SEEDS, Etc.
THE DINGEE & CONARD CO'S
BEAUTIFUL EVER-BLOOMING
ROSES
The Only establishment making a SPECIAL BUSINESS of ROSES. 60 LARGE HOUSES for ROSES alone. We GIVE AWAY, in Premiums and Extras, more ROSES than most establishments grow. Strong Pot Plants suitable for immediate bloom delivered safely, post-paid, to any post office. 5 splendid varieties, your choice, all labeled, for $1; 12 for $2; 19 for $3; 26 for $4; 35 for $5; 75 for $10; 100 for $13. Our NEW GUIDE, a complete Treatise on the Rose, 70 pp, elegantly illustratedFREE
THE DINGEE & CONARD CO.
Rose Growers, West Grove, Chester Co., Pa.
1884—SPRING—1884.
Now is the time to prepare your orders for NEW and RARE Fruit and Ornamental
Shrubs, Evergreens,
ROSES, VINES, ETC.
Besides many desirable Novelties; we offer the largest and most complete general Stock of Fruit and Ornamental Trees in the U. S. Abridged Catalogue mailed free. Address ELLWANGER & BARRY,
Mt. Hope Nurseries,
Rochester, N. Y.
FOREST TREES.
Largest Stock in America.
Catalpa Speciosa, Box-Elder, Maple, Larch, Pine, Spruce, etc.
Forest and Evergreen Tree Seeds.
R. Douglas & Sons,
WAUKEGAN, ILL.
EVERGREENS
For everybody. Nursery grown, all sizes from 6 inches to 6 feet. Also
EUROPEAN LARCH AND CATALPA
and a few of the Extra Early Illinois Potatoes. Price List FREE. Address
D. HILL, Nurseryman, Dundee, Ill.
FOREST TREE SEEDS!
I offer a large stock of Walnuts, Butternuts, Ash, and Box Elder Seeds, suitable for planting. All the growth of 1883. I control the entire stock of the
SALOME APPLE,
a valuable, new, hardy variety. Also a general assortment of Nursery stock. Send for catalogue, circular, and price lists. Address
BRYANT'S NURSERY, Princeton, Ill.
SEED CORN.
Yellow and White Dent,
Michigan Early Yellow Dent,
Chester-White King Phillip,
Yellow Yankee, Etc., Etc.
Also the Celebrated MURDOCK CORN.
L. B. FULLER & CO.,
60 State St., Chicago.
CUTHBERT RASPBERRY PLANTS!
10,000 for sale at Elmland Farm by
L P. WHEELER, Quincy, Ill.
SPECIALTY FOR 1884.
200 bush. Onion sets, 20,000 Asparagus roots, Raspberry and Strawberry roots, and Champion Potatoes. Italian Bees a specialty. Send for price list for 1884.
SEND EARLY TO A. J. NORRIS, Cedar Falls, Iowa.
| SEEDS | Our new catalogue, best published. Free to all. 1,500 varieties, 300 illustrations. You ought to have it. Benson, Maule & Co., Philadelphia, Pa. |
A Descriptive, Illustrated Nursery Catalogue and Guide to the Fruit and Ornamental Planter. Sent free to all applicants.
WM. H. MOON,
Morrisville, Bucks Co., Pa.
| SEED CORN | NORTHERN GROWN, VERY EARLY. Also Flower Vegetable and
Field Seeds 44 New Varieties[w] of Potatoes Order early.
Catalogue Free. FRED. N. LANG, Baraboo, Wis. |
CULLS AND
WINDFALL
APPLES
Worth 50 Cents
Per Bushel Net.
SAVE
THEM
by the
"PLUMMER PATENT PROCESS."
Illustrated and Descriptive Catalogue and full Particulars mailed free.
PLUMMER FRUIT EVAPORATOR CO.,
No. 118 Delaware St.,
Leavenworth, Kan.
When you write mention the Prairie Farmer.
Will be mailed FREE to all applicants and to customers of last year without ordering it. It contains illustrations, prices, descriptions and directions for planting all Vegetable and Flower Seeds, Plants, etc. Invaluable to all.
D.M. FERRY & CO.
DETROIT, Mich.
J. B. ROOT & CO.'S
Illustr'd Garden Manual of VEGETABLE and FLOWER SEEDS, ready for all applicants. Market Gardeners
SEEDS
a Specialty. Write for Wholesale Price List.
SENT FREE
ROCKFORD, ILLINOIS.
FLORAL GIFTS!
Magnifies 1,000 times
50 CARDS SOUVENIRS OF FRIENDSHIP Beautiful designs, name neatly printed, 10c. 11 PACKS, this Elegant Ring, Microscopic Charm and Fancy Card Case, $1. Get ten of your friends to send with you, and you will obtain these THREE PREMIUMS and your pack FREE. Agent's Album of Samples, 25cts.
NORTHFORD CARD CO., Northford, Conn.
ONION SEED FOR SALE.
Early Red Globe, Raised In 1883.
JAMES BAKER, Davenport, Iowa.
NEW CHOICE VARIETIES OF
SEED POTATOES
A Specialty. Twenty-five kinds. Will not be under-sold. Satisfaction guaranteed.
Send postal, with full address, for prices.
BEN F. HOOVER, Galesburg, Illinois.
FOR SALE One Hundred Bushels of Native Yellow Illinois Seed Corn, grown on my farm, gathered early and kept since in a dry room. Warranted to grow. Price $2 per bu. H.P. HUMPHREYS & SON, Sheffield, Ill.
| Onion Sets | Wholesale & Retail J. C. VAUGHN, Seedsman, 42 LaSalle St., CHICAGO, Ill. |
MARYLAND FARMS.—Book and Map free, by C. E. SHANAHAN, Attorney, Easton, Md.
NOW Is the time to subscribe for The Prairie Farmer. Price only $2.00 per year is worth double the money.
embraces every desirable Novelty of the season, as well as all standard kinds. A special feature for 1884 is, that you can for $5.00 select Seeds or Plants to that value from their Catalogue, and have included, without charge, a copy of Peter Henderson's New Book, "Garden and Farm Topics," a work of 250 pages, handsomely bound in cloth, and containing a steel portrait of the author. The price of the book alone is $1.50. Catalogue of "Everything for the Garden," giving details, free on application.
PETER HENDERSON & CO.
SEEDSMEN & FLORISTS,
35 & 37 Cortlandt St., New York.
GARDEN SEEDS.
DIRECT FROM THE FARM AT THE LOWEST WHOLESALE RATES.
SEED CORN that I know will grow; White Beans, Oats, Potatoes, ONIONS, Cabbage, Mangel Wurzel, Carrots, Turnips, Parsnips, Celery, all of the best quality. Catalogue with directions of cultivation FREE.
SEEDS FOR THE CHILDREN'S GARDEN. 25 per cent. discount. Let the children send for my Catalogue AND TRY MY SEEDS. They are WARRANTED GOOD or money refunded.
Address JOSEPH HARRIS, Moreton Farm, Rochester, N.Y.
SEEDS
ALBERT DICKINSON,
Dealer in Timothy, Clover, Flax, Hungarian, Millet, Red Top, Blue Grass, Lawn Grass, Orchard Grass, Bird Seeds, &c.
POP CORN.
⎧115, 117 & 119 Kinzie St.
Warehouses
⎨
⎩104, 106, 108 & 110 Michigan St.
Office. 115 Kinzie St., CHICAGO, ILL.
FAY GRAPES
Currant HEAD-QUARTERS.
ALL BEST, NEW AND OLD.
SMALL, FRUITS AND TREES. LOW TO DEALERS AND PLANTERS. Stock First-Class. Free Catalogues.
GEO. S. JOSSELYN, Fredonia, N. Y.
Remember that $2.00 pays for The Prairie Farmer one year, and the subscriber gets a copy of The Prairie Farmer County Map of the United States, free! This is the most liberal offer ever made by any first-class weekly agricultural paper in this country.
For nothing lovelier can be found
In woman than to study household good.—Milton.
How He Ventilated the Cellar.
The effect of foul air upon milk, cream, and butter was often alluded to at the Dairymen's meeting at DeKalb. A great bane to the dairyman is carbonic acid gas. In ill ventilated cellars it not only has a pernicious effect upon milk and its products, but it often renders the living apartments unhealthful, and brings disease and death to the family. In the course of the discussion Mr. W. D. Hoard, President of the Northwestern Dairymen's Association, related the following incident showing how easily cellars may be ventilated and rendered fit receptacles for articles of food:
"In the city of Fort Atkinson, where I do reside, Mr. Clapp, the president of the bank told me that for twenty years he had been unable to keep any milk or butter or common food of the family in the cellar. I went and looked at it, and saw gathered on the sleepers above large beads of moisture, and then knew what was the matter. The cellar was full of foul air. I said to him, 'Prof. Wilkins is here and will tell you in a few moments how to remedy this difficulty, and make your cellar a clean and wholesome apartment of your house.' I went down and got the professor, and he went up and looked at the cellar, and he says, 'for ten dollars I will put you in possession of a cellar that will be clean and wholesome.' He went to work and took a four-inch pipe, made of galvanized iron, soldered tightly at the joints, passing it down the side of the cellar wall until it came within two inches of the bottom of the cellar, turned a square elbow at the top of the wall, carried it under the house, under the kitchen, up through the kitchen floor and into the kitchen chimney, about four feet above where the kitchen stovepipe entered. You know the kitchen stove in all families is in operation about three times a day. The heat from this kitchen stove acting on the column of air in that little pipe caused a vacuum, and nature abhors a vacuum, and the result was that in twenty-four hours that little pipe had drawn the entire foul air out of the cellar, and he has now a perfect cellar. I drop this hint to show you that it is within easy reach of every one, for the sum of only about ten dollars, to have a perfectly ventilated cellar. This carbonic acid gas is very heavy. It collects in the cellar and you can not get it out unless you dip it out like water, or pump it out; and it becomes necessary to apply something to it that shall operate in this way."
This is a matter of such importance, and yet so little thought about, that we had designed having an illustration made to accompany this article, but conclude the arrangement[x] is so simple that any one can go to work and adapt it to the peculiar construction of his own house, and we hope thousands will make use of Mr. Hoard's suggestion.
An Old Roman Wedding.
As far as the nuptial ceremony itself was concerned, the Romans were in the habit of celebrating it with many imposing rites and customs, some of which are still in use in this country. As soon, therefore, as the sooth-sayer had taken the necessary omens, the ceremony was commenced by a sheep being sacrificed to Juno, under whose special guardianship marriage was supposed to rest. The fleece was next laid upon two chairs, on which the bride and bridegroom sat, over whom prayers were then said. At the conclusion of the service the bride was led by three young men to the home of her husband. She generally took with her a distaff and spindle filled with wool, indicative of the first work in her new married life—spinning fresh garments for her husband. Five torches were carried to light her.
The threshold of the house was gaily decorated with flowers and garlands; and in order to keep out infection it was anointed with certain unctuous perfumes[y]. As a preservative, moreover, against sorcery and evil influences, it was disenchanted by various charms. After being thus prepared, the bride was lifted over the threshold, it being considered unlucky for her to tread across it on first entering her husband's house. The musicians then struck up their music, and the company sang their "Epithalamium." The keys of the house were then placed in the young wife's hands, symbolic of her now being mistress. A cake, too, baked by the vestal virgins, which had been carried before her in the procession from the place of the marriage ceremony to the husband's home, was now divided among the guests. To enhance the merriment of the festive occasion, the bridegroom threw nuts among the boys, who then, as nowadays enjoyed heartily a grand scramble.
Mr. Smith's Stovepipe.
Once upon a time there lived a certain man and wife, and their name—well, I think it must have been Smith, Mr. and Mrs. John Smith. One chilly day in October Mrs. Smith said to her husband: "John, I really think we must have the stove up in the sitting-room." And Mr. Smith from behind his newspaper answered "Well." Three hundred and forty-six times did Mr. and Mrs. Smith repeat this conversation, and the three hundred and forty-seventh time Mr. Smith added: "I'll get Brown to help me about it some day."
It is uncertain how long the matter would have rested thus, had not Mrs. Smith crossed the street and asked neighbor Brown to come over and help her husband set up a stove, and as she was not his wife he politely consented and came at once.
With a great deal of grunting, puffing, and banging, accompanied by some words not usually mentioned in polite society, the two men at last got the stove down from the attic. Mrs. Smith had placed the zinc in its proper position, and they put the stove way to one side of it, but of course that didn't matter.
Then they proceeded to put up the stovepipe. Mr. Smith pushed the knee into the chimney, and Mr. Brown fitted the upright part to the stove. The next thing was to get the two pieces to come together. They pushed and pulled, they yanked and wrenched, they rubbed off the blacking onto their hands, they uttered remarks, wise and otherwise.
Presently it occurred to Mr. Smith that a hammer was just the thing that was needed, and he went for one. Mr. Brown improved the opportunity to wipe the perspiration from his noble brow, totally oblivious of the fact that he thereby ornamented his severe countenance with several landscapes done in stove blacking. The hammer didn't seem to be just the thing that was needed, after all. Mr. Smith pounded until he had spoiled the shape of the stovepipe, and still the pesky thing wouldn't go in, so he became exasperated and threw away the hammer. It fell on Mr. Brown's toe, and that worthy man ejaculated—well, it's no matter what he ejaculated. Mr. Smith replied to his ejaculation, and then Mr. Brown went home.
Why continue the tale? Everybody knows that Mr. Smith, after making a great deal of commotion, finally succeeded in getting the pipe into place, that he was perfectly savage to everybody for the rest of the day, and that the next time he and Brown met on the street both were looking intently the other way.
But there is more to tell. It came to pass in the course of the winter that the pipe needed cleaning out. Mrs. Smith dreaded the ordeal, both for her own sake and her husband's. It happened that the kitchen was presided over by that rarest of treasures, a good-natured, competent hired girl. This divinity proposed that they dispense with Mr. Smith's help in cleaning out the pipe, and Mrs. Smith, with a sigh of relief, consented. They carefully pulled the pipe apart, and, holding the pieces in a horizontal position that no soot might fall on the carpet, carried it into the yard.
After they had swept out the pipe and carried it back they attempted to put it up. That must have been an unusually obstinate pipe, for it steadily refused to go together. The minds of Mrs. Smith and her housemaid were sufficiently broad to grasp this fact after a few trials; therefore they did not waste their strength in vain attempts, but rested, and in an exceedingly un-masculine way held a consultation. The girl went for a hammer, and brought also a bit of board. She placed this on the top of the pipe, raised her hammer, Mrs. Smith held the pipe in place below, two slight raps, and, lo, it was done.
See what a woman can do. This story is true, with the exception of the names and a few other unimportant items. I say, and will maintain it, that as a general thing a woman has more brains and patience and less stupidity than a man. I challenge any one to prove the contrary.—N. E. Homestead.
Progress.
In the course of a lecture on the resources of New Brunswick, Professor Brown, of the Ontario Agricultural College, told the following story by an Arabian writer:
"I passed one day by a very rude and beautifully situated hamlet in a vast forest, and asked a savage whom I saw how long it had been there. 'It is indeed an old place,' replied he. 'We know it has stood there for 100 years as the hunting home of the great St. John, but how long previous to that we do not know.'
"One century afterward, as I passed by the same place, I found a busy little city reaching down to the sea, where ships were loading timber for distant lands. On asking one of the inhabitants how long this had flourished, he replied: 'I am looking to the future years, and not to what has gone past, and have no time to answer such questions.'
"On my return there 100 years afterward, I found a very smoky and wonderfully-populous city, with many tall chimneys, and asked one of the inhabitants how long it had been founded. 'It is indeed a mighty city,' replied he. 'We know not how long it has existed, and our ancestors there on this subject are as ignorant as ourselves.'
"Another century after that as I passed by the same place, I found a much greater city than before, but could not see the tall chimneys, and the air was pure as crystal; the country to the north and the east and the west, was covered with noble mansions and great farms, full of many cattle and sheep. I demanded of a peasant, who was reaping grain on the sands of the sea-shore, how long ago this change took place? 'In sooth, a strange question!' replied he. 'This ground and city have never been different from what you now behold them.' 'Were there not of old,' said I, 'many great manufacturers in this city?' 'Never,' answered he, 'so far as we have seen, and never did our fathers speak to us of any such.'
"On my return there, 100 years afterward, I found the city was built across the sea east-ward into the opposite country; there were no horses, and no smoke of any kind came from the dwellings.
"The inhabitants were traveling through the air on wires which stretched far into the country on every side, and the whole land was covered with many mighty trees and great vineyards, so that the noble mansions could not be seen for the magnitude of the fruit thereof.
"Lastly, on coming back again, after an equal lapse of time, I could not perceive the slightest vestige of the city. I inquired of a very old and saintly man, who appeared to be under deep emotion, and who stood alone upon the spot, how long it had been destroyed. 'Is this a question,' said he, 'from a man like you? Know ye not that cities are not now part of the human economy? Every one travels through the air on wings of electricity, and lives in separate dwellings scattered all over the land; the ships of the sea are driven by the same power, and go above or below as found to be best for them. In the cultivation of the soil,' said he, 'neither horse nor steam-power are employed; the plow is not known, nor are fertilizers of any more value in growing the crops of the field. Electricity is carried under the surface of every farm and all over-head like a net; when the inhabitants require rain for any particular purpose, it is drawn down from the heavens by similar means. The influence of electricity has destroyed all evil things, and removed all diseases from among men and beasts, and every living thing upon the earth. All things have changed, and what was once the noble city of my name is to become the great meeting place of all the leaders of science throughout the whole world.'"
A Family Jar.
"Yes," said Mrs. Gunkettle, as she spanked the baby in her calm, motherly way, "it's a perfect shame, Mr. G., that you never bring me home anything to read! I might as well be shut up in a lunatic asylum."
"I think so, too," responded the unfeeling man.
"Other people," continued Mrs.[z] Gunkettle, as she gave the baby a marble to swallow, to stop its noise, "have magazines till they can't rest."
"There's one," said Mr. G., throwing a pamphlet on the table.
"Oh, yes; a horrid old report of the fruit interests of Michigan; lots of news in that!" and she sat down on the baby with renewed vigor.
"I'm sure it's plum full of currant news of the latest dates," said the miserable man. Mrs. Gunkettle retorted that she wouldn't give a fig for a whole library of such reading, when 'apple-ly the baby shrieked loud enough to drown all other sounds, and peace was at once restored.
Mouce Traps and Other Sweetemetes.
The following advertisement is copied from the Fairfield Gazette of September 21, 1786, or ninety-seven years ago, which paper was "printed in Fairfield by W. Miller and F. Fogrue, at their printing office near the meeting house."
Beards taken, taken of, and Registurd
by
ISSAC FAC-TOTUM
Barber, Peri-wig maker, Surgeon,
Parish Clerk, School Master,
Blacksmith and Man-midwife.
SHAVES for a penne, cuts hair for two pense, and oyld and powdird into the bargain. Young ladys genteeely Edicated; Lamps lited by the year or quarter. Young gentlemen also taut their Grammer langwage in the neatest manner, and great care takin of morels and spelin. Also Salme singing and horse Shewing by the real maker! Likewice makes and Mends, All Sorts of Butes and Shoes, teches the Ho! boy and Jewsharp, cuts corns, bleeds. On the lowes Term—Glisters and Pur is, at a peny a piece. Cow-tillions and other dances taut at hoam and abrode. Also deals holesale and retale—Pirfumerry in all its branchis. Sells all sorts of stationary wair, together with blacking balls, red herrins, ginger bread and coles, scrubbing brushes, trycle, Mouce traps, and other sweetemetes, Likewise. Red nuts, Tatoes, sassages and other gardin stuff.
P. T. I teches Joggrefy, and them outlandish kind of things——A bawl on Wednesday and Friday. All pirformed by Me.
ISAAC FAC-TOTUM.
A SONNET ON A BONNET.
A film of lace and a droop of feather,
With sky-blue ribbons to knot them together;
A facing (at times) of bronze-brown tresses,
Into whose splendor each furbelow presses;
Two strings of blue to fall in a tangle,
And chain of pink chin In decorous angle;
The tip of the plume right artfully twining
Where a firm neck steals under the lining;
And the curls and braids, the plume and the laces.
Circle about the shyest of faces,
Bonnet there is not frames dimples sweeter!
Bonnet there is not that shades eyes completer!
Fated is he that but glances upon it,
Sighing to dream of that face in the bonnet.
—Winnifred Wise Jenks.
Little Pleasantries.
A Sweet thing in bonnets: A honey bee.
It will get so in Illinois, by and by, that the marriage ceremony will run thus: "Until death—or divorce—do us part."
He had been ridiculing her big feet, and to get even with him she replied that he might have her old sealskin sacque made over into a pair of ear-muffs.
A Toronto man waited until he was 85 years old before he got married. He waited until he was sure that if he didn't like it he wouldn't have long to repent.
How a woman always does up a newspaper she sends to a friend, so that it looks like a well stuffed pillow, is something that no man is woman enough to understand.
"Yes, my dear," said Mrs. Ramsbothom, speaking of her invalid uncle, "the poor old gentleman has had a stroke of parenthesis, and when I last saw him he was in a state of comma."
"Uncle, when sis sings in the choir Sunday nights, why does she go behind the organ and taste the tenor's mustache?" "Oh, don't bother me, sonny; I suppose they have to do it to find out if they are in tune."
A couple of Vassar girls were found by a professor fencing with broomsticks in a gymnasium. He reminded the young girls that such an accomplishment would not aid them in securing husbands. "It will help us keep them in," replied one of the girls.
A clergyman's daughter, looking over the MSS. left by her father in his study, chanced upon the following sentence: "I love to look upon a young man. There is a hidden potency concealed within his breast which charms and pains me." She sat down, and blushingly added: "Them's my sentiments exactly, papa—all but the pains."
"My dear," said a sensible Dutchman to his wife, who for the last hour had been shaking her baby up and down on her knee: "I don't think so much butter is good for the child." "Butter? I never give my Artie any butter; what an idea!" "I mean to say you have been giving him a good feed of milk out of the bottle, and now you have been an hour churning it!"
We wish to keep the attention of wheat-raisers fixed upon the Saskatchewan variety of wheat until seeding time is over, for we believe it worthy of extended trial. Read the advertisement of W. J. Abernethy & Co. They will sell the seed at reasonable figures, and its reliability can be depended upon.
I don't believe you ever
Knew any one so silly
As the girl I'm going to tell about—
A little girl named Dilly,
Dilly-dally Dilly,
Oh, she is very slow,
She drags her feet
Along the street,
And dilly-dallies so!
She's always late to breakfast
Without a bit of reason,
For Bridget rings and rings the bell
And wakes her up in season.
Dilly-dally Dilly,
How can you be so slow?
Why don't you try
To be more spry,
And not dilly-dally so?
'Tis just the same at evening;
And it's really quite distressing
To see the time that Dilly wastes
In dreaming and undressing.
Dilly-dally Dilly
Is always in a huff;
If you hurry her
Or worry her
She says, "There's time enough."
Since she's neither sick nor helpless,
It is quite a serious matter
That she should be so lazy that
We still keep scolding at her.
Dilly-dally Dilly,
It's very wrong you know,
To do no work
That you can shirk,
And dilly-dally so.
Uncle Jim's Yarn.
Old "Uncle Jim," of Stonington, Conn., ought to have a whole drawer to himself, for nothing short of it could express the easy-going enlargement of his mind in narratives. Uncle Jim was a retired sea captain, sealer, and whaler, universally beloved and respected for his lovely disposition and genuine good-heartedness, not less than for the moderation of his statements and the truthful candor of his narrations. It happened that one of the Yale Professors, who devoted himself to ethnological studies, was interested in the Patagonians, and very much desired information as to the alleged gigantic stature of the race. A scientific friend, who knew the Stonington romancer, told the Professor that he could no doubt get valuable information from Uncle Jim, a Captain who was familiar with all the region about Cape Horn. And the Professor, without any hint about Uncle Jim's real ability, eagerly accompanied his friend to make the visit. Uncle Jim was found in one of his usual haunts, and something like the following ethnological conversation ensued:
Professor—They tell me, Capt. Pennington, that you have been a good deal in Patagonia.
Uncle Jim—Made thirty or forty voyages there, sir.
Professor—And I suppose you know something about the Patagonians and their habits?
Uncle Jim—Know all about 'em, sir. Know the Patagonians, sir, all, all of 'em, as well as I know the Stonington folks.
Professor—I wanted to ask you, Captain, about the size of the Patagonians—whether they are giants, as travelers have reported?
Uncle Jim—No, sir—shaking his head slowly, and speaking with the modest tone of indifference—no, sir, they are not. (It was quite probable that the Captain never had heard the suggestion before). The height of the Patagonian, sir, is just five feet nine inches and a half.
Professor—How did you ascertain this fact, Captain?
Uncle Jim—Measured 'em, sir—measured 'em. One day when the mate and I were ashore down there, I called up a lot of the Patagonians, and the mate and I measured about 500 of them, and every one of them measured five feet nine inches and a half—that's their exact height.
Professor—That's very interesting. But, Captain, don't you suppose there were giants there long ago, in the former generations? All the travelers say so.
Uncle Jim—Not a word of truth in it, sir—not a word. I'd heard that story and I thought I'd settle it. I satisfied myself there was nothing in it.
Professor—But how could you know that they used not to be giants? What evidence could you get? Mightn't the former race have been giants?
Uncle Jim—Impossible, sir, impossible.
Professor—But how did you satisfy yourself?
Uncle Jim—Dug 'em up, sir—dug 'em up speaking with more than usual moderation. I'd heard that yarn. The next voyage, I took the bo'sen and went ashore; we dug up 275 old Patagonians and measured 'em. They all measured exactly five feet nine inches and a half; no difference in 'em—men, women, and all ages just the same. Five feet nine inches and a half is the natural height of a Patagonian. They've always been just that. Not a word of truth in the stories about giants, sir.—Harper's Magazine.
Puddin' Tame's Fun.
"Nice child, very nice child," observed an old gentleman, crossing the aisle and addressing the mother of the boy who had just hit him in the eye with a wad of paper. "How old are you, my son?"
"None of your business," replied the youngster, taking aim at another passenger.
"Fine boy," smiled the old man, as the parent regarded her offspring with pride. "A remarkably fine boy. What is your name, my son?"
"Puddin' Tame!" shouted the youngster, with a giggle at his own wit.
"I thought so," continued the old man, pleasantly. "If you had given me three guesses at it, that would have been the first one I would have struck on. Now, Puddin', you can blow those things pretty straight, can't you?"
"You bet!" squealed the boy, delighted at the compliment. "See me take that old fellow over there!"
"No, no!" exclaimed the old gentleman, hastily. "Try it on the old woman I was sitting with. She has boys of her own, and she won't mind."
"Can you hit the lady for the gentleman, Johnny?" asked the fond parent.
Johnny drew a bead and landed the pellet on the end of the old woman's nose. But she did mind it, and, rising in her wrath, soared down on the small boy like a blizzard. She put him over the line, reversed him, ran him backward till he didn't know which end of him was front, and finally dropped him into the lap of the scared mother, with a benediction whereof the purport was that she'd be back in a moment and skin him alive.
"She didn't seem to like it, Puddin'," smiled the gentleman, softly. "She's a perfect stranger to me, but I understand she is a matron of truants' home, and I thought she would like a little fun; but I was mistaken."
And the old gentleman sighed sweetly as he went back to his seat.
The Alphabet.
The discovery of the alphabet is at once the triumph, the instrument and the register of the progress of our race. The oldest abecedarium in existence is a child's alphabet on a little ink-bottle of black ware found on the site of Cere, one of the oldest of the Greek settlements in Central Italy, certainly older than the end of the sixth century B. C. The Phœnician alphabet has been reconstructed from several hundred inscriptions. The "Moabite Stone" has yielded the honor of being the most ancient of alphabetic records to the bronze plates found in Lebanon in 1872, fixed as of the tenth or eleventh century, and therefore the earliest extant monuments of the Semitic alphabet. The lions of Nineveh and an inscribed scarab found at Khorsabad have furnished other early alphabets; while scarabs and cylinders, seals and gems, from Babylon and Nineveh, with some inscriptions, are the scanty records of the first epoch of the Phœnician alphabet. For the second period, a sarcophagus found in 1855, with an inscription of twenty-two lines, has tasked the skill of more than forty of the most eminent Semitic scholars of the day, and the literature connected with it is overwhelming. An unbroken series of coins extending over seven centuries from 522 B. C. to 153 A. D., Hebrew engraved gems, the Siloam inscription discovered in Jerusalem in 1880, early Jewish coins, have each and all found special students whose successive progress is fully detailed by Taylor. The Aramæan alphabet lived only for seven or eight centuries; but from it sprang the scripts of five great faiths of Asia and the three great literary alphabets of the East. Nineveh and its public records supply most curious revelations of the social life and commercial transactions of those primitive times. Loans, leases, notes, sales of houses, slaves, etc., all dated, show the development of the alphabet. The early Egyptian inscriptions show which alphabet was there in the reign of Xerxes. Fragments on stone preserved in old Roman walls in Great Britain, Spain, France, and Jerusalem, all supply early alphabets.
Alphabets have been affected by religious controversies, spread by missionaries, and preserved in distant regions by holy faith, in spite of persecution and perversion. The Arabic alphabet, next in importance after the great Latin alphabet, followed in eighty years the widespread religion of Mohammed; and now the few Englishmen who can read and speak it are astonished to learn that it is collaterally related to our own alphabet, and that both can be traced back to the primitive Phœnician source.
Greece alone had forty local alphabets, reduced by careful study to about half a dozen generic groups, characterized by certain common local features, and also by political connection.
Of the oldest "a, b, c's" found in Italy, several were scribbled by school-boys on Pompeian walls, six in Greek, four in Oscan, four in Latin; others were scratched on children's cups, buried with them in their graves, or cut or painted for practice on unused portions of mortuary slabs. The earliest was found as late as 1882, a plain vase of black ware with an Etruscan inscription and a syllabary or spelling exercise, and the Greek alphabet twice repeated.
What a Child Can Do.
"Pa, I have signed the pledge," said a little boy to his father, on coming home one evening; "will you help me keep it?"
"Certainly," said the father.
"Well, I have brought a copy of the pledge; will you sign it, papa?"
"Nonsense, nonsense, my child! What could I do when my brother-officers called—the father had been in the army—if I was a teetotaler?"
"But do try, papa."
"Tut, tut! why you are quite a little radical."
"Well, you won't ask me to pass the bottle, papa?"
"You are quite a fanatic, my child; but I promise not to ask you to touch it."
Some weeks after that two officers called in to spend the evening.
"What have you to drink?" said they.
"Have you any more of that prime Scotch ale?"
"No," said he; "I have not, but I shall get some. Here, Willie, run to the store, and tell them to send some bottles up."
The boy stood before his father respectfully, but did not go.
"Come, Willie; why, what's the matter? Come, run along." He went, but came back presently without any bottles.
"Where's the ale, Willie?"
"I asked them for it at the store, and they put it upon the counter, but I could not touch it. O pa, pa! don't be angry; I told them to send it up, but I could not touch it myself!"
The father was deeply moved, and turning to his brother-officers, he said:
"Gentlemen, do you hear that? You can do as you please. When the ale comes you may drink it, but not another drop shall be drank in my house, and not another drop shall pass my lips. Willie, have you your temperance pledge?"
"O pa! I have."
"Bring it, then."
And the boy was back with it in a moment. The father signed it and the little fellow clung round his father's neck with delight. The ale came, but not one drank, and the bottles stood on the table untouched.
Children, sign the pledge, and ask your parents to help you keep it. Don't touch the bottle, and try to keep others from touching it.