correspondent of the Atlanta Constitution, on the track of a gold-mining "boom," professes to have found such an one — Union County, Georgia.

"If you were snake-bitten," said a prominent citizen to me the other day at the county-seat, "I believe you could not get a drop of liquor in the town to save your life."

In this county seventy-five per cent of the people own their homes. In the county-seat, only one family does not own its home. There is not a dollar of bonds on the county, and with the tax rate three times larger this year than usual, the total state and county tax amounts to only one dollar and fifteen cents on one hundred dollars.

Union County lies among the mountains of the Blue Ridge. The court-house is forty miles north of Gainesville, about one hundred miles on an air-line north of Atlanta, and about ten miles south of the Tennessee line. The quickest way to reach Blairsville, the county-seat of Union, from Atlanta is to go to Blueridge on the Atlanta, Knoxville & Northern Railway, and drive across the country twenty-six miles along the beautiful valleys and over the mountains.

I was told by a number of reputable citizens that there are many people in the county who have never seen a railroad. The eastern part of the county is probably forty miles from the nearest station in one direction, and fifty miles in the other. — Youth's Companion.

A Family Quarrel, Sudanese Style

1899

Family quarrels are always tragic for those concerned, but for outsiders they occasionally contain an element of comedy. This is certainly true of sundry families of the most primitive type. We quote a single instance from "Under the African Sun," by W. J. Ansorge, a medical officer in the British service.

Imam Abdalla Effendi, a Sudanese officer in command at Kibero, had seven wives and five children. I was sent to enforce a judicial decision in favor of one of his wives, who had lately been divorced and demanded her dowry back.

He at once told me how his undutiful wife, instead of serving him with dinner, had thrown it at his head, and how, under the great provocation, he had divorced the woman. I told him I had not come to hear an argument, but simply to enforce a sentence. As a specimen of what one has to put up with from the natives, I give a few sentences of what was said on the occasion.

I: You are to refund this woman her dowry.

He: Heaven knows I have done so already.

She: It's a lie! He has only given me eight yards of silk.

He: I call Heaven to witness. I have nothing. She: It's a lie! He has cows, goats and sheep. And so the squabble went on. I insisted. Imam trembled for his best cow, and finally I suggested five sheep as an appropriate amount, and told him that if he selected the worst in his flock the woman should have the cow. Frightened at this, Imam brought out five beautiful animals, and wiping the perspiration from his face, he entreated the woman to accept them and depart. This she was graciously pleased to do. — Youth's Companion.

A Lawyer's Jokes

1899

Many lawyers are accustomed to relieve the practice of their profession with merry jests. There was one famous lawyer of Philadelphia, Judge Peters, who began his career with a joke, and is said to have ended it in the same way, although most of his jests were of a mild and gentle sort, and not at all uproarious — and they were often at his own expense.

A Philadelphia paper relates that immediately after his admission to the bar, and while still very young, Mr. Peters "hung out his shingle" in the shape of a sign in which these words were inscribed:

RICHARD PETERS, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW.
BUSINESS DONE HERE AT HALF PRICE.
(N. B. — HALF DONE.)

He averred that his sign drew him so much business at the very start that he was soon able to charge full rates and guarantee thorough attention to business. His friends, however, declare that he never did anything otherwise than thoroughly. In his last years, Judge Peters, being much interested in real estate, attempted to develop a suburban tract which he owned, and to encourage it he put up on the ground a plan of the locality, covering it, on a post, with a carefully constructed glass case. He was asked why he did that.

"Oh," he said, "if I leave it exposed every hunter who comes along will riddle it with shot — and then everybody will see through my plan!"

The scheme did not succeed, and some one advised him to have the property officially laid out, which had never been done.

"All right," said the judge, "it's time to lay it out. It's been dead long enough!" — Youth's Companion.

Meaning Changed in Translation

1899

It is difficult for those who understand but one language to realize that a translation of a work in an alien tongue is not equal to the original.

An odd experiment was made not long ago by an English writer, the result of which will be read with interest, and by many with surprise.

He wrote a four-line epigram, asked a friend to translate it into Latin, and sent the Latin to another friend with the request that he turn it back into English. This English version was turned by another into French. The process went on until the lines had passed through Greek, English, German, English, Persian, English. The first English version may be compared with the final translation:

I.
I heard that S. would write my "Life"
When I gave up my breath.
I felt that this indeed would add
A new delight to death. — G.S.L.

VI.
He — "Dear, in my song you still shall live,
Though under earth you lie!"
She — "Ah! had you now that grace to give
I should not need to die." — O.S.

—Youth's Companion.

A Cross On His Back

1899

There is a story of an envious tailor current with the French peasantry. He fancied that his neighbor, who received a pension for the loss of an arm incurred while fighting for his country, was better off than himself. Both men went to pay their rent on the same day.

"That's a lucky man," said the tailor to the landlord. "He gets well paid for his arm."

"But who would be willing to part with an arm, even if he were paid for it?" said the landlord.

"I would," declared the tailor.

"You!" cried the landlord. "Why, man, you wouldn't be willing to bear anything of the sort, no matter how much you were paid for it."

"I wish some one would try me."

"Now, see here," said the landlord, who had studied human nature, "I'll tell you what, if you'll wear even so much as a chalk-mark on your back I'll remit your rent as long as you wear it on your coat so it can be seen, the condition being that you tell no one why it is there."

"Agreed," said the tailor, eagerly. "That's an easy way to pay rent!"

So the chalk-mark in the form of a cross was made on the back of his coat, and the delighted tailor sallied forth upon the street.

Strangers and acquaintances hailed him to tell him of the mark on his back. Jokes were made at his expense, children laughed and pointed at him, and his wife annoyed him with questions, and with conjugal familiarity told him he was a fool. The usually amiable man grew surly and morose; he shunned men, women and children, and frequented back streets. Before the week was up the tailor found himself embroiled in a quarrel with his best friend, his wife had threatened to leave his house, and he considered himself miserable and ill-used.

Finally, one night he took off his coat and rubbed out the chalk-mark and said, "There! I would not wear that cross on my back another week, no, not if I could have all the money there is in Paris!" — Youth's Companion.