Chapter III (1)

As Peyton Farquhar fell straight downward through the bridge he lost consciousness and was as one already dead. From this state he was awakened--ages later, it seemed to him--by the pain of a sharp pressure upon his throat, followed by a sense of suffocation. Keen, poignant agonies seemed to shoot from his neck downward through every fiber of his body and limbs. These pains appeared to flash along well-defined lines of ramification and to beat with an inconceivably rapid periodicity. They seemed like streams of pulsating fire heating him to an intolerable temperature. As to his head, he was conscious of nothing but a feeling of fulness--of congestion. These sensations were unaccompanied by thought. The intellectual part of his nature was already effaced; he had power only to feel, and feeling was torment. He was conscious of motion. Encompassed in a luminous cloud, of which he was now merely the fiery heart, without material substance, he swung through unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a vast pendulum. Then all at once, with terrible suddenness, the light about him shot upward with the noise of a loud splash; a frightful roaring was in his ears, and all was cold and dark. The power of thought was restored; he knew that the rope had broken and he had fallen into the stream. There was no additional strangulation; the noose about his neck was already suffocating him and kept the water from his lungs. To die of hanging at the bottom of a river!--the idea seemed to him ludicrous. He opened his eyes in the darkness and saw above him a gleam of light, but how distant, how inaccessible! He was still sinking, for the light became fainter and fainter until it was a mere glimmer. Then it began to grow and brighten, and he knew that he was rising toward the surface--knew it with reluctance, for he was now very comfortable. "To be hanged and drowned," he thought, "that is not so bad; but I do not wish to be shot. No; I will not be shot; that is not fair."

He was not conscious of an effort, but a sharp pain in his wrists apprised him that he was trying to free his hands. He gave the struggle his attention, as an idler might observe the feat of a juggler, without interest in the outcome. What splendid effort!--what magnificent, what superhuman strength! Ah, that was a fine endeavor! Bravo! The cord fell away; his arms parted and floated upward, the hands dimly seen on each side in the growing light. He watched them with a new interest as first one and then the other pounced upon the noose at his neck. They tore it away and thrust it fiercely aside, its undulations resembling those of a water-snake. "Put it back, put it back!" He thought he shouted these words to his hands, for the undoing of the noose had been succeeded by the direst pang which he had yet experienced. His neck ached horribly; his brain was on fire; his heart, which had been fluttering faintly, gave a great leap, trying to force itself out at his mouth. His whole body was racked and wrenched with an insupportable anguish! But his disobedient hands gave no heed to the command. They beat the water vigorously with quick, downward strokes, forcing him to the surface. He felt his head emerge; his eyes were blinded by the sunlight; his chest expanded convulsively, and with a supreme and crowning agony his lungs engulfed a great draft of air, which instantly he expelled in a shriek.

He was now in full possession of his physical senses. They were, indeed, preternaturally keen and alert. Something in the awful disturbance of his organic system had so exalted and refined them that they made record of things never before perceived. He felt the ripples upon his face and heard their separate sounds as they struck. He looked at the forest on the bank of the stream, saw the individual trees, the leaves and the veining of each leaf--saw the very insects upon them, the locusts, the brilliant-bodied flies, the gray spiders stretching their webs from twig to twig. He noted the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass. The humming of the gnats that danced above the eddies of the stream, the beating of the dragon-flies' wings, the strokes of the water-spiders' legs, like oars which had lifted their boat--all these made audible music. A fish slid along beneath his eyes and he heard the rush of its body parting the water.

He had come to the surface facing down the stream; in a moment the visible world seemed to wheel slowly round, himself the pivotal point, and he saw the bridge, the fort, the soldiers upon the bridge, the captain, the sergeant, the two privates, his executioners. They were in silhouette against the blue sky. They shouted and gesticulated, pointing at him; the captain had drawn his pistol, but did not fire; the others were unarmed. Their movements were grotesque and horrible, their forms gigantic.

Suddenly he heard a sharp report and something struck the water smartly within a few inches of his head, spattering his face with spray. He heard a second report, and saw one of the sentinels with his rifle at his shoulder, a light cloud of blue smoke rising from the muzzle. The man in the water saw the eye of the man on the bridge gazing into his own through the sights of the rifle. He observed that it was a gray eye, and remembered having read that gray eyes were keenest and that all famous marksmen had them. Nevertheless, this one had missed.

A counter-swirl had caught Farquhar and turned him half round; he was again looking into the forest on the bank opposite the fort. The sound of a clear, high voice in a monotonous singsong now rang out behind him and came across the water with a distinctness that pierced and subdued all other sounds, even the beating of the ripples in his ears. Although no soldier, he had frequented camps enough to know the dread significance of that deliberate, drawling, aspirated chant; the lieutenant on shore was taking a part in the morning's work. How coldly and pitilessly--with what an even, calm intonation, presaging and enforcing tranquillity in the men--with what accurately measured intervals fell those cruel words:

"Attention, company! Shoulder arms! Ready! Aim! Fire!"

Farquhar dived--dived as deeply as he could. The water roared in his ears like the voice of Niagara, yet he heard the dulled thunder of the volley, and, rising again toward the surface, met shining bits of metal, singularly flattened, oscillating slowly downward. Some of them touched him on the face and hands, then fell away, continuing their descent. One lodged between his collar and neck; it was uncomfortably warm, and he snatched it out.

As he rose to the surface, gasping for breath, he saw that he had been a long time under water; he was perceptibly farther down stream--nearer to safety. The soldiers had almost finished reloading; the metal ramrods flashed all at once in the sunshine as they were drawn from the barrels, turned in the air, and thrust into their sockets. The two sentinels fired again, independently and ineffectually.

The hunted man saw all this over his shoulder; he was now swimming vigorously with the current. His brain was as energetic as his arms and legs; he thought with the rapidity of lightning.

"The officer," he reasoned, "will not make that martinet's error a second time. It is as easy to dodge a volley as a single shot. He has probably already given the command to fire at will. God help me, I cannot dodge them all!"

An appalling splash within two yards of him, followed by a loud, rushing sound, _diminuendo_, which seemed to travel back through the air to the fort and died in an explosion which stirred the very river to its deeps! A rising sheet of water, which curved over him, fell down upon him, blinded him, strangled him! The cannon had taken a hand in the game. As he shook his head free from the commotion of the smitten water he heard the deflected shot humming through the air ahead, and in an instant it was cracking and smashing the branches in the forest beyond.

"They will not do that again," he thought; "the next time they will use a charge of grape. I must keep my eye upon the gun; the smoke will apprise me--the report arrives too late; it lags behind the missile. That is a good gun."

Suddenly he felt himself whirled round and round--spinning like a top. The water, the banks, the forest, the now distant bridge, fort, and men--all were commingled and blurred. Objects were represented by their colors only; circular horizontal streaks of color--that was all he saw. He had been caught in a vortex and was being whirled on with a velocity of advance and gyration which made him giddy and sick. In a few moments he was flung upon the gravel at the foot of the left bank of the stream--the southern bank--and behind a projecting point, which concealed him from his enemies. The sudden arrest of his motion, the abrasion of one of his hands on the gravel, restored him, and he wept with delight. He dug his fingers into the sand, threw it over himself in handfuls, and audibly blessed it. It looked like diamonds, rubies, emeralds; he could think of nothing beautiful which it did not resemble. The trees upon the bank were giant garden plants; he noted a definite order in their arrangement, inhaled the fragrance of their blooms. A strange, roseate light shone through the spaces among their trunks, and the wind made in their branches the music of eolian harps. He had no wish to perfect his escape, he was content to remain in that enchanting spot until retaken.

A whiz and rattle of grapeshot among the branches high above his head roused him from his dream. The baffled cannoneer had fired him a random farewell. He sprang to his feet, rushed up the sloping bank, and plunged into the forest.

All that day he traveled, laying his course by the rounding sun. The forest seemed interminable; nowhere did he discover a break in it, not even a woodman's road. He had not known that he lived in so wild a region. There was something uncanny in the revelation.

By nightfall he was fatigued, footsore, famishing. The thought of his wife and children urged him on. At last he found a road which led him in what he knew to be the right direction. It was as wide and straight as a city street, yet it seemed untraveled. No fields bordered it, no dwelling anywhere. Not so much as the barking of a dog suggested human habitation. The black bodies of the trees formed a straight wall on both sides, terminating on the horizon in a point, like a diagram in a lesson in perspective. Overhead, as he looked up through this rift in the wood, shone great golden stars, looking unfamiliar and grouped in strange constellations. He was sure they were arranged in some order which had a secret and malign significance. The wood was full of noises, among which he distinctly heard whispers in an unknown tongue.

His neck was in pain, and lifting his hand to it, he found it horribly swollen. He knew that it had a circle of black where the rope had bruised it. His eyes felt congested; he could no longer close them. His tongue was swollen with thirst; he relieved its fever by thrusting it forward from between his teeth into the cool air. How softly the turf had carpeted the untraveled avenue--he could no longer feel the roadway beneath his feet!

Doubtless, despite his suffering, he had fallen asleep while walking, for now he sees another scene--perhaps he has merely recovered from a delirium. He stands at the gate of his own home. All is as he left it, and all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine. He must have traveled the entire night. As he pushes open the gate and passes up the wide white walk he sees a flutter of female garments; his wife, looking fresh and cool and sweet, steps down from the veranda to meet him. At the bottom of the steps she stands waiting, with a smile of ineffable joy, an attitude of matchless grace and dignity. Ah, how beautiful she is! He springs forward with extended arms. As he is about to clasp her he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him, with a sound like the shock of a cannon--then all is darkness and silence!

Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek Bridge.

THE GIANT AND PYGMY OF BOOKLAND.

The extremes of bookland which meet in the British Museum are each remarkable products of the art of book-making. Difficulties would seem to attend the perusal of either of them, though of a widely different sort. Here is to be seen the largest book in the world--an atlas of the fifteenth century. It is seven feet high. When a tall man consults it, his head is hidden as he stands between its generous leaves. Its stout binding and ponderous clasps make it seem as substantial as the walls of a room.

The smallest book in the world is a tiny "Bijou Almanac"--less than an inch square, bound in dainty red morocco, and easily to be concealed in the finger of a lady's glove.

These two extremes of the printer's art might well stand at the beginning and the end of the amazing thirty-seven miles of shelves filled with books which belong to the great English library.

The Great Southwest.

BY CHARLES M. HARVEY.

The Marvelous Development, Agricultural, Industrial, and Commercial, That
Is Now in Progress in the States of Texas and Arkansas and
the Adjoining Territories.

_Revised from_ MUNSEY'S MAGAZINE _and brought up to date by the author for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.

EDITOR'S NOTE.--In the growth of interest in the great
States west of the Mississippi River the Southwest has until
lately been commonly neglected. Gold sent men rushing first
to the mountain States. Then grain led them to the prairie
States. With the more fertile wheat lands fully occupied,
there has of late been a tendency to the Canadian Northwest.
But at the same time a remarkable development, commercial
and industrial, as well as agricultural, has been going on
in the Southwest. The progress made in Texas during the last
few years is simply astounding.

Unknown to the great mass of the people of the United States, a new empire is being planted in the Southwest. Much is written about the thousands who are crossing the Canadian frontier and settling in Manitoba, Assiniboia, and Alberta; but very little is heard about the tens of thousands from the Northwest and the Middle West, from the East and Europe, who are moving into Arkansas, Oklahoma, the Indian Territory, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.

The officials of the railways running into this latter region could tell a little of this story if they wished to. Last year, from April to November, something like a million dollars was paid into the treasuries of the Atchison, Topeka and Sante Fe, the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific, the Iron Mountain, the Missouri Pacific, the St. Louis and San Francisco, and the Missouri, Kansas and Texas railways, for fares by seekers of homes in the Southwest. About one-third of these prospectors become permanent settlers. The money put into farms, into manufacturing industries, and into business of various sorts in that region, according to the estimates of railway officials and of immigration agents, has amounted during the past twelve months to fully two hundred million dollars.

The Empire State of the Future.

Consider for a moment the State of Texas--as she was, as she is, and as she will be. Admitted to the Union in 1845, newly baptized with blood in her struggle against the Mexicans, she then contained little more than a hundred thousand inhabitants. To-day she has three and a half millions, and ranks fifth among the States, having passed Missouri since the last census. Only New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Ohio are now ahead of her. If all these States continue to advance in population at the same rate as in recent years, she will pass Ohio before 1920, Illinois by 1930, and Pennsylvania by 1940. Before 1950 she will have outstripped New York and will be the Empire State of the Union.

In spite of her more than twenty-fold increase during the past six decades, Texas is still, comparatively speaking, a sparsely settled region. She has as yet a mere fraction of the population her generous soil could support. Remember that she is larger than France or Germany, larger than two Italys or two Great Britains. When she became a State she had two square miles of land for each of her inhabitants. She now has about thirteen people to each square mile. The State of New York has one hundred and sixty people to the square mile, and is steadily growing in population. Massachusetts has three hundred and seventy-five to the square mile, and is steadily growing. Belgium has five hundred and ninety to the square mile, and is steadily growing. England has six hundred and twenty-five to the square mile, and is steadily growing. If the present ratio of increase continues, think of the incalculable growth that the coming years will bring to the great Southwestern State!

If Texas were peopled as densely as New York State, she would have forty-two million inhabitants--more than ten times what she has. Settled as closely as Massachusetts, she would have one hundred millions; as closely as England, one hundred and sixty-six millions. This American State is destined to rank with the powers of the world.

Remarkable as was the showing that Texas made at the last census, other portions of the Southwest could point to a still more phenomenal gain. While the population of the Lone Star State advanced thirty-six per cent between 1890 and 1900, that of Arizona rose one hundred and five per cent, that of the Indian Territory one hundred and seventeen per cent, and that of Oklahoma no less than five hundred and forty-four per cent in the ten years.

Texas Now Leads in Railways.

From 1870 till 1904 Illinois had a larger number of miles of railway than any other State. In 1904 Texas passed Illinois. On March 1, 1906, the great Southwestern State had approximately twelve thousand miles of main railway track, or over two hundred miles in excess of Illinois. Pennsylvania, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, and New York, in this order, stand below Illinois in railway mileage, New York's total at the same date being a little short of nine thousand miles.

In recent years, about half of the country's entire new railway mileage has been built in the Southwest. The increase of mileage between 1897 and the end of 1903 was twelve and a half per cent for the United States. It was ten per cent in the Middle States, seven per cent in the Rocky Mountain region and on the Pacific Slope, and three per cent in Ohio and Indiana. It was twenty-seven per cent in the section comprising Arkansas, Oklahoma, the Indian Territory, Texas, and New Mexico. There could scarcely be a more significant index of advancing wealth, population, and industry.

The Land of Corn and Cotton.

The Southwest at this moment is enjoying a prosperity unexampled in its annals. Last year's yield of corn, wheat, and cotton proved better than was expected early in the season, the corn crop being particularly good. Land values have doubled in much of this region during the past five years; though prices are still so much below those prevailing in Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana that the inrush from those States continues to be large.

Traveling salesmen report better business in Oklahoma, Texas, and their neighbors than in any other part of the West. More visitors came to the St. Louis Exposition from the Southwestern States and Territories than from any other part of the country, in proportion to population--which was a good test of that region's financial condition.

Before the Civil War, when the South was proclaiming cotton to be king, cotton's realm was in the Atlantic seaboard States. But Texas now produces nearly a third of the country's entire crop. Her recent average has been about three million bales; last year the yield was a little less than that. The Indian Territory and Oklahoma are beginning to figure prominently in cotton production. Cotton accounts for much of the prosperity of the Southwest. More and more the farmers of that region are raising other crops for a living, and using the proceeds of their cotton-fields as a surplus fund.

What Statehood Will Mean.

Statehood, of course, will give a new impetus to the growth of the Territories of the Southwest, attracting settlers and capital. It is practically certain that Oklahoma and the Indian Territory are shortly to become a State under the name of Oklahoma. The political future of New Mexico and Arizona is more problematical, being a subject of controversy at Washington as this is written. It is variously proposed to admit each Territory separately, to admit New Mexico while excluding her sister Territory, or to unite them into a single State, probably under the title of Arizona. The question will have been settled before this reaches the reader, unless its settlement is postponed to a later session of Congress.

The State of Oklahoma will start with a population of fully a million and a half--about equal to that of California, and considerably above that of such commonwealths as Louisiana, South Carolina, or Maryland. If New Mexico and Arizona should be united, they will have about half a million inhabitants. In area they will form the second State in the Union, inferior only to Texas.

The Growth of the Gulf Ports.

Through the growing popularity of the Gulf ports as outlets for the country's merchandise, the Southwest is bound to be a great gainer. As compared with 1904, there was a larger gain in the exports by the ports of the Gulf of Mexico in 1905 than the Atlantic ports showed.

This gain is due to several causes. More and more the great railways are establishing terminals at the Gulf outlets. From the chief productive centers of the Mississippi Valley the distances to these points are shorter than to the Atlantic, and the grades are easier. In population, productivity, and general industrial and commercial importance, the southern end of the vast Mississippi Valley is growing with disproportionate rapidity. The Southwest's pull on the population center of the United States is shown by the fact that during the decade ending with 1900 that point moved fourteen miles westward and three miles southward.

The center of the country's production of wheat and of oats, and the center of the total area in the country's farms, are now west of the Mississippi. The center of the production of cotton, now on the western verge of the State of Mississippi, and the center of the production of corn, now in the western part of Illinois, will cross the big river before 1910. More than sixty-five per cent of the country's exports already originate west of the Mississippi.

Galveston and the Panama Canal.

For all the region between the Mississippi and the continental divide of the Rockies, the Texas ports, chiefly Galveston, will be the natural outlets to the sea. In aggregate value of merchandise exports Galveston has left Charleston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Boston far behind. In the last calendar year she stood third among American ports in the value of her merchandise shipments, New York and New Orleans being the only two ahead of her. She has gained so rapidly on New Orleans in recent years, and the Crescent City led her by so slight a margin in 1905, that for the twelve months ending with next December it seems safe to predict that the Texas seaport will take second place.

Much has been said of the benefits which the Panama Canal will bring to the United States by giving us a short cut to the Pacific littoral of our own continent, to the west coast of South America, and to Asia and Australia. Undoubtedly the isthmian waterway will open new markets to Galveston and other Texas ports, and will be a powerful influence in enabling the Southwest to score further industrial and commercial conquests.

He who allows his happiness to depend too much on reason,
who submits his pleasures to examination, and desires
enjoyments only of the most refined nature, too often ends
by not having any at all.--=Chamfort.=

ALL KINDS OF THINGS.

A Strange Scene in a French Law-Court--A German Botanist's
Hunt for a Mysterious Native Tribe--The Pranks of a Famous
Joker--The Mileage of the Blood--Tiny Republics of
Europe--Average Weights of Men and Women at Various
Ages--With Other Curious and Interesting Things Drawn from
Many Sources.

_Compiled and edited for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.

HOW MELODRAMA WAS ECLIPSED BY TRUTH.

COINCIDENCES IN PARIS COURT.

Official's Attempt to Convict His Unrecognized
Son Was Interrupted by Wife
He Deserted Many Years Before.

Coincidence--chance, play a tremendous part in human history. Fate is another name for the same thing; so is luck. All these words are merely our puny euphemisms for X, the unknown quantity.

Not a day passes but the story of a remarkable coincidence is brought to public notice. A stranger incident never occurred, however, than this one, the account of which we have unearthed in an old copy of the _Chronique de Paris_.

A youth of about nineteen was brought to trial for having broken the window of a baker's shop and stolen a two-pound loaf.

The Judge--"Why did you steal the loaf?"

Prisoner--"I was driven by hunger."

"Why did you not buy it?"

"Because I had no money."

"But you have a gold ring on your finger; why did you not sell it?"

"I am a foundling; when I was taken from the bank of a ditch, this ring was suspended from my neck by a silken cord, and I kept it in the hope of thereby discovering at least who were my parents; I cannot dispose of it."

The _procureur du roi_ (king's attorney) made a violent speech against the prisoner, who was found guilty, and sentenced to imprisonment for five years. Immediately upon this, a woman, more worn down by poverty than age, came forward and made the following declaration:

"Gentlemen of the Jury: Twenty years ago a young woman was
married to a young man of the same town, who afterward
abandoned her. Poor and distressed, she was obliged to leave
her child to the care of Providence. The child has since
grown up, and the woman and the husband have grown older;
the child in poverty, the woman in misery, and her husband
in prosperity. They are all three now in court. The child is
the unfortunate prisoner whom you have just pronounced
guilty; the mother is myself; and there sits the father!"
pointing to the king's attorney.

THE FIRST SIGHT OF A WHITE FACE.

HUNTING DOWN THE SHY NEGRITO.

How Albert Grubauer Won the Confidence
of a Timid People Who Had Never
Before Seen a European.

In the mountains of northern Malacca and southern Siam dwells a tribe of dwarf Negritos who, until a few months ago, knew nothing of the white man and his ways. From their hunting grounds they could almost see the foreign ships steam through Malacca Straits. Certain conveniences obtainable only from the whites had reached them through intermediate tribes; for example, they had become well acquainted with the Swedish safety matches, yet no white man had ever come in contact with them.

A German botanist, Albert Grubauer, not long ago set out to make acquaintance with these shy people. With a few native servants he stole quietly up into the mountains. For some time their patience was rewarded only with disappointment, but at last one morning they came upon a party of the little men. The Negritos dropped the bundles of rattan they were carrying and concealed themselves in the under-growth.

The German and his men knew exactly what they were to do in such a case, says the New York _Sun_, summarizing the story from the elaborate account in a German scientific journal. They were not to go an inch in pursuit. No weapon was to be shown. One of the men who could speak a little of the native dialect aired his accomplishment in the gentlest way. The white man was their good friend and had come to see them. And what wonderful presents he had brought for his friends! The white man and his servants extended their arms, which were loaded with bright cottons, strings of beads, many colored necklaces, tobacco and other tempting articles whose merits were extolled by the spokesman with all the eloquence he could command.

They knew the natives were behind the bushes looking at the tempting sight and listening to the exhortation. Then the visitors sat down, still holding out the beautiful presents. Finally, an old man, the leader of the party, stuck his head out of the bush. He broke off a green twig and held it up. It was a sign of peace and the white man nodded to him. The ice was broken. The Negrito approached the European, they shook hands, some of the presents were distributed and the visitors became the guests of the little mountaineers. They were passed on from one group to another till Grubauer, after a considerable time, had completed his studies.

HOW THEY CONSTRUCT ENGLISH IN BELGIUM.

A REQUEST TO "TWIRL THE PAGE."

American Postage-Stamp Collectors Are
Amused, When Not Puzzled, by a
Queerly Worded Circular.

"English as she is Japanned" occasionally appears on the shop signs of Yokohama, Tokyo, and other Japanese cities, to amuse travelers from America and England. But it is not necessary to search the Orient for odd perversions of the language. As near a country as Belgium is the birthplace of the following circular, which has lately been received by many American philatelists:

"Seek you good Correspondents extra-European? Want you
Postage Stamps from Africa, America, Asia, Oceania? Sent
immediately and advertisement for the ---- Extra-European
Directory, 4,000 addresses of Philatelists, residing abroad
Europa. Work's price, book in 8 deg. stitched, ---- The
advertisements sind inserted opposite the country selected
by you ... One Justificative copy gratis."

At the bottom of the page is the further instruction to English and American readers to "Twirl the page, please."

PRACTICAL JOKING OF EUGENE VIVIER.

"A MOST GENTLEMANLY EMPEROR."

How the Calf Which This Famous Hornplayer
Put in His Apartment Became
in Time an Ox.

Henry Sutherland Edwards, a London journalist, who died a short time ago, published in 1900 a volume of "Personal Recollections" which is very much alive with anecdotes of men of the past generation. Considerable space is given to a man who is now almost unremembered--Eugene Vivier, the hornplayer, "the most charming of men and the spoiled child of nearly every court in Europe." Vivier is the man who said of Napoleon III, "He is the most gentlemanly emperor I know."

"What can I do for you?" said this gentlemanly emperor one day, when Vivier had gone to see him at the Tuileries.

"Come out on the balcony with me, sire," replied the genial cynic. "Some of my creditors are sure to be passing, and it will do me good to be seen in conversation with your majesty."

Vivier was a confirmed practical joker. Once, while riding in an omnibus, he pretended to be mad.

He indulged in the wildest gesticulations, and then, as if in despair, drew a pistol from his pocket. The conductor was called upon by acclamation to interfere, and Vivier was on the point of being disarmed when suddenly he broke the pistol in two, handed half to the conductor and began to eat the other half himself. It was made of chocolate!

Vivier could not bear to see people in a hurry. According to him, there was nothing in life worth hurrying for; and, living on the Boulevard, just opposite the Rue Vivienne, he was much annoyed at seeing so many persons hastening, toward six o'clock, to the post-office on the Place de la Bourse.

He determined to pay them out, and for that purpose bought a calf, which he took up to his apartments at night, and exhibited the next afternoon at a few minutes before six o'clock on the balcony of his second floor. In spite of their eagerness to catch the post, many persons could not help stopping to look at the calf.

Soon a crowd collected and messengers stayed their steps in order to gaze at the unwonted apparition. Six o'clock struck, and soon after a number of men who had missed the post returned in an irritated condition, and, stopping before Vivier's house, shook their fists at him. Vivier went down to them and asked the meaning of the insolence.

"We were not shaking our fists at you," replied the enraged ones, "but at that calf."

"Ah! You know him, then?" returned Vivier. "I was not aware of it."

In time Vivier's calf became the subject of a legend, according to which the animal (still in Vivier's apartments) grew to be an ox, and so annoyed the neighbors by his lowing that the proprietor of the house insisted on its being sent away. Vivier told him to come and take it, when it was found that the calf of other days had grown to such a size that it was impossible to get it down-stairs.

ARTERIES AND VEINS AS A RACE-COURSE.

MILEAGE OF THE HUMAN BLOOD.

One Little Red Corpuscle May Travel One
Hundred and Sixty-Eight Miles
in a Single Day.

The speed at which the blood circulates in the veins and arteries of a healthy man is something surprising. All day long, year in and year out, the round trips continue from the heart to the extremities and back again. The red blood corpuscles travel like boats in a stream, going to this or that station for such service as they have to perform; and the white corpuscles, the phagocytes, dart hither and thither like patrol boats, ready to arrest any contraband cargo of disease germs.

The mileage of the blood circulation reveals some astounding facts in our personal history. Thus it has been calculated that, assuming the heart to beat sixty-nine times a minute at ordinary heart pressure, the blood goes at the rate of two hundred and seven yards in the minute, or seven miles per hour, one hundred and sixty-eight miles per day and six thousand three hundred and twenty miles per year. If a man of eighty-four years of age could have one single blood corpuscle floating in his blood all his life it would have traveled in that same time five million one hundred and fifty thousand eight hundred and eight miles.

SOME MICROSCOPIC EUROPEAN REPUBLICS.

ONE IS IN THE LOWER PYRENEES.

It Lies Between France and Spain, and
Every Army in Europe Has Rumbled
Pell-Mell Past Its Very Doors.

A republic without an army--without a navy--without even one policeman--with only one square mile of territory, and a population of fifty: who can tell what its name is, and where it is located?

Stranger still, it has stood in the midst of warring nations, and yet remained as independent as the United States. It has heard the roar of Napoleon's artillery. There are famous battle-fields on the north of it and on the south. Great armies from France and Spain and England have swung past it on all sides. Vast nations have arisen and gone down again to oblivion, and yet this baby republic goes on for centuries--without growth and without death.

Goust--which is the name of this wonderful little atom among the nations of Europe--is situated in the Lower Pyrenees, between France and Spain.

For over two centuries and a half Goust has elected a president every seven years, and its independence has been recognized by both France and Spain.

There are two tiny republics in Italy--the famous little state of San Marino, and the less-known islet of Tavolara. The latter did not become a republic until recently. In 1830 the absolute dominion of the island was conceded by Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, to the Bartoleoni family, whose head became King Paul I.

He was likewise Paul the last, for on his death, in 1882, he requested that his title should be buried with him and that the kingdom be turned into a republic. A constitution was accordingly drawn up, and under its terms a president, with a council of six, is elected every six years, all adults, male or female, casting a ballot. No salary is paid either to the president or the members of his council.

WEIGHTS OF THE SEXES AT DIFFERENT AGES.

MEN ARE FATTEST AT FORTY.

Average Weights of Humanity Differ
More Markedly in Relation to Age
and Sex Than Is Supposed.

If all the men and women, boys and girls, and infants--black, white, yellow, brown or red--in all parts of the world, could be weighed on the same scales, the average weight would be nearly one hundred pounds avoirdupois. Six-pound infants and three-hundred-pound giants contribute to the average.

Upon the average, boys at birth weigh a little more and girls a little less than seven pounds. For the first twelve years the two sexes continue nearly equal in weight, but beyond that age the boys acquire a decided preponderance. Young men of twenty average 135 pounds, while the young women of twenty average 110 pounds each.

Men reach their heaviest weight at about forty years of age, when their average weight will be about 140 pounds; but women slowly increase in weight until fifty years of age, when their average weight will be 130 pounds. Taking the men and women together, their weight at full growth will then average from 108 to 150 pounds; and women from 80 to 130 pounds.

SPENDS TEN MONTHS GAZING INTO MIRROR.

WOMAN'S AVERAGE IN A LIFETIME.

German Statisticians Assert That a Man
Requires Only Seven Months for This
Employment.

German statisticians, who have long been noted for their tendency to turn their searchlights on subjects that might better be left alone, have made another little incursion into the field of woman's vanity. In short, they have been calculating what part of a woman's life is spent in looking at herself in a mirror.

She begins as a rule at six years. From six to ten she has a daily average of seven minutes. From ten to fifteen she devotes a quarter of an hour to her glass.

At twenty she certainly spends thirty minutes daily admiring herself, and when past twenty a whole hour.

The statisticians are tactful enough not to say when a woman begins to take less interest in her personal appearance, but women more than sixty years do not, they say, spend more than ten minutes daily at their mirrors. All this time reckoned up--it is a simple sum in multiplication--makes seven thousand hours, or about ten months, at the mirror.

Then they proceed to compare the time which a man--a German man--devotes to this occupation, and come to the conclusion that his average is seven months.

ANIMAL ENDURANCE PUTS MAN TO SHAME.

DESPAIR YIELDS TO COURAGE.

Animals and Birds Caught in Traps Display
Spartan Fortitude, and Toads
Imprisoned in Rocks Grow Fat.

At a time when six-day bicycle races, the so-called brutality of modern football, and endurance tests of the automobile excite such a degree of popular interest throughout the English-speaking world, it might not be amiss to glance over the shoulder occasionally at a few records made by some mute four-footed or feathered champions who have established records in fields in which Nature, herself, as umpire, read the inexorable law of necessity.

In reviewing some remarkable feats of animal endurance, the Chicago _News_ mentions the case of a dog that was dug out alive from a rabbit-hole, in the Scilly Isles, after having been lost for a fortnight.

Continuing, this same authority says that whales and eagles come at the head of creatures that longest survive the evils to which other fishes and birds are heirs. Yet a whale has been found dead from a dislocated jaw. It is also recorded that an elephant died as a result of gangrene in one of its feet.

In a Scottish deer forest not long ago a stalking party came across a magnificent golden eagle, dead, caught in a fox trap. He had been caught by the center claw of one foot and had died of exhaustion in attempting to escape.

By his side were two grouse and a partly eaten hare which other eagles had brought to sustain him in his fight for life. If a rat had been caught by his leg in a trap either he or his comrades would have bitten off the imprisoned limb and released him.

The poor despised toad is not built to stand physical violence, but he would fatten on imprisonment. Toads imprisoned in rocks for years--no one knows how many--come to light from time to time, fat and well. They have been found beneath deposits which, according to all accepted ideas of geology, must have been long ages in process of formation. Unless microbes, carried to them through the pores of the imprisoning rock, have been their fare, it is certain, according to naturalists who ought to know, that they have eaten nothing for an unthinkable period.

EGGS OF VARIOUS FOWLS MUCH ALIKE.

GOOSE'S CONTAIN MOST PROTEIN.

Despite Old Adage, It Requires About a
Pound of Eggs to Equal the Nutriment
in a Pound of Beefsteak.

The white of an egg is nearly seven-eighths water, the balance being pure albumen. The yolk is slightly less than one-half water. These figures apply approximately to the eggs of turkeys, hens, geese, ducks, and guinea-fowls.

To show how nearly alike the eggs of various domestic fowls are in respect to composition, the following figures are given by the Department of Agriculture:

Hen's egg--50 per cent water, 16 per cent "protein," 33 per cent fat.

Duck's egg--46 per cent water, 17 per cent "protein," 36 per cent fat.

Goose egg--44 per cent water, 19 per cent "protein," 36 per cent fat.

Turkey egg--48 per cent water, 18 per cent "protein," 33 per cent fat.

It should be explained that "protein" is the stuff that goes to make muscle and blood. Fat, of course, is fuel for running the body-machine. Thus it will be seen that eggs, though half, or nearly half, water, are extremely nutritious, containing all the elements required for the building and support of the human body. But the old saying that an egg contains as much nutriment as a pound of beefsteak is manifestly very far from correct. It would be nearer the fact to estimate a pound of eggs as equal to a pound of lean beefsteak in nourishing power.

A CHECK FOR THOUSANDS ON A PINE SHINGLE.

A PIONEER BANKER'S READINESS.

How Joseph C. Palmer, With Some Extraordinary
Material, Wrote for
a Large Sum.

Many different substances have been used to send communications through the mails, from bits of carved wood to leather post-cards. But banks are supposed to be more insistent upon red tape. A stamp and an address will satisfy the postal authorities; ink, paper, and indubitable signature--these are requisites in bank paper. Yet in new countries it is frequently obliged to put up with makeshifts. Here is a story of early banking in California, as related by the San Francisco _Bulletin_:

Joseph C. Palmer, a California pioneer, and at one time a banker and politician in the early days of California, was a member of the firm of Palmer, Cook & Co., a bank which did an immense business, and whose influence was felt throughout the State.

To show his readiness to adopt original methods in an emergency, it is related that once a depositor called to draw a large sum of money (twenty-eight thousand dollars) from the bank. Mr. Palmer's signature was necessary, but he had been called away to attend to some duty in a lumberyard at a distance of a mile or more.

Thither the depositor hastened and made known his wants and the necessity of having them attended to at once. Mr. Palmer could find neither pen, pencil, ink, nor paper. But without a moment's hesitation he picked up a shingle, borrowed a piece of red chalk, and with it wrote a check on the shingle in large and distinct letters for twenty-eight thousand dollars.

This was good when presented for all the money the depositor had in bank, and it proved an exceedingly good advertisement for Palmer. It gained confidence for the original genius of our first great banker, whom everybody trusted.

Robert Emmet's Speech of Vindication.

Robert Emmet, the Irish patriot, was born in Dublin in 1778,
and was executed for treason in Dublin, September 20, 1803.
A prize-winner at Trinity College, Dublin, and an eloquent
speaker before the Historical Society, he lent his young
energies to the cause of Ireland with a devotion that was as
pure and unselfish as it was rash. Traveling on the
Continent, he received from Napoleon I a promise to help
Ireland. He then returned secretly to Ireland and made plans
for a revolution. An abortive uprising occurred. Emmet, with
a mob of followers, attempted to seize Dublin Castle, but
one volley dispersed his rabble.

He fled to the Wicklow mountains, intending to escape from
the country, but he made a last visit to his sweetheart,
Miss Curran, and was captured. His speeches before the
tribunal which sentenced him to be hanged are models of
noble and eloquent dignity. Thomas Moore, Emmet's
schoolfellow and friend, inscribed to his memory a touching
poem:

Oh, breathe not his name--let it sleep in the shade,
Where cold and unhonored his relics are laid;
Sad, silent, and dark be the tears that we shed,
As the night-dew that falls on the grass o'er his head.

But the night-dew that falls, though in silence it weeps,
Shall brighten with verdure the grave where he sleeps;
And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls,
Shall long keep his memory green in our souls.

In another lyric, which begins with the line "She is far
from the land where her young hero sleeps," Moore alluded to
the sad after-life of Miss Curran. Her story was also told,
without a mention of her name, by Washington Irving, in "The
Broken Heart," which may be found in "The Sketch Book."

My Lords: What have I to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced on me, according to law? I have nothing to say that can alter your predetermination, nor that it will become me to say, with any view to the mitigation of that sentence which you are here to pronounce, and I must abide by. But I have that to say, which interests me more than life, and which you have labored to destroy. I have much to say, why my reputation should be rescued from the load of false accusation and calumny which has been heaped upon it.

Were I only to suffer death, after being adjudged guilty by your tribunal, I should bow in silence, and meet the fate that awaits me without a murmur; but the sentence of law which delivers my body to the executioner will, through the ministry of that law, labor, in its own vindication, to consign my character to obloquy: for there must be guilt somewhere--whether in the sentence of the court, or in the catastrophe, posterity must determine. The man dies, but his memory lives. That mine may not perish--that it may live in the respect of my countrymen--I seize upon this opportunity to vindicate myself from some of the charges alleged against me. When my spirit shall be wafted to a more friendly port; when my shade shall have joined the bands of those martyred heroes who have shed their blood, on the scaffold and in the field, in defense of their country and virtue, this is my hope--I wish that my memory and name may animate those who survive me, while I look down with complacency on the destruction of that perfidious government which upholds its domination by blasphemy of the Most High, which displays its power over man as over the beasts of the forest, which sets man upon his brother, and lifts his hand, in the name of God, against the throat of his fellow who believes or doubts a little more or less than the government standard--a government which is steeled to barbarity by the cries of the orphans and the tears of the widows which its cruelty has made.

I swear by the throne of heaven, before which I must shortly appear--by the blood of the murdered patriots who have gone before me--that my conduct has been, through all this peril, and all my purposes, governed only by the convictions which I have uttered, and no other view than that of the emancipation of my country from the superinhuman oppression under which she has so long, and too patiently, travailed; and that I confidently and assuredly hope (wild and chimerical as it may appear) that there are still union and strength in Ireland to accomplish this noble enterprise.

Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dishonor; let no man attaint my memory by believing that I could have engaged in any cause but that of my country's liberty and independence; or that I could have become the pliant minion of power, in the oppression or the miseries of my countrymen. I would not have submitted to a foreign oppressor, for the same reason that I would resist the domestic tyrant; in the dignity of freedom, I would have fought upon the threshold of my country, and her enemies should enter only by passing over my lifeless corpse. Am I, who lived but for my country, and who have subjected myself to the vengeance of the jealous and wrathful oppressor, and to the bondage of the grave, only to give my countrymen their rights--am I to be loaded with calumny, and not to be suffered to resent or repel it? No!--God forbid!

If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the concerns and cares of those who are dear to them in this transitory life--O ever dear and venerated shade of my departed father, look down with scrutiny on the conduct of your suffering son; and see if I have even for a moment deviated from those principles of morality and patriotism which it was your care to instil into my youthful mind, and for an adherence to which I am now to offer up my life!

My lords, you are all impatient for the sacrifice. The blood which you seek is not congealed by the artificial terrors which surround your victim; it circulates warmly and unruffled through the channels which God created for noble purposes, but which you are bent to destroy for purposes so grievous that they cry to heaven! Be yet patient! I have but a few words more to say. I am going to my silent grave; my lamp of life is nearly extinguished; my race is run; the grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom. I have but one request to ask at my departure from this world--it is the charity of its silence. Let no man write my epitaph; for, as no one who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and me repose in obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times, and other men, can do justice to my character. When my country shall take her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written! I have done.

=Mortality=. It takes twenty months to bring man from the
state of embryo, and from that of a mere animal, as he is in
his first infancy, to the point when his reason begins to
dawn. It has taken thirty centuries to know his structure;
it would take an eternity to know something of his soul: it
takes but an instant to kill him.--=Voltaire.=

The Rivals.

By BENSON J. LOSSING.

The late historian, Benson J. Lossing, whose name for a
large part of the last century was connected with historical
authorship and with wood engraving, was born in Dutchess
County, New York, February 12, 1813, and died June 3, 1891.
When a very young man he became editor of a local paper in
Poughkeepsie, and, afterward, with Barritt, under the
familiar signature of "Lossing and Barritt," did a very
large amount of the wood engraving current a generation or
more ago.