Chapter IV: Part 4

A French artist has drawn, with true French taste, the
Lord's Supper, with the table ornamented with tumblers
filled with cigar-lighters; and, as if to crown the list of
these absurd and ludicrous anachronisms, the Garden of Eden
has been drawn with Adam and Eve in all their primeval
simplicity and virtue, while near them, in full costume, is
seen a hunter with a gun, shooting ducks.

Another famous mixture of periods occurs in a picture of the
Crucifixion, by Fra Angelico. In the foreground are a
Dominican monk, a bishop with a crozier, a mitered abbot,
and a man holding up a crucifix.

A PIN SCRATCH LED TO NELSON'S VICTORY.

DISCOVERY OF THE FRENCH FLEET.

The Noting of the Distress of a French
Maid by Sir John Acton Had a
Strange Result.

The good points of pins have been generally appreciated, but never did a pin point to a greater result than the one that made possible Nelson's great victory of the Nile on August 1 and 2, 1798.

It was at this fight that Nelson, with his usual intrepidity, forced a passage with half of his fleet of fifteen vessels between a small island, near Aboukir in Egypt, and the French line of battle, while the other half attacked the enemy in front, completely defeating the French fleet and capturing or sinking thirteen of its seventeen ships.

The part that the pin played in the story came about in this way:

Sir John Acton, then commander-in-chief of the land and sea
forces of Naples, happened to be in his wife's dressing-room
at the moment she was preparing for dinner.

Lady Acton's French maid was also in the room, and was so
startled at receiving a letter from her brother, a sailor
in the French navy, whom she had believed to be dead, that
she ran a pin into her mistress's flesh.

Apologizing for her carelessness, the maid stated the cause
of her surprise. With carefully suppressed eagerness Sir
John Acton offered to read the letter while the maid
continued her duties. The maid gladly consented.

Having read the letter, the commander-in-chief left the
house in search of Lord Nelson, who had in vain been seeking
the French fleet. He found him and imparted to him the
contents of the letter. It gave all the information the
admiral had so long endeavored to obtain.

Setting sail immediately, Nelson came up with the French,
and the victory of the Nile was the result.

HOW COLUMBUS WAS MISLED BY PARROTS.

MISSED DISCOVERY OF MAINLAND.

The Fate of the Most Important Exploring
Expedition in History Was Decided
by a Flight of Birds.

A flight of birds, coupled with a sailor's superstition, robbed Columbus of the honor of discovering the continent.

When the great Italian navigator sailed westward over the unknown Atlantic, he expected to reach Zipangu (Japan). After several days' sail from Gomera, one of the Canary Islands, he became uneasy at not discovering Zipangu, which, according to his reckonings, should have been two hundred and sixteen nautical miles more to the east.

After a long discussion he yielded to the opinion of Martin
Alonzo Pinzon, the commander of the Pinta, and steered to
the southwest.

Pinzon was guided in his opinion solely by a flight of
parrots, which took wing in that direction. It was good luck
to follow in the wake of a flock of birds when engaged upon
a voyage of discovery--a widespread superstition among
Spanish seamen of that day--and this change in the great
navigator's course curiously exemplifies the influence of
small and apparently trivial events in the world's history.

If Columbus had held to his course he would have entered
the Gulf Stream, have reached Florida, and then probably
have been carried to Cape Hatteras and Virginia.

MORE NUTRITION IN GRASS THAN POTATOES.

VALUES OF STOCK-RAISING FOODS.

One Hundred Pounds of Hay Produce a
Better Effect Than Six Times That
Weight of Beets.

The relative values of different foods in stock-raising are shown by the following table, in which the given number of pounds of the various articles named produces the same effect as one hundred pounds of hay:

Beets, white 669 pounds
Turnips 469 "
Rye Straw 429 "
Clover, red, uncured 373 "
Clover, red, dry 88 "
Potatoes 350 "
Oat Straw 317 "
Alfalfa 89 "
Buckwheat 78.5 "
Corn 62.5 "
Oats 59 "
Barley 58 "
Rye 53.5 "
Wheat 44.5 "
Oilcake, linseed 43 "

Hay, it will be seen, is rated as being more nutritious than potatoes or beets.

GREAT FORCE USED TO WRITE LETTERS.

ENERGY SPENT IN LITTLE WAYS.

Every Time the Typewriter Key Is
Pressed, Several Ounces of Manual
Power Are Used.

If a man realized at the end of the day how much energy he had expended in normal and almost unconscious physical activities, he would be thankful for the chance to sleep. The writer who pushes his pen over the paper for several hours at a stretch would doubtless think he had worked hard if he had excavated a well in the same time; yet it is believed that the sum of the energy he uses daily in writing would be enough easily to dig a well. The following figures are quoted from _Answers_:

Our daily expenditure of force is simply enormous, but it
seldom strikes us that we keep on expending force without
noticing it. The stoker of a locomotive, when on duty, is
said to shovel coal at the rate of about one ton an hour.
Presuming that he works at this rate forty hours per week,
it is obvious that in the course of a single year he lifts
over two thousand tons of coal.

Typewriting is not hard work, yet let us see how much energy
it takes to write forty letters on a machine. Every time a
key is pressed to print a letter a few ounces of force is
used, and every time the carriage is returned to begin a new
line between one and four pounds of force is requisitioned.
Forty letters, averaging twenty-six lines each, would mean
about twenty thousand pounds of force expended. Perhaps this
never occurred to you before.

TRIALS OF AN EDITOR IN OLD CALIFORNIA.

SPANISH TYPE HAS ITS FAILINGS.

Publishers of the State's First Newspaper
Found It Difficult to Express Themselves
Typographically.

Makeshifts of pioneer journalism have taxed the ingenuity of many a great mind. Writing for the _Bookman_, J.M. Scanland tells the story of early California newspapers. The first paper, the _Californian_, was published at Monterey by Robert Semple, a Kentuckian, who acted as editor, and the Rev. Walter Colton, a navy chaplain, who was then stationed at Monterey, as typesetter and pressman. These two men brought out their first issue on August 15, 1846. Semple went to the village of Yerba Buena (now called San Francisco) a short time later, and during his absence Colton printed the following paragraph:

Our Alphabet.--Our type is a Spanish font picked up here in
a cloister, and has no vv's [w] in it, as there is none in
the Spanish alphabet. I have sent to the Sandvvich Islands
for this letter; in the mean time vve must use tvvo v's. Our
paper at present is that used for vvrapping cigars; in due
time vve will have something better. Our object is to
establish a press in California, and this vve shall in all
probability be able to accomplish. The absence of my partner
for the last three months and my duties as alcalde here have
deprived our little paper of some of those attentions vvhich
I hope it vvill hereafter receive.

VVALTER COLTON.

ODDEST JAIL IN THE UNITED STATES.

IT IS CUT FROM THE SOLID ROCK.

Eternal Cliffs Form the Safe Walls That
Confine Convicts at Clifton, County
Seat of Graham County, Arizona.

Troglodytes of history have lived in their caves from choice. At Clifton, Graham County, Arizona, are a number of unwilling troglodytes who are kept within their rocky home by officers of the law. Clifton is one of the centers of copper mining in Arizona. In one sense it may be inferred that the queer jail has its advantages, for the temperature of that part of Arizona frequently rises in summer as high as one hundred and twenty degrees in the shade.

It comprises four large apartments, hewn in the side of a
hill of solid quartz rock. The entrance to the jail is
through a box-like vestibule, built of heavy masonry, and
having three sets of gates of steel bars.

Here and there, in the rocky walls, holes have been blasted
for windows, and in these apertures a series of massive bars
of steel have been fitted firmly in the rock.

The floor of the rock-bound jail is of cement, and the
prisoners are confined wholly in the larger apartments. In
some places the wall of quartz about the jail is fifteen
feet thick.

Some of the most desperate criminals on the southwest border
have been confined in the Clifton jail, and so solid and
heavy are the barriers to escape that no one there has ever
attempted a break of freedom. The notorious "Black Jack" was
there for months.

FROM THE LIPS OF ANANIAS.

Some Interesting Results Attained by Narrators Who Talked or Wrote While
Seated Between Fancy and Fact and Who Might Have Been More Happy
"Were T'other Dear Charmer Away."

THE MEETING OF EXTREMES.

In a hunter's camp different men began to unfold their yarns. Among others a Kentuckian said he once shot a buck in such a way that the bullet, after hitting the right ear, passed through the heel of the right hind foot. Jeering and laughter greeted the story.

"Brown," called the Kentuckian to his companion, "tell these fellows if what I say is not as true as gospel!"

"Why, yes," replied the other, "I saw it myself. You see, gentlemen, when he pulled the trigger of his rifle, the buck was just scratching his head with his hoof."

Then he whispered to his friend:

"That was a narrow escape. Another time don't lie so far apart."--_New York Times._

A DAKOTA CYCLONE.

A southeast wind hurled tumble weeds and Russian thistle through the air at a twenty-nine-mile gait, and the gait went too. Many stoves were drawn out of the chimneys; the strong wind blew in at the neck of a bottle and blew the bottom out. Nebraska wagon tracks passed over the town by the thousands.

The strain on the wire fences was so great that staples were drawn out of the north side of the posts. A kerosene barrel standing in front of a grocery store was sucked out of the bunghole and turned inside out, like a lady's slipper. The dirt blew from a post-hole in the hillside and left the hole sticking out of the ground about two feet with no dirt around it.--_Estelline (South Dakota) Bell._

NATURAL CHEMISTRY.

Senator Butt, of the Arkansas Senate, had just finished one of his droll stories about feeding morphine to a pointer pup and watching him as he indulged in the ensuing pipe-dream occasioned by the opium, when Representative De Rossit, known as one of the most veracious men in the State, said:

"Senator, your dog reminds me of my hen. Needing quinine one day, as we often do in the bottom, I mixed up an ounce of the drug with molasses and rolled it out into pills. Leaving the stuff to dry on the front porch, I went into the house.

"Returning, I saw the last of my pills swallowed by my hen.

"Of course I thought her silly head would burst wide open. She simply commenced cackling, and has been laying two eggs per day ever since. And do you know, senator, those eggs are the best chill tonic on the market. One of them taken internally will knock the spots from any case of malaria in the State, and shaking ague can't stand before 'em an hour after they are eaten. I keep that hen dosed; I do, and----"--_Memphis Commercial Appeal._

A DISJOINTED NARRATIVE.

I have read with much interest the discussion about the joint snake, and propose to give my experience with it. I have been familiar with the "joint," or, as we call it here, the "hook-and-eye," snake since I was a boy.

It is a snake of a brownish-yellow color, and grows to be about three feet long, but at any stage of its growth it can be unjointed or unhooked. It is fastened together by a hook-and-eye arrangement, exactly like those used on ladies' dresses.

On one occasion while out taking a walk I saw a joint snake crawling slowly along the top of an old stone wall; taking my cane, I gave it a smart jerk about the middle of the body, and it immediately unhooked into sixteen pieces, each about two inches long.

Taking the head part and putting it in my hat for safe keeping, I gathered up the joints, and laying them along in a row in just the reverse order in which they came apart, with all the eyes in contact, and also the hooks, I took the head part out of my hat, and laid it alongside of the middle of the row of joints.

It immediately began to move along the line, and without a moment's hesitation backed up to the first joint, when a little snap was heard and the first joint was hooked on. It repeated the process, and in the course of sixty-five seconds by the watch it was again a complete snake.

Again catching it I took out the ninth joint and also the fourteenth, and changed places with them, putting the ninth in place of the fourteenth and then let the snake go on.

He gave one or two wriggles, but finding there was something wrong commenced examining its joints from his head down, and when he came to the ninth took it out and laid it on one side, then crawling along the rest of his joints until he came to where the fourteenth ought to be, but where I had put the ninth, took that out and hooked it on to the eighth and then put the fourteenth back in its place, all of which was done in an incredibly small space of time.

Again I separated him, mixing the joints up promiscuously and hooking them together, having some difficulty in hooking the tail joint on to the head part, as the hook and eye did not get very well.

Letting the snake loose, in one hundred and fifteen seconds he was again properly jointed and I let him go.--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._

OFF THE FARM.

"Yes, sir," said the Dakota man, as a crowd of agriculturists seated themselves around a little table, "yes, sir; we do things on rather a sizable scale. I've seen a man start out in the spring and plow a furrow until fall. Then he turned around and harvested back. We have some big farms up there, gentlemen. A friend of mine owned one on which he had to give a mortgage, and the mortgage was due on one end before they could get it recorded on the other. You see it was laid off in counties."

There was a murmur of astonishment, and the Dakota man continued:

"I got a letter from a man who lives in my orchard just before I left home, and it had been three weeks getting to the dwelling house, although it had traveled day and night."

"Distances are pretty wide up there, ain't they?" inquired one.

"Reasonably, reasonably," replied the Dakota man. "And the worst of it is, it breaks up families so. Two years ago I saw a whole family prostrated with grief. Women yelling, children howling, and dogs barking. One of my men had his camp truck packed on seven four-mule teams, and he was going around bidding everybody good-by."

"Where was he going?" asked a Gravesend man.

"He was agoing half-way across the farm to feed the pigs," replied the Dakota man.

"And did he ever get back to his family again?"

"It isn't time for him yet," replied the Dakota man.--_Detroit Free Press._

A SHELL'S STRANGE EXPLOIT.

The late Major Merrill, of Lawrence, was well known in military circles all over the country. When the G.A.R. encampment was held in Kansas City, some years ago, the soldiers of the East and those of the West vied with each other in telling stories of the war. After listening to some pretty tough yarns, Major Merrill related the following, and carried off the honors:

"You know, boys, that I served throughout the war in a Massachusetts light battery. During the fighting at Malvern Hill our ammunition was running low, and I was sent to the rear for powder.

"I had an open express wagon and four mules. I got about a ton and a half of loose powder into the wagon and started for the front. About half-way back to my battery a rebel shell landed right in the middle of the powder, and, would you believe it, it burned up a bushel and a half before I could stamp out the fire!"--_Boston Herald._

VITALITY OF A DUCK.

A correspondent at West Point writes as follows:

"Some time since, while out ducking on Dividing Creek, a tributary of Chesapeake Bay, a hen duck, known as the dipper species, came within easy range of my gun. I discharged both barrels, completely covering and breaking her wing with No. 4 shot.

"Being determined to capture the game, a friend and myself secured a boat and went in pursuit. Getting again in gunshot reach, I discharged two more barrels, killing the duck to all appearances.

"We picked her up and removed the feathers and entrails, cut her head off and put her in the water for the purpose of washing the blood off, when, to our astonishment, she swam away, giving us another pursuit, which was successful after some trouble. I can prove this."--_Richmond Dispatch._

JUNE, THE MONTH OF BATTLES.

In the Season of Roses Have Been Fought Some of the Most Sanguinary and
Decisive Contests of Modern Times--It Was a Period Fatal to Charles I
and Napoleon.

Though June is frequently called the "Month of Roses," it might with just as much propriety be designated the "Month of Battles." In it have been fought some of the most memorable battles of history. Among these were Naseby, Bunker Hill, Marengo, and Waterloo. In the following list will be found the names of some of the more important engagements that have been fought in this month:

June.

1. Lord Howe defeated and almost
destroyed the French fleet 1794

The British frigate Shannon captures
the American frigate Chesapeake,
off Boston 1813

McClellan defeated the Confederates
at Fair Oaks, Virginia 1862

2. The Reign of Terror began 1793

3. Admiral Blake's decisive defeat of
Van Tromp 1653

Lee defeated Grant at Cold Harbor 1864

Hobson sank the Merrimac in
Santiago Harbor 1898

4. Kleber defeated the Austrians at
Altenkirchen 1796

5. Pretoria taken by Lord Roberts 1900

6. Capture of Memphis, Tenn. 1862

7. Capture of Mamelon earthworks,
at Sebastopol, by the French 1855

Siege of Jerusalem begun by the
Crusaders 1099

10. The Russians defeated Napoleon
at Hielsburg 1807

Russia captured Khiva 1873

The Confederates defeated the
Federals at Brice's Cross-Roads,
Mississippi 1864

12. The British defeat the Boers at
Diamond Hill 1900

14. Final defeat of Charles I, at
Naseby, by Cromwell 1645

Battle of Marengo 1800

Napoleon's decisive overthrow of
the Russians at Friedland 1807

Napoleon's defeat of the Austrians
at Raab 1809

15. Siege of Saragossa begun 1808

16. Napoleon's defeat of Bluecher at
Ligny 1815

Marshal Ney's indecisive attack
on the British at Quatre Bras 1815

The Federals under Grant attacked
the Confederate lines in
front of Petersburg, Virginia;
fighting continued throughout
the remainder of the month 1864

17. The battle of Bunker Hill 1775

18. Frederick the Great's defeat by the
Austrians at Kolin 1757

War declared against England by
the United States 1812

The battle of Waterloo 1815

Battle between the French under
Grouchy and the Prussians at
Wavre 1815

19. Sinking of the Alabama by the
Kearsarge 1864

21. Encounter between the Leopard
and the Chesapeake 1807

Wellington's decisive victory over
the French at Vittoria, in Spain 1813

23. Clive's great victory at Plassey,
near Calcutta 1757

24. The Austrians defeated the Italians
at Custozza 1866

First engagement of the Santiago
campaign, at Las Guasimas 1898

The Scots under Robert Bruce
defeated the English at Bannockburn 1314

25. Battle of Little Bighorn--The
Custer Massacre 1876

26. The Federals under Fitzjohn Porter
defeated the Confederates
under Longstreet at Mechanicsville,
Virginia 1862

27. Peter the Great defeated Charles
XII at Pultowa 1709

George II defeated the French at
Dettingen 1743

Indecisive battle between the Federals
under McClellan and the
Confederates under Lee at
Gaines Mill, Virginia 1862

The Confederates under Johnston
defeated Federals under Sherman
at Kenesaw Mountain, Georgia 1864

28. The American sloop Wasp captured
the British sloop Reindeer 1814

Capture of Silistria by the Russians 1829

Battle of Fort Moultrie, Charleston,
South Carolina 1776

Washington defeated Clinton in
the battle of Monmouth 1778

How They Got On In The World.

Brief Biographies of Successful Men Who Have Passed Through
the Crucible of Small Beginnings and Won Out.

SUBDUED ARMED PUPILS.

Young Teacher, Destined to Be a Famous
Statesman, Enforced Discipline in the
Class-Room.

James G. Blaine's early youth was spent on the banks of the Monongahela, where he received the rudiments of his education from his father, an extremely cultivated man. A common-school course followed, and in due time he entered Washington College, from which he was graduated at the age of eighteen.

A few years later he became a teacher of mathematics in a college in Kentucky, where he gained the respect of his neighbors by quelling, unarmed, a serious rebellion against his authority, notwithstanding the fact that his opponents were armed with guns and knives.

It was in Maine, however, as half owner of the _Kennebec Journal_, in Augusta, and later of the Portland _Advertiser_, at a salary of two thousand dollars a year, that he first entered the political field. Possessed of a remarkable memory for facts, and having the minutiae of local politics at his tongue's end, he was handicapped by a dislike for stump-speaking. One of his first speeches was made under especially trying circumstances.

A celebrated orator billed to speak on campaign issues had failed to put in an appearance; and Blaine, being present, was forced by some of his Augusta friends to ascend the platform. Nervous and entirely unprepared, he began, however, by telling a story. He likened his situation to that of a farmer, who had a horse for which he asked five hundred dollars. A horse-trader offered him seventy-five dollars for the animal.

"It's a devil of a drop," said the farmer; "but I'll take it."

This anecdote caused much laughter, and at once put him in close touch with his audience.

From that time the "Man from Maine" began to be heard of. His political advance was rapid. The fact that he was not born a New Englander was not a detriment to him, for, as one of his contemporaries said, "There was a sort of Western dash about him that took with us Down-Easters." In 1862 he was elected to Congress, and began his long and distinguished career of public service at Washington.

BUILT HUDSON TUNNEL.

Resourceful Engineer Also Completed the
Bore Under the East River from
Manhattan to Brooklyn.

Charles M. Jacobs, the builder of the Pennsylvania Railroad tunnel under the Hudson River, is an Englishman, fifty-six years of age. His father wished him to go to Cambridge University, but the youth preferred to go to work, and he did so when sixteen years old.

He entered the office of a ship-building and engineering firm in Hull, England, and there he became thoroughly grounded in mechanical work and drafting. He was an earnest worker, and he established a precedent in the office by getting work to do that was usually assigned to the head men. It was not customary then to place such reliance on young men.

"Jacobs can do it," his employers were accustomed to say when surprise was expressed at his being placed in command of big operations. "He knows what is to be done, and he knows how to handle his men."

When he was twenty-one he went to India as the firm's representative in some big engineering work, and he did so well that he was sent to China, Australia, and the European continent. He helped build several tunnels in London, and in 1889 Austin Corbin, then president of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, brought him to this country to superintend several important changes that were to be made in the road.

Jacobs liked this country so well and was so favorably impressed by the outlook for big engineering work that he has remained here, and has become a citizen.

His First American Success.

He made his first notable success in the construction of the East River gas tunnel. It was a difficult piece of work, for instead of the river-bed of solid rock that was supposed to exist, it was found that the bed was full of fissures through which flowed the mud and water of the river. The contractors wished to give the bore up and try one fifty feet deeper. Jacobs refused to do it, and the board of directors of the company, after listening to his arguments, sided with him.

"Can it be done at the present depth?" he was asked.

"Give me the men and plant, and I'll put it through myself," he answered.

The contractors sued the company and produced a score of experts to prove that the tunnel could not possibly be built in the way Jacobs wanted it built.

While the courts were considering the question Jacobs kept right on digging. He had to encounter difficulties that would have turned most engineers back. But in the end he pushed the bore through, and the courts, with this evidence before them, decided against the contractors. He built the tunnel big enough for trolley-cars in case it might be wanted for that purpose, and he constructed it so solidly that none of the silt or water of the East River has been able to filter in.

Another Difficult Task.

In 1877 an attempt was made to tunnel the Hudson River, but the work moved along fitfully. In July, 1880, an accident that resulted in the death of twenty men temporarily put an end to it. Two more attempts were made, and again the work was abandoned. A fourth company revived the scheme, and made Jacobs the engineer. The work was just in his line, for it gave him the opportunity to overcome big obstacles and to carry through a project that would be of big benefit to humanity.

It was an appalling task, for the course was through shifting sand, mud, and rock, and before it was completed it was necessary to make more than nine thousand blasts. All these were in the tunnel direct, under the mud and sand and fifty or sixty feet of river water. Yet the undertaking resulted in few accidents, for Jacobs knew how to take care of his men, and he has established a reputation for never sending one where he will not go himself.

In his early days of wandering in India, China, and Australia he had learned how to accomplish much by simple means. It was simply learning to do what he called the obvious thing. But the simple, little, obvious thing is often the hardest for most people, including engineers, to see.

How He Met an Emergency.

In the building of one of the trolley tunnels under the Hudson, a careless opening of the doors of the shield--the cylindrical cup pushed along at the head of the bore, and by means of which all the digging is done--caused the flooding of one hundred feet of the tunnel. It would be as hopeless a task to try to bail that mixture of mud and water out as it would be to drain the Hudson River and the bay adjacent thereto. Jacobs saved the situation by a very simple expedient.

The cup defender Reliance had just been stripped of her canvas, and Jacobs got this big spread of sail, sank it flat over the flooded part of the tunnel, weighted it with a mixture of clay and stone, and thus mended the bottom of the river so that it didn't continue to leak in mud and water. It was so very simple that few people would have thought of it.

He completed his first Hudson tunneling work on the 11th of March, 1905, and all he said when the work was done and he had walked through was:

"There isn't much to tell, except that Henry Hudson was the first man who crossed over the river and Jacobs was the first man who crossed under it."

WAS INSULTED BY POE.

Romantic Life-Story of Poor Boy Who
Heard the Voice of the Muse in
an Iron Foundry.

Richard Henry Stoddard, who won fame as a poet, critic, and journalist, fought his way upward through conditions that would have discouraged most men. His parents were miserably poor and his father died while the boy was still young. His mother was of a restless, wandering disposition, and when Richard was ten years old she left her New England home and brought him to New York. "Here," he says, "we landed at or near the Battery one bright Sunday morning late in the autumn of 1835, and wandered up Broadway, which was swarming with hogs."

His step-father's brother-in-law kept an oyster bar, and he at once put the boy to work learning to open oysters, attending to customers, and keeping the place clean. The work and the surroundings were rough, and Stoddard was so manifestly unfitted for his work that he was finally taken away from the bar and sent into the streets to sell matches. After a few months of this he was placed in a cheap second-hand clothing store, but here his earnings were not sufficient to satisfy his family, and though he was of frail physique his mother apprenticed him to a blacksmith.

"I was put to work at once on the anvil," he says, "and before the day was over my right hand was so blistered that I had to open its fingers with my left hand, and detach them from the handle of the sledge hammer that I wielded."

He was eighteen years old when he was sent to work in an iron foundry, and he remained at this occupation several years, studying and writing incessantly at night. One poem, "Ode on a Grecian Flute," was accepted by the _Broadway Journal_, a little weekly edited by Edgar Allan Poe. Later the originality of the poem was doubted. Stoddard went to assure Poe that it was original. He found him asleep in an office chair. On being awakened and told by Stoddard that the poem was original, Poe jumped up and yelled:

"You lie! Get out before I throw you out."

Stoddard fled, and the poem was not published. The last glimpse he ever had of Poe was one cold and stormy autumn day. Stoddard was hurrying along Broadway, well sheltered by an umbrella, when he noticed Poe, thinly clad, crouching against the side of a building in an attempt to find refuge from the storm. Stoddard walked around the corner and paused. He wanted to go back and offer Poe the shelter of his umbrella, but he did not dare. The following summer Poe died in Baltimore. Afterward Stoddard wrote the first genuinely fair and appreciative life of him.

A MIGHTY ELECTRICIAN.

Steinmetz Is Not Yet Forty Years Old and
Has Taken Out Over One Hundred
Patents.

Charles P. Steinmetz, chief expert at the Schenectady Electrical Works, was born in Breslau, Germany. Though he is only forty years old, he has already taken out more than one hundred patents for electrical devices, and some of these are of immense value.

His father was a railroad employee, and on German railroads the pay is small and the duties exacting. But the father managed to send his son to the University of Breslau, and here he distinguished himself in mathematics and chemistry, and spent his leisure time in chemical and mechanical experiments at home.

At that time the German government was making an effort to stamp out socialism, and laws of unusual severity were passed against those who advocated it. Bismarck, who headed the anti-socialist movement, saw to it that the laws were vigorously enforced. The natural result was a reaction against the conduct of the government, and the universities became permeated with socialism.

Steinmetz, then a boy of seventeen, was drawn into the work of socialistic agitation, and he became the editor of a paper during a period when the real editor was in prison for _lese majeste_.

The paper was finally suppressed, and Steinmetz's connection with it was reported to the university authorities. Then he received information that a warrant was out for his arrest and he fled to Zurich, Switzerland. Here he supported himself by tutoring, and by writing for electrical magazines and for a daily paper.

The articles for the daily paper paid him two dollars a week. His income was pitifully small, but he managed to save a few dollars, and, meeting with a young American from San Francisco, he decided to relinquish his ambition to become a professor of mathematics in some German university. He then emigrated to America.

Lands as a Poor Immigrant.

Steinmetz and his American friend landed in New York with just twenty dollars between them. They hired a small room in Brooklyn, where they started housekeeping together. Steinmetz had acquired this knack during his Zurich days, and through his first year in America he lived with his friend in one room, doing their cooking and washing on a gas-stove, and at the same time conducting electrical and chemical experiments.

Steinmetz had with him when he arrived in this country a couple of letters of introduction, one to a man who manufactured electrical and chemical supplies on a small scale. This letter was the first presented, but on visiting the place Steinmetz was unable to see the manufacturer. He was, however, told to call again. He called again, and was once more put off with a polite invitation to return. After two more calls Steinmetz realized that he was an unwelcome visitor. He thought it over for a few moments, then laughed and, turning to the clerk, said:

"Oh, well, all right. He'll have to call on me, now, if he wants me--and I think he will."

Eventually the manufacturer did want Steinmetz, but never got him, for Steinmetz took the second letter of introduction to Rudolph Eickemeyer, head of the Eickemeyer Elevator Company, of Yonkers. Eickemeyer sized the young man up, and at once put him to work as a draftsman, at twelve dollars a week.

It was while in Yonkers that Steinmetz drew attention to his ability by a series of articles in an American electrical magazine on alternating currents. This was followed by the first of the inventions and improvements that laid the foundation of Steinmetz's substantial fortune.

From the first Steinmetz had taken a lively interest in America and everything American, and the views for which he was forced to fly from Europe were so modified that they agreed with the new conditions in which he found himself. Speaking of them, he said:

"In this country they would be theories without any chance of practical application, and there is no use in a theory merely for theory's sake."

When the Eickemeyer concern was taken over by the General Electric Company Steinmetz went with it and was hailed as its greatest asset. He was first sent to the Thomson-Houston Company--the Lynn, Massachusetts, branch of the General Electric--and there he worked out the first successful plan for transmitting power and light, on a large scale, over long distances, and for controlling currents.

Incidentally he made several important discoveries and improvements in the arc and incandescent lights and in electric motors.

A Mathematical Wonder.

In addition to being a thorough electrician, Steinmetz is a mathematical wonder, and there are few tricks of the lightning calculator that he cannot duplicate and go one better. It had been his intention to become a professor of mathematics, and doubtless he would have done so had he remained in Germany. The salary and fees of the professorship would have given him at best a couple of thousand dollars a year. His work in this country pays him a big salary, and this is supplemented by a large income from patents.

Personally he is one of the most popular men in the business. "The professor," as he is generally known, has been generous in offering assistance to young electricians, and he has patiently spent his time in aiding in the development of their ideas. He has shown the same skill in bringing the best out of men that he has used to such effect in handling machinery.

THE FIRST ROTHSCHILD.

Founder of the House of Rothschild Had
Vainly Attempted to Reconcile Himself
to Being a Rabbi.

Mayer Amschel Bauer, founder of the house of Rothschild, was born in the Ghetto of Frankfort, Germany. This section was set off for the Jews with barriers, and at night these barriers were closed and no one was permitted to leave the street. His father was a merchant in poor circumstances, and it was the dream of his life to make the son a rabbi. So he sent him to study with the rabbis learned in the law of Moses. The studies continued a few weeks, and then young Bauer rebelled. He would go no more. His father entreated and threatened. It was useless, for the boy took the few gulden he possessed and set up as a money-lender.

There, on the sidewalk of the squalid Judengasse, or street of the Jews, began the power of the richest and most famous banking family in the world.

The business under the sign with the red shield prospered so that the owner dropped his own name and adopted that of his emblem, Rothschild. Around him there were men equally prosperous. Mayer Amschel Rothschild was not only a lender and changer of money, but he was also a student of coins. The Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel was also an enthusiastic student of numismatics, so when he heard of the collector in the Judengasse he made his acquaintance. This acquaintance enabled Rothschild to step out from among his fellows and begin operations on a larger and different scale. He became a negotiator of national loans, and his success brought him into prominence with the nations fighting against Napoleon.

Napoleon invaded Hesse-Cassel, and the Landgrave fled, after entrusting Rothschild with his money and treasures. At the risk of being shot Rothschild buried the treasure in his own garden, and it remained there until Napoleon swept on and the Landgrave returned to his home. Then Rothschild restored the property, adding five per cent interest on the money.

The first Rothschild remained to the end of his life in the old house in the narrow Ghetto. Even when he had monarchs in his grip, when he was parceling out Europe for the financial operations of his sons, he continued there, and, when he died, his wife, the mother of all the Rothschilds, remained there, and in the forties of the last century, when the old woman was approaching her ninetieth year, it was one of the sights of Frankfort to see her carriage, resplendent in crimson velvet and decorated with monograms, drive through the street and stop before the dilapidated house that was her home.

GOT SIXTY CENTS A DAY.

The Head of the American Locomotive
Works Began His Career as a Machinist's
Apprentice.

Albert J. Pitkin, president of the American Locomotive Works, began his business life as a machinist's apprentice at the age of sixteen. His wages were sixty cents a day, and the little shop in which he was employed turned out one small stationary engine each week. He is now the head of the American Locomotive Company, which manufactures three thousand locomotives a year, or ten for each working day, and is capitalized at fifty million dollars. Seven men were employed in the shop where he learned his trade. He has now control of sixteen thousand men.

Pitkin's father was in poor circumstances, and at twelve years of age the boy went to live with his grandfather at Granville, Ohio. The grandfather was a cabinet-maker and wood-turner, and before long he had taught his grandson many of the secrets of the trade and had developed in the youth an understanding and appreciation of what machinery could be made to do.

"There is no use using hand tools if you can make a machine do the work," said the boy.

Then, from an old spinning-wheel which he found in the attic of the house, he made a machine that sawed wood and saved labor in the cabinet-shop. He also constructed other machines out of wood, and the cleverness with which they were fashioned and adapted to the needs of the little shop enabled him and his grandfather to turn out an increased amount of work.

At sixteen years of age it became necessary for young Pitkin to choose some trade, and he selected that of machinist. He was regularly indentured for three years, and received sixty cents a day for the first year, ninety cents a day for the second, and one dollar and twenty-five cents a day for the third. His father was disabled by ill health during this period, and the greater part of the son's meager earnings went to help support the family.

Economy and Hard Study.

All this time he was forced to live on a few cents a day, and the only money he spent besides the cost of his board and clothing was what went for books on mechanics and material for mechanical drawing. When his apprenticeship was finished he was not only a thorough machinist, but he was also a mechanical draftsman.

His next position was in the locomotive repair-shops of the Cleveland, Akron and Columbus Railroad. The year he spent here was one of hard work and hard study, for he continued his drawing more assiduously than before. At the end of the year he obtained a place in the drawing department of the Baldwin Locomotive Works, having prepared himself for the stiff examination given there without one bit of outside assistance.

He spent five years with the Baldwin company, worked up from the lowest position in the drawing department to the highest, and during that five years he introduced nearly one hundred improvements in locomotive construction.

The training he had received in a small machine-shop was repaying him with interest, and his determination to make machines do as much work as possible was bearing fruit. Wherever he could, he introduced automatic machines.

He was only twenty-five years old when he was promoted to the position of chief draftsman in the Rhode Island Locomotive Works.

"Rather a responsible position for a young man," one of his friends suggested dubiously.

"Not if the young man knows his business," replied Pitkin. "And I think I do. I've thought of nothing else for the last nine years."

Became Superintendent.

After two years in Providence, he went to the Schenectady Locomotive Works, and in two years he became superintendent of the shops. Here he was free to put into operation many of the ideas he could not use before, while he was working in subordinate positions, and it was largely due to him that the Schenectady company became one of the most prosperous in the country.

When the American Locomotive Company was organized, Pitkin was made vice-president, for it was recognized that he was probably the most thoroughly equipped man in the business. There was not a department with which he was not acquainted, nor a mechanical operation in the shops that he could not perform.

Two years ago Samuel R. Callaway, president of the company, died, and Pitkin was unanimously chosen as his successor. It took him thirty years to climb to that height, and the thirty years were marked by hundreds of improvements in locomotive construction and by wonderful records in turning out locomotives against time.

There were many mechanics who started with him and had an equal chance, but they were soon distanced in the race.

"They were content," he said, "with a steady, plodding, uniform way of doing things, and while they were methodical and obtained good results, I tried to figure out some way of getting better results and getting them more easily. I took chances on doing a thing in other than the prescribed way, but often the new way was the better way."

Little Glimpses of the 19th Century.

The Great Events in the History of the Last One Hundred Years, Assembled
so as to Present a Nutshell Record.

[_Continued from page 260._]

FOURTH DECADE.

1831

Political disorder in Greece becoming increasingly serious, the President, Capo d'Istria, attempted restrictive measures which were violently resented. His opponents burned the Greek fleet at Hydra to prevent it falling into his hands. On October 9 Capo d'Istria was assassinated; his brother succeeded him and headed the government for a short time.

To suppress the Polish rebellion, Russia sent an army of one hundred and twenty thousand men into Poland, under Diebitsch. A bloody but indecisive campaign followed. The Russians were defeated in several battles, but Polish expeditions into Lithuania and Volhynia failed completely; and cholera, which had spread from India, devastated both armies, General Diebitsch being among the first to die. The Polish struggle for independence, however, was a hopeless one. The Russians received assistance from Prussia and Austria, while the Poles ruined their cause by their internal dissensions. On September 7 Paskievitch, who had succeeded Diebitsch, took Warsaw, and the rebellion was crushed. The Polish language was forbidden in the schools, and all who had taken part in the rising were ruthlessly punished.

In Italy, a revolt of Modena and Bologna against Papal rule was put down by Austria, Metternich insisting on extirpating all attempts at reform; but France, which had approved Austrian intervention, compelled both the Papal States and Austria to grant a few concessions to the people. The disputed status of Belgium was settled by a conference in London, the country being separated from Holland and established as a kingdom, with Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg as king. Luxembourg was claimed by both Holland and Belgium, and a Dutch army advanced to support the pretensions of the former. France thereupon sent an expedition into Belgium to defend her neighbor and protege; but the other powers compelled both forces to withdraw, the question of Luxembourg being left for future settlement.

The rulers of the German states sought to stamp out liberalism, and there began a heavy emigration, many of the emigrants coming to America. Riots in England because the House of Lords rejected a bill to reform the election system, which the Commons had passed; the houses of several of the opponents of reform were burned. Trade in England unsettled, and cholera was added to destitution.

In the United States, general prosperity prevailed, and there was a heavy westward migration. The Black Hawk War was fought to suppress a rebellion of the Sacs and Foxes on the upper Mississippi. The abolitionist movement progressed; Garrison's _Liberator_ was founded. France agreed to pay the United States five million dollars for damage to shipping during the Napoleonic wars. Schoolcraft discovered the source of the Mississippi. Chicago organized as a town. New York the first of the States to abolish imprisonment for debt.

Alizarin, the foundation of anilin dyes, was separated by Robiquet and Colin, of Paris, and Michael Faraday made his great discovery of magneto-electric induction. Deaths: James Monroe; G.W.F. Hegel, German philosopher; Barthold Niebuhr, German historian; Mrs. Siddons, English actress; James Northcote, English painter.

=RULERS--United States, Andrew Jackson; Great Britain, William IV; France, Louis Philippe; Spain, Ferdinand VII; Prussia, Frederick William III; Russia, Nicholas I; Austria, Francis I; the Papacy vacant at beginning of year; on February 2 Cardinal Capellari became Pope, with the title of Gregory XVI.=

1832

Otto, son of the King of Bavaria, became King of Greece. Switzerland divided into two antagonistic federations of cantons; federal government intervened, and tranquillity was restored. Failure of the Duchesse de Berry to incite rebellion against the rule of Louis Philippe. Disturbances in Portugal, owing to the misrule of Dom Miguel, who was acting as regent for the girl queen, Maria da Gloria, daughter of Dom Pedro, Emperor of Brazil. Miguel impoverished the country and persecuted legitimists and foreigners; fleets were sent by France and England to protest; and with their support Dom Pedro, who had resigned the crown, landed in Portugal and attacked Miguel.

President Jackson opposed "wild cat" banks, and vetoed bill for a renewal of the charter of the United States Bank at Philadelphia. Nullification in South Carolina, and the Federal tariff laws repudiated. Calhoun resigned as Vice-President and was immediately elected United States Senator from South Carolina. Jackson sent troops to Charleston to collect the Federal revenues. Renewed trouble with the Seminoles, on an attempt being made to remove them from Florida. The Sacs and Foxes also rose in Wisconsin, but were defeated.

Egyptians, under Mehemet Ali, invaded Turkish territory and defeated the Turks. Repressive measures in Germany against the press and political meetings. The actions of Papal soldiers caused renewed disturbances in Italy; Austria sent troops again, and France landed a force at Ancona to check Austria.

The Chartist movement in England assumed a definite organized form; Lord Grey's ministry resigned; insistent demands for reform; rioters tried, and several condemned to death; King William attacked by a mob; the Duke of Wellington insulted; Wellington tried to form a new ministry, failed, and Lord Grey was recalled; twenty new peers were created, and the Reform Bill was finally forced through the Lords.

Sir Walter Scott, Goethe, Duke of Reichstadt, son of Napoleon; Charles Carroll, last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence; Georges Cuvier, naturalist; Sir James Mackintosh, philosopher, and George Crabbe, poet, died.

=RULERS--The same as in the previous year.=

1833

Opposition to the abolitionist movement bitter in America. Northern travelers in the South subjected to violence; antislavery meetings broken up; office of Berry's _Philanthropist_, at Cincinnati, and Lovejoy's _Observer_, at Alton, Illinois, destroyed. Wendell Phillips became a leader of the antislavery movement. Nullification ordinance in South Carolina repealed; on the other hand, Congress adopted the Compromise Tariff, reducing duties on imports.

In Portugal, Dom Miguel was driven from Lisbon, and his navy destroyed by Dom Pedro's fleet, commanded by Sir Charles Napier. Civil war also arose in Spain, Don Carlos claiming the throne upon the death of Ferdinand VII. Peace treaty between Turkey and Egypt; Russia obtained concessions from Turkey by the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, and thereby aroused the opposition of other European powers. Tractarian movement in England. A Quaker was admitted to Parliament on affirmation, but a bill to relieve Jews of civil disabilities was thrown out. Slavery abolished in all British territory, twenty million pounds being voted as reimbursement to slave-owning planters in the colonies. On this bill Gladstone made his maiden speech, defending his father's record as a slaveholder.

The "Young Italy" party active; Mazzini exiled. German states continued to use stringent methods for stamping out radicalism. Polish refugees expelled from Germany, and many come to America.

Electromagnetic telegraph set up at Goettingen, Germany. Legendre, French mathematician; William Wilberforce, English statesman; John Randolph of Roanoke; Edmund Kean, English actor, and Hannah More, English author, died.

=RULERS--The same as in the previous year, except that Isabella succeeded Ferdinand VII as ruler of Spain.=

1834

South Carolina Railroad built from Charleston, South Carolina, to Hamburg, South Carolina, a distance of one hundred and thirty-four miles--the longest line then in existence. Indian Territory set apart, and several tribes transferred to it. Jackson censured by Congress for removing government deposits from the United States Bank; specie payments resumed after thirty years' suspension. Abolitionist movement gained in strength, and bitter debates resulted in Congress.

China took from the British East India Company its monopoly of the opium trade; British ships on the Canton River fired on. Trade-union strikes general throughout England. The Houses of Parliament almost totally destroyed by fire. Violence and labor troubles in France. Civil disorders continued in Spain and Portugal; but the strife in the latter country was ended by the submission of Dom Miguel on May 22. In Spain the cause of Don Carlos was maintained by Zumalacarregui, a guerrilla chieftain of Navarre.

Charles Lamb and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English authors; Joseph Jacquard, inventor of the Jacquard loom; the Marquis de Lafayette; Schleiermacher, German theologian; Thomas Robert Malthus, English economist; Thomas Stothard, English artist, died.

=RULERS--The same as in the previous year.=

1835

Attempt made to remove the Seminoles from Florida, and war followed; Micanopy and Osceola, Indian leaders, were successful in fights at Fort King and near Wahoo Swamp, but were defeated by General Clinch on the Big Withlacoochee. Inhabitants of Texas successfully resisted a Mexican force under Santa Anna. Fire in New York City caused a loss of twenty million dollars. Colt revolver patented.