When employees are discharged from the service of a firm or company they generally receive from such employers brief letters stating when employment is to cease. But the head of a great theatrical concern once took a quite different course in discharging his actors and singers. His season had been unprofitable, but he took a little of his remaining money and paid the way of his entire troupe to West Point. The members of said troupe were Europeans. After luncheon he arose, and in the blandest manner possible said:
"Ladies and Gentlemen,—Mark the beauties of America, the greatest, grandest, and most wonderful country in the world. Behold the noble Hudson before us; observe these magnificent mountains; consider everything well. For, by my word, you will never see them again at the expense of Messrs. Blank and Company."
Of course sorrow closed the day's outing, but the actors and singers had no alternative than to engage steamer passages to Europe—which they did.
Through Historic Country on a Bike.
One cool, sunny day in the beginning of this month we took a fifty-one-mile bicycle trip out of the city. At the start our road lay along the extreme west of the city, and soon the new Harlem Ship-canal came into view. We halted on the bridge which spans it to watch a diver at work—quite a novel sight; then went on toward Yonkers. Yonkers passed, we took the open road for Dobbs Ferry. At the latter place we were informed that our road, Broadway, was first opened in 1844 under the name of Edgar's Lane.
Back of the road, under tall shady trees, stands Washington's headquarters. A monument in front relates that here the French allies under Rochambeau first joined our General and his forces; also that here Washington planned the Yorktown campaign which successfully terminated the Revolution; and that directly opposite, on the river, an English sloop fired seventeen guns in honor of Washington—the first official acknowledgment of our nation on the part of the mother-country.
From Dobbs Ferry to Irvington the road is lined with handsome suburban residences, and leads through a pretty bit of country. Four miles more, and Tarrytown is reached. In Tarrytown we saw a monument over the spot where Major André was captured in 1780. The shaft of the monument was dedicated in 1853. One side bears a relief picture in bronze of the capture; while another side has carved on it a eulogy of the three brave citizens of Westchester County who rescued their country from "imminent peril." The remainder of the stone, which is capped by a heroic figure of a Revolutionary soldier, was erected in 1880 by the Society of the Sons of the Revolution.
Directly north of Tarrytown there is a bridge. Crossing it, a sharp turn of the road brought us to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. We spent some time examining the inscriptions on some of the stones. The lower portion of the cemetery is evidently the oldest, for here repose the ashes of many who died at the close of the last century and the beginning of this. Sleepy Hollow lies on a hill. At the top, in the centre of the family plot, is buried the "American Goldsmith," whose pen made the region where he now rests famous. His grave is simplicity itself, the headstone which covers it bearing merely the inscription, "Washington Irving, born April 3, 1783, died November 28, 1859."
Simon Theodore Stern.
New York City.
Questions and Answers.
Music.—The only place to which we can refer you is the United States Marine Recruiting-office, 109 West Street, New York. That office wants boys from fourteen to sixteen to learn music. Apply for conditions. "Gold Fever" asks about gold-prospecting, especially in Alaska. The occupation has many risks, and only the hardiest of persons, not alone in body, but in determination and cheerfulness, ought to undertake it. The Alaskan field is well to the north—in the Yukon country, which is near the arctic circle. It is cold there. But perhaps the worst discomfort is mosquitoes. An odd pest for that climate, yes. But they abound there as they do in few other regions. A recent prospector says, "When a man goes up one of the creeks he must envelop his head in a mosquito-frame of cheese-cloth—their bills go through netting like a knife through tissue-paper—must wear gloves, and tie his trousers and shirt sleeves closely about his ankles and wrists." Mining is a lottery, and the young man ought to think not twice only, but a dozen times before undertaking it.