807-73 
 
 AL22s Alden. W. L. 
 
 AUTHOR 
 
 Shooting stars 
 
 TITLE 
 
 6280 
 
 807.73 Alden, W. t. 
 AL226 Shooting stars 
 
 6280^
 
 V I x ' 
 
 AS OBSERVED PR*M 
 
 THE "SIXTH COLUMN" OF THE TIMES 
 
 BY 
 
 W. L. ALDEK 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 1878.
 
 COPTBIOHT, 1878, BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS.
 
 SRLF, 
 URL 
 
 957-02-3 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 SHOOTING STARS 5 
 
 THE TOMBIGBEE INCIDENT 12 
 
 A SPANISH SMUGGLER 18 
 
 CHRISTMAS AT WINDSOR CASTLE 25 
 
 SERENADING IN ST. Louis 32 
 
 A PATENTED CHILD , 38 
 
 RIGHTEOUS RETRIBUTION 45 
 
 PRACTICE AMONG THE PIUTES 52 
 
 GIBBERISH , 59 
 
 CARRIE'S COMEDY 65 
 
 A CHICAGO IDYL 73 
 
 SCIENTIFIC MENDACITY 80 
 
 THE BELLE OP VALLEJO 87 
 
 THE SLIPPER REPORT 93 
 
 POPULAR ELECTRICITY 100 
 
 LONG ISLAND HUNTING 107 
 
 MR. SlMPKINS' DoWNFAIiL 114 
 
 THE Six BUTTON PRINCIPLE . . .121
 
 iv CONTENTS. 
 
 PASS 
 
 A REMEDY FOR BRASS INSTRUMENTS 127 
 
 SNORING 134 
 
 THE BAFFLED BOY 141 
 
 CARTHAGINIAN PIRATES 148 
 
 Too MUCH CABBAGE 154 
 
 VEKY POPULAR SCIENCE 161 
 
 A SLEIGHING TRAGEDY 167 
 
 THE MANAGING YOUNG MAN 174 
 
 SEDENTARY ABILITIES . 180 
 
 CAT-FISHING 187 
 
 A MOURNFUL INCIDENT 193 
 
 DOGS AND GHOSTS 200 
 
 RED HAIR 206 
 
 THE PERIODICITY OF STORIES 213 
 
 THE LATEST CASE OF HAZING. . . 219 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTKATIONS. 
 
 THE TOMBIGBEE INCIDENT 12 
 
 PRACTICE AMONG THE PIUTES 52 
 
 THE BELLE OF VALLEJO 87 
 
 MR. SIMPKINS' DOWNFALL 114 
 
 CARTHAGINIAN PIRATES 148 
 
 CAT-FISHING 187 
 
 DOGS AND GHOSTS 200 
 
 THE LATEST CASE OF HAZING.. 219
 
 SHOOTING STAES. 
 
 "THROM time immemorial the shooting star has 
 ministered to the happiness of lovers. When 
 two hearts that beat as one, with, of course, the 
 usual accompanying organs, limbs, and clothes, are 
 seated on the piazza in the quiet of a summer even- 
 ing, a kiss may properly be exchanged whenever a 
 meteor is seen. Upon this point all the authorities 
 from ANACREON to the Sun, are unanimous. SOCRA- 
 TES, indeed, went so far as to hold that nature pro- 
 vides shooting stars and bridges for the sole benefit 
 of lovers, for in the eighteenth book of the " Mem- 
 oriabilia," he is reported to have said to ALCIBIADES, 
 in the course of an argument for the existence of 
 the gods, based upon the evidences of design in
 
 6 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 nature : " You, yourself, 0, ALCIBIADES, know that 
 if you or I cross a bridge while sleighing, or dis- 
 cover a meteor in the firmament, we consecrate a 
 kiss to Zeus. Why, then, did Zeus create bridges 
 and meteors unless in order that you and I should 
 " At this moment, as XENOPHON informs us, 
 XANTIPPE entered, and the sage, suddenly recol- 
 lecting that he had an appointment down town, 
 abruptly dismissed his class in philosophy. We 
 do not, however, need the authority of the ancients 
 to prove the existence of a custom familiar to us 
 all. This custom has naturally trained the youth 
 of both sexes to great skill in the detection of 
 meteors. It is not very long ago that a young 
 lady of Oshkosh, while sitting with her betrothed 
 on the back piazza, pointed out to him thirty-six 
 meteors in the course of a single hour, and subse- 
 quently permitted her astronomical enthusiasm to 
 lead her to insist that the flashes of a lantern in 
 the hands of a brakeman engaged in coupling 
 together a long freight train, were so many addi- 
 tional meteors of a peculiarly interesting type.
 
 SHOOTING STARS. 7 
 
 Vassar College, as every one knows, contains a 
 vast collection of girls of all sizes, weights, and 
 colors of hair. Those who control the institution 
 have an intense horror of the co-education of the 
 sexes, and permit no male students to cross the 
 threshold, or even to enter the front gate of the 
 college. The girls are strictly secluded from all 
 young men, and the members of the Faculty are 
 united in a determined disbelief in the existence of 
 all cousins and brothers. It has just been an- 
 nounced that since the 14th of September last 
 the Vassar students have sighted two hundred 
 meteors. Now, in view of the utter dearth of 
 young men at Vassar, and the known uses ' of 
 meteors, the question arises, How were these two 
 hundred meteors observed ? The question is one 
 which comes home with tremendous force to the 
 parents of the Vassar young ladies, and which can- 
 not be lightly set aside by the Vassar Faculty, who 
 are directly responsible for the method in which 
 the students pursue the study of astronomy. 
 
 Of course, every one knows that when girls are
 
 8 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 bent upon dancing, and young men are absolutely 
 unattainable, a select number of girls are frequently 
 temporarily transformed into theoretical young 
 men, by simply tying handkerchiefs around their 
 left arms. It may be pretended that a similar ex- 
 pedient has been employed to aid the Vassar young 
 ladies in observing meteors. The Faculty may as 
 well understand at once that no such flimsy pre- 
 tense will satisfy the public. Theoretical young 
 men may be made use of amid the excitement of a 
 dance, but no young lady, no matter if she were to 
 " make believe " with even greater skill than the 
 " Marchioness," would be able to convince herself 
 that another young lady with a handkerchief 
 around her left arm could constitute an efficient aid 
 to the observation of meteors. The two hundred 
 meteors lately observed at Vassar were never ob- 
 served under such conditions. The girls may have 
 sat in pairs on the back piazza, with a pretended 
 view to meteors, but if so, their observations were 
 confined to dresses, bonnets, and other feminine 
 phenomena, and not to the starry heavens.
 
 SHOOTING STARS. 9 
 
 Are we, then, to assume either that the astro- 
 nomical observatory of Vassar College has recently 
 added three or four dozen young men to the rest 
 of its apparatus, or that the alleged two hundred 
 meteors were never really seen, but were the in- 
 vention of a number of ingenious and somewhat too 
 imaginative young ladies ? Fortunately, we are 
 not compelled to accept either of these hypotheses. 
 To suppose that the Vassar Faculty have fitted up 
 the observatory with young men, would be to im- 
 pute to them a reckless determination to enforce 
 the study of astronomy a*t the sacrifice of the very 
 principle upon which Vassar College is founded, 
 while to suppose that young ladies would profess 
 to see meteors when none were visible, is to charge 
 them with the one offense of which the sex is never 
 guilty a want of veracity. 
 
 If, then, we concede that the two hundred 
 meteors were really observed by the Vassar as- 
 tronomical class without the aid of any additions 
 to the usual apparatus of the observatory, we are 
 brought face to face with the question, who is the
 
 10 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 Vassar Professor of Astronomy ? He may be 
 venerable in point of years, and absolutely full of 
 science, but can he expect to be believed when he 
 pretends that he teaches the young ladies the uses 
 of meteors simply from pure love of science ? As- 
 tronomers are fond of taxing human credulity, and 
 it must be confessed that they usually succeed. 
 For example, the pretense that they have discov- 
 ered the names of the stars by aid of instruments 
 and calculations is almost an insult to common 
 sense, and yet it is universally believed. There 
 is, however, a limit beyond which the boldest 
 astronomical person cannot safely go, and the 
 Vassar Professor of Astronomy will pass this limit 
 if he attempts any such defense as that just men- 
 tioned. Possibly, he can explain the whole affair 
 in a way that will be perfectly satisfactory to every 
 one ; but if he cannot, let him at least be frank 
 and truthful. It will then be time to consider 
 whether the study of shooting stars should be any 
 longer pursued at Yassar. It is, of course, a fasci- 
 nating study, but it can be pursued as a post-
 
 SHOOTING STARS. 11 
 
 graduate study, under the direction of an accom- 
 plished cousin, with far better results than can 
 attend the instruction of a class of immature girls 
 by an ancient scientific person.
 
 THE TOMBIGBEE INCIDENT. 
 
 nnHE Town of Clayville, situated some thirty 
 -*- miles from the mouth of the Tombigbee 
 River, is at present greatly excited over the de- 
 parture of the local colored minister, who recently 
 started down the river on board a large and strongly- 
 built colored sister, and who has not since been 
 heard from. The circumstances attending the 
 minister's departure were peculiar, and their publi- 
 cation may, perhaps, aid the recovery of the in- 
 trepid, though unintentional, voyager. 
 
 The minister in question was of the Colored 
 Baptist persuasion, and was famed throughout the 
 Tombigbee Valley for his skill as a baptizer, as well 
 as for his ability as a preacher. There is no doubt 
 that he was a fearless and conscientious man. In- 
 stead of maintaining that politic silence on the sub- 
 ject of chickens which rmmy colored ministers 
 insist is absolutely necessary, in order to avoid 
 chilling the fervor of their hearers, this particular
 
 THE TOMBIGBEE INCIDENT. 13 
 
 minister never hesitated to declare that a right of 
 property in chickens existed, and that it should be 
 respected in certain cases, and to a greater or less 
 extent, by all honest men, especially during the 
 season when hams are readily accessible. This 
 bold doctrine, instead of injuring his popularity, 
 actually increased the respect in which he was held 
 by his congregation, and gave him much promi- 
 nence among his ministerial brethren. 
 
 Among the colored ladies of Clayville was one 
 who had long desired to submit to the rite of bap- 
 tism, but who was deterred by a nervous dread of 
 drowning and by a strong repugnance to the inevi- 
 table wetting which is inseparable from the rite. 
 Scores of times this estimable lady had determined 
 to be baptized at the next available opportunity, 
 but at the last moment her courage always failed 
 her. In the days prior to emancipation, she had 
 been the slave of a Clayville planter, and she still 
 retained a warm affection for the young master 
 whom she had nursed in his infancy. Not very 
 long ago this young man called to see her, and to
 
 14 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 him she lamented the lack of courage which shut 
 her out from baptism. Whether he was influenced 
 by genuine kindness, or by a wicked spirit of irrev- 
 erence, will perhaps never be known ; but the 
 advice which he gave his confiding nurse was the 
 cause of the painful tragedy which followed. 
 
 The young man professed to be surprised that 
 the new safety baptismal robe, invented, as he 
 alleged, by Rev. Dr. PAUL BOYTON, of New York, 
 had not yet been adopted by the colored Baptists 
 of the South. He said that he had one of these 
 robes in his possession, and that the wearer would 
 not only be safe against any possibility of drown- 
 ing, but also against the possibility of getting wet. 
 Moreover, it could be worn underneath the usual 
 white cotton robe, without any danger of detection. 
 The overjoyed candidate for baptism enthusiasti- 
 cally accepted the young man's advice and his offer 
 of the robe, and she immediately sent word to the 
 minister that she would certainly be ready for 
 baptism the very next Sunday. 
 
 There was such a general distrust of the sister's
 
 THE TOMBIGBEE INCIDENT. 15 
 
 courage that the colored people all assembled on 
 the bank of the Tombigbee on the next day, confi- 
 dent that her courage would fail, and that she 
 would endeavor to escape from the hands of the 
 minister. The particular part of the river selected 
 for the ceremony was comparatively shallow, but 
 the current was swift, and a little lower down the 
 depth was at least ten feet. In fact, the minister, 
 in spite of his skill, had once lost a convert, who 
 was carried away by the current, and who, on being 
 rescued, promptly went over to the Methodists. 
 The timid candidate was an unusually large woman, 
 and was certain to tax the minister's strength 
 severely ; so that there could be little doubt that 
 the ceremony would be one of unusual interest. 
 
 The sister arrived at the appointed time, look- 
 ing even larger than usual, and walking with much 
 difficulty. The minister took her by the hand, and 
 she fearlessly descended into the water. All went 
 well until she reached the depth of about four feet, 
 when she suddenly fell upon her back, and to the 
 astonishment of the spectators, floated on the sur-
 
 16 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 face of the water. The excitement at this unpre- 
 cedented event was tremendous, and the air was 
 filled with enthusiastic shouts. The minister's 
 face, however, wore a troubled expression. He 
 towed the unaccountably buoyant sister out into 
 deeper water, and attempted to place her on her 
 feet. The attempt proved impracticable, and he 
 then tried to immerse her without changing her 
 position. In spite of all his efforts, he could not 
 force her under, and the spectators who witnessed 
 the struggle soon became convinced that she was 
 bewitched. They counseled the minister to exor- 
 cise the evil one by whom she was evidently pos- 
 sessed, with an axe, and volunteered to supply him 
 with heavy weights wherewith to securely sink 
 her. That devoted man, however, refused their 
 counsel, and persisted in his effort to immerse the 
 sister without the aid of weights. Finally he 
 threw his whole weight upon her, and in a 
 moment the current swept the pair beyond their 
 depth. 
 
 In spite of the danger of his situation, the min-
 
 THE TOMBIGBEE INCIDENT. 17 
 
 ister's cheek did not blanch. With great presence 
 of mind he seated himself comfortably upon the 
 floating sister, and, waving a farewell to his congre- 
 gation, began to sing a cheerful hymn. The cur- 
 rent steadily carried him on at the rate of at least 
 six miles an hour, and in a short time his weeping 
 congregation was left out of sight and hearing. 
 Without oars or sails he was unable to navigate 
 the sister to the shore, and there is every reason 
 to suppose that before the next morning he was far 
 out on the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 Captains of vessels navigating the Gulf have 
 been requested to keep a sharp lookout for a col- 
 ored sister in a Boyton life-saving dress, carrying a 
 colored minister on her deck. Let us hope that 
 he will soon be picked up. He has now been afloat 
 five days without provisions or water, and must be 
 beginning to feel the need of refreshment. Of 
 course, any Captain who may rescue him will not 
 ask for a reward, but if he tows the sister into 
 port he can claim salvage to a large amount, and 
 libel her in the nearest admiralty court.
 
 A SPANISH SMUGGLER. 
 
 "T FERE is another of those occasions which 
 -* *- cause the conscientious journalist to wish 
 that he had never been born. The cold world 
 little thinks of the terrible cost at which it is some- 
 times furnished with the news of the day. There 
 are events of which the public must be apprised, 
 but which cannot be told without lacerating the 
 feelings of the earnest and sensitive narrator. An 
 event of this nature has just happened in Madrid. 
 It would be cowardly and dishonest to suppress it. 
 Moreover, the story comes directly from the State 
 Department at Washington, and it is by no means 
 certain that its suppression would not be an act of 
 rebellion. Let us, then, go forward boldly and 
 discharge a painful duty without murmuring. 
 
 The Spaniard is not usually thought to possess
 
 A SPANISH SMUGGLER. 19 
 
 inventive genius. Among all the important inven- 
 tions which have been made since the union of 
 Castile and Arragon, the art of " walking Spanish " 
 is the only one which has been attributed to the 
 Spanish intellect. But there has at last appeared 
 a Spaniard who is clearly entitled to be ranked as 
 one of the ablest of living inventors, and it is the 
 history of his invention which must now be laid 
 before the public. 
 
 The city of Madrid is, as every one knows, a 
 walled city. It is not, however, generally known 
 that nearly all merchandise which is brought into 
 the city has to pay a special duty, no matter if it 
 is an imported article which has been already 
 taxed at a Spanish custom-house. This is the 
 case with petroleum. It is heavily taxed when if; 
 enters Spanish territory and is again taxed . still 
 more heavily when it enters Madrid. Hence a 
 great temptation to smuggle is offered to those who 
 supply petroleum to the inhabitants of Madrid, and 
 were the Spaniards an ingenious people, they would 
 devote so much attention to smuggling that they
 
 20 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 would have no time left to celebrate their annual 
 revolutions. 
 
 In the outskirts of Madrid Don JOSE DE ANTI- 
 QUEDAD Y YUELTA-ABAJO possesses a charming villa 
 with extensive grounds and numerous outbuildings. 
 He has long been known as an extremely benevo- 
 lent man, always ready to approve of any act of 
 charity, and eager to point out fields of philan- 
 thropic usefulness to other people. About six 
 months ago he announced that the condition of the 
 babies of Madrid filled him with grief, and that he 
 was determined to alleviate their sufferings. In 
 the course of an elaborate essay, which he pub- 
 lished in pamphlet form, he demonstrated that in- 
 fants could not be reared without artificial aid in a 
 crowded city. He claimed that no matter how ex- 
 cellent might be the intentions of the mothers of 
 Madrid, they could not furnish their infants with 
 desirable board because their systems were affected 
 in a deleterious manner by the unwholesome at- 
 mosphere of the city. As for the auxiliary bottle, 
 he condemned it with much fierceness. "Never
 
 A SPANISH SMUGGLER. 21 
 
 with my consent," said this excellent man, " shall 
 the youth of Madrid undergo the humiliation of 
 the unsympathetic and unsatisfactory bottle." 
 The true solution of the problem how to feed the 
 babies of Madrid was, however, a simple one in his 
 estimation. He announced that he would keep 
 constantly on hand a large supply of 'unexceptiona- 
 ble nurses at his suburban estate. There is some 
 difficulty in translating his exact descriptive phrase 
 into English, but perhaps it will suffice to say that 
 his nurses were warranted to be able to supply the 
 wants of the Madrid infants without the aid of 
 bottles. In short, they were to be self-acting, pe- 
 rennial, and inexhaustible, and with their assistance 
 Don JOSE DE ANTIQUED AD Y VUELTA-ABAJO under- 
 took to supply Madrid with pure Naranjos County 
 well ! at all events the Madrid infants were to 
 be fed. 
 
 A few weeks later and Don JOSE advertised that 
 his establishment was in complete order, and that 
 his nurses would enter the city daily to wait upon 
 their customers. Apparently, he had a great many
 
 22 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 patrons, for a few days later a procession of at 
 least a dozen extremely plump Spanish women, 
 whose very appearance was sufficient to awaken 
 the hunger of the most dainty infant, made their 
 appearance at the city gate. The custom-house 
 officers gazed at them with respect and admiration, 
 and warmly congratulated the Madrid infants upon 
 their good fortune. The praises of the benevolent 
 Don JOSE were in every mouth. The local press 
 published frequent leading articles asserting that 
 the local infants were thriving to an extent hither- 
 to unknown, and hinting that the grand regalia of 
 the Order of St. Intimidad had been given to many 
 men who deserved it less than did the beneficent 
 Don JOSE. For three months the procession of 
 nurses entered the city at morning, noon, and 
 night, and grew in numbers, until it was no un- 
 usual thing for sixty women to present themselves 
 at the gate at one and the same time. 
 
 On the 4th day of March last, it happened 
 that a new custom-house officer, Lieut. COLORADO 
 MADURO, who was on duty at the Zarzuela gate
 
 A SPANISH SMUGGLER. 23 
 
 when the noon procession of nurses made its ap- 
 pearance. He was a thoughtful, intelligent man, 
 but he was not popular with the small-boys of 
 Madrid. Just as the leading nurse, Senora Rosa 
 Concha, entered the city, a stone, thrown at the 
 officer, missed its mark and smote the nurse in the 
 region of the lungs. To the officer's great aston- 
 ishment, the blow produced a hollow metallic 
 sound which at once awakened his suspicions. 
 Without a moment's delay, Lieut. MADURO called 
 out a file of soldiers, and arresting every nurse, 
 sent for two female searchers and ordered them 
 to do their duty. Twenty minutes later sixty 
 exceptionally thin and sad-looking women were 
 marched to the city prison, and one hundred and 
 twenty cans, of a curious hemispheric shape, filled 
 with petroleum, were lying heaped together where 
 the female-searchers had thrown them. 
 
 DON JOSE DE ANTIQUEDAD Y VUELTA-ABAJO was 
 thus discovered to be an impostor. He had not 
 furnished a single Madrid infant with pure Naran- 
 jos county well, food. He was not a philan-
 
 24 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 thropist, and he cared neither for nurses nor chil- 
 dren. He was, however, an audacious and inge- 
 nious smuggler, and the long success of his artifice 
 has so overthrown Spanish faith in woman, that 
 none but the thinnest and most level of the sex 
 can pass a Spanish custom-house without under- 
 going the most rigid scrutiny.
 
 CHRISTMAS AT WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 ~T~T is rarely that the public obtains a glimpse of 
 -*- the private life of monarchs. They are never 
 seen by their subjects except in full dress, and 
 equipped with what New England people are ac- 
 customed to call " company manners." Thus only 
 the outer shell, so to speak, of the German Em- 
 peror or the British Queen is known to their peo- 
 ple. We all know, of course, that the Emperor 
 is mortal, and hence must at times put on a 
 night-shirt, and that even Queen VICTORIA must do 
 up her back hair on going to bed, just as though 
 she were an ordinary British matron, but even the 
 most enterprising special correspondent is unable 
 to describe these imperial and royal acts from his 
 own personal knowledge. We of this generation 
 are, however, exceptionally fortunate in regard to 
 the good and gracious Queen of England. In the 
 2
 
 26 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 Life of the Prince Consort, which is virtually writ- 
 ten by her, we are taken into the interior of the 
 royal palace and admitted to the privacy of the 
 royal family. It is safe to say that the present 
 generation is acquainted with the royal family of 
 England more intimately than any previous gener- 
 ation has been acquainted with any other royal 
 household. The Queen's description of a Christ- 
 mas at Windsor Castle is of especial interest just 
 at present, and as it has not yet been published in 
 this country, a summary of it, obtained from advance 
 sheets, may interest the public. 
 
 The particular Christmas referred to was that 
 of the year 1849. Especial efforts were made to 
 render that occasion one of unusual domestic 
 felicity. The Prince Consort had said, " Mother, 
 we must have a first-class shindy for the children 
 this time," and the amiable Queen had answered, 
 " ALBERT, we will just make things whoop." Ac- 
 cordingly, ah immense amount of presents was 
 provided, and the royal parents determined to per- 
 sonally superintend the filling of the stockings a
 
 CHRISTMAS AT WINDSOR CASTLE. 27 
 
 duty which ordinarily devolved upon Lord JOHN 
 RUSSELL. 
 
 "On Christmas eve" so we are told "the 
 Queen remarked, ' ALBERT, I believe I will hang up 
 my own stocking, and you shall fill it.' The 
 Prince, with that excellent good sense which never 
 failed him, replied : ' My dear, it will not do. 
 There must be a limit to the size of stockings. 
 Hang up a pillow-case, if you want to, or even a 
 bolster, but remember that I can't afford to sit up 
 all night filling unlimited space with expensive 
 presents.'" Her Majesty thereupon changed her 
 mind, and full of anxiety to make her husband 
 happy, volunteered to fill the stockings herself, so 
 that the Prince could go to bed early. . 
 
 During the evening the children were, of 
 course, unusually wide awake. Half a dozen 
 times was the Queen compelled to go to the foot 
 of the front stairs and order them to go instantly 
 to sleep. Threats were even necessary before they 
 could be quieted, and the Prince Consort was 
 finally obliged to remark, " If you children let me
 
 28 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 hear one more word out of you this night I shall 
 come up stairs with a club." Whereupon the chil- 
 dren ceased their uproar, and by ten o'clock were 
 soundly asleep. 
 
 " It was the wish of the Prince," continues the 
 narrative, " to sleep in the nursery with the chil- 
 dren, so that he could see them open their stock- 
 ings in the morning." As the Queen desired to 
 hang a portrait of herself over the Prince's bed, 
 as a pleasant surprise for him, she was compelled 
 to wait until he was sound asleep. At 1 o'clock 
 A. M. her Majesty stealthily entered the nursery, 
 with seven well-filled stockings hanging on her 
 arm. Just as she crossed the threshold two of 
 the stockings slipped from her grasp and fell with 
 considerable noise, but without awakening the 
 children or interrupting Prince ALBERT'S gentle 
 snore. It so happened that the Duke of Welling- 
 ton, when filling the stove for the night, had inad- 
 vertently left a coal-scuttle in the middle of the 
 floor, and the Queen, not dreaming of such an 
 obstacle, fell over it with a loud crash. The
 
 CHRISTMAS AT WINDSOR CASTLE. 29 
 
 Prince of Wales moved uneasily in his bed, but 
 continued to sleep soundly, as did all the other 
 children and their gracious father. Fortunately, 
 the Queen fell on the stockings, which were largely 
 stuffed with molasses candy of a yielding nature, 
 and so sustained no injury. Finally the stockings 
 were hung in their proper place and the Queen pro- 
 ceeded to place her portrait on the wall over the 
 Prince Consort's head. To do this it was neces- 
 sary for her to stand on the bed. Now to walk 
 over a well-filled bed in a dimly-lighted room is a 
 difficult operation, and it thus happened that the 
 Queen stepped somewhat heavily upon the Prince. 
 It was the last straw that broke his princely slum- 
 bers, and also flattened his ribs. In those cir- 
 cumstances, instead of betraying impatience, he 
 merely groaned heavily and exclaimed : " Go on : 
 mash in the rest of them ! Get the Princess of 
 Cambridge to help you. Let joy be unconfined ! " 
 and further language to that effect. So moved 
 was her Majesty by his suffering and fortitude 
 that she burst into tears and nearly fell upon him,
 
 30 SHOOTING STARS. , 
 
 thereby eliciting a yell of terror. This woke up 
 the children, who fancying that morning had 
 arrived, clutched their stockings and began the 
 joyful uproar which in every happy home ushers 
 in the blessed Christmas morn. 
 
 " There was not a closed eye in the castle 
 from that moment until breakfast time" con- 
 tinues the writer of the narrative. When the 
 royal pair met at the breakfast table they were as 
 tired as if they had attended a ball. The Prince 
 withdrew to his own apartment as soon as the 
 meal was ended, and played on the flute for several 
 hours an exercise which always calmed his mind 
 and fitted other persons to bear the prospect of his 
 early death ; while the Queen signed three death- 
 warrants with a firmness which she had never 
 before displayed. Before night every one of the 
 children was writhing in the agonies of colic, and 
 the court physician had expressed the opinion that 
 the Prince Consort's ribs were in a most precarious 
 condition. "It was then decided," adds the royal 
 biographer " that the custom of hanging up stock-
 
 CHRISTMAS AT WINDSOR CASTLE. 31 
 
 ings should be abolished in the precincts of the 
 castle, a resolution which has been strictly kept." 
 
 We thus see from this pleasing glimpse of 
 England's royal household that Queens and Princes 
 are much like other people. It is impossible to 
 avoid honoring her Majesty's kindly ways, and 
 the Prince's fortitude under suffering. No royal 
 Briton can read this touching narrative without 
 tears, and without asking himself the solemn ques- 
 tion, how much the Queen weighed in 1849.
 
 SERENADING IN ST. LOUIS. 
 
 nnllERE are two young men in St. Louis who 
 -- at the present time are so diversified as to 
 their surfaces with hrown paper and sticking-plaster 
 that they might readily be mistaken for Bulgarian 
 Christians who had just been receiving a good deal 
 of protection from the Russian Cossacks. They 
 do not bear their plasters with resignation, for they 
 are not good young men. The testimony of large 
 numbers of St. Louisians proves that the two 
 young men in question frequent bar-rooms and 
 quarrel in the public streets, make night hideous 
 with uproar, and play upon musical instruments, 
 like the beasts that perish. Their wounds and 
 bruises are a just retribution for their misdeeds, 
 and they deserve no sympathy whatever. 
 
 There is a young lady in St. Louis, living in a 
 nice suburban cottage, with whom both these young
 
 SERENADING IN ST. LOUIS. 33 
 
 men are madly in love. Being thus rivals, they 
 naturally hate each other, and not very long ago 
 discussed their respective fitness for the young 
 lady's hand in the public street, with the use of 
 much strong Western language and the display of 
 revolvers and knives. On this occasion, however, 
 they did not actually assault one another, but each 
 young man, after having solemnly pledged himself 
 to cut the other into fine slices at their next meet- 
 ing, went his way in search of privacy and rum. 
 Two days later they met in a bar-room, and, in- 
 stead of carrying out their sanguinary intentions, 
 they fell upon their respective necks and vowed 
 eternal friendship. They decided that the young 
 lady was not an object of sufficient importance to 
 be permitted to envelop their newborn friendship in 
 a cloud of suspicion and jealousy, and they re- 
 solved that, renouncing all claims to her affection, 
 they would live for each other only. They mutu- 
 ally promised never to see or to think of her again, 
 and finally separated on apparently the very 
 warmest terms of friendship. It was noticed, 
 2*
 
 34 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 however, by several unimpeachable witnesses, that 
 as soon as they had put a large and opaque Ger- 
 man between them, they stoutly shook their 
 clenched fists and smiled in a ghastly and sarcastic 
 manner. The truth is, their reconciliation was a 
 hollow mockery, and' their pretended abandonment 
 of the young lady was an act of premeditated de- 
 ceit and treachery. 'Each desired to occupy un- 
 molested the field of courtship, and believed that 
 he had outwitted his rival and rendered him no 
 longer dangerous. 
 
 It has been remarked that among their other 
 vices was that of playing upon wind instruments. 
 One of them played the cornet, while the other 
 was habitually addicted to the bassoon. While 
 the latter instrument is not so immediately fatal to 
 the helpless listener as is the cornet, it is much 
 more weakening to the mind, and the agonies 
 which it inflicts are more prolonged and painful. 
 It was the intention of these young men to sere- 
 nade the object of their devotion on the very even- 
 ing of the day when they formed their hollow and
 
 SERENADING IN ST. LOUIS 35 
 
 insincere alliance, and each of them presumed that 
 he had secured a monopoly of her midnight ears. 
 But as BURNS has remarked, the best schemes of 
 policy devised, either by mice or conciliatory Presi- 
 dents, frequently go " aglee," which, being inter- 
 preted, means " to eternal smash." And such 
 was the destiny of the serenading schemes of the 
 two bad young men. 
 
 The young lady's bedroom was in the north- 
 east corner of the second story of her house, and 
 the house stood in the midst of a large and beauti- 
 ful lawn. Precisely at 11:15 P. M. the young man 
 with the cornet opened upon her under her north 
 window with the pathetic air of " Silver Threads 
 among the Gold ; " but almost at the same moment 
 he metaphorically smote his breast, for he heard 
 under the east window the loud bassoon in the act 
 of wrestling with the "Arkansas Traveler." In 
 these circumstances few young men would have 
 subordinated a thirst for immediate vengeance to 
 their artistic pride, but the two bad young men, 
 while mentally resolving to kill one another in the
 
 36 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 near future, were equally resolved not to permit 
 their devotion to music to be interrupted. They 
 threw their whole beings into their respective in- 
 struments, and the blare of the cornet mingled in 
 wild confusion with the groans of the bassoon. 
 The young lady, who was a girl of much spirit and 
 practical common sense, very soon began to throw 
 things, but neither water, old shoes, nor crockery 
 could move the determined serenaders. They 
 continued to blow until each had finished his 
 allotted tune, after which, with a fierceness rival- 
 ing that of the wild cats of the nocturnal back 
 fence, and with oaths at which the most hardened 
 cat would have shuddered, they poised their musi- 
 cal weapons over their heads and rushed simultane- 
 ously to the combat. 
 
 The bassoon is longer than the cornet, but the 
 latter has greater weight and hardness, and the two 
 combatants were thus very equally matched as to 
 their weapons. They fought with frightful energy, 
 and were encouraged by the cheerful comments of 
 the young lady, who, like the Blessed Damosel,
 
 SERENADING IN ST. LOUIS. 37 
 
 leaned from her window, and with great impar- 
 tiality urged each one to " everlastingly lay out " 
 the other. The bassoon fell with resounding blows 
 upon the head of the cornet player, and the sharp 
 edge of the bell of the cornet gashed the bassoon- 
 player's face and lacerated his knuckles. Neither 
 would yield, and had not the young lady's father 
 risen from his couch, and with great presence of 
 mind checked the further effusion of blood by 
 firing upon the rivals with his shot-gun, the fight 
 would probably have had a fatal termination. As 
 it was, as soon as their legs became overweighted 
 with buckshot, the two young men laid down their 
 weapons, and were soon after carried by the police 
 to the nearest hospital for repairs. 
 
 This story teaches us how blessed a thing it is 
 for two young men to serenade the same young 
 woman at the same time, whereby their instru- 
 ments are certain to be ruined, and they them- 
 selves are very likely to be permanently spoiled.
 
 A PATENTED CHILD. 
 
 fin HE town of Sussex, Pennsylvania, has lately 
 -*- been profoundly stirred by an extraordinary 
 and romantic lawsuit. The case was an entirely 
 novel one, and no precedent bearing upon it is to 
 be found in the common or statute law. While it 
 is necessarily a matter of great interest to the legal 
 profession, its romantic side cannot fail to attract 
 the attention of persons of all ages and every kind 
 of sex. In fact, it is destined to be one of the 
 most celebrated cases in the annals of American 
 jurisprudence. 
 
 Some time last winter a lady whom we will call 
 Mrs. Smith, who kept a boarding-house in Sussex, 
 took her little girl, aged four, with her to make a 
 call on Mrs. Brown, her near neighbor. Mrs. 
 Brown was busy in her kitchen, where she received 
 her visitor with her usual cordiality. There was a
 
 A PATENTED CHILD. 39 
 
 large fire blazing in the stove, and while the ladies 
 were excitedly discussing the new bonnet of the 
 local Methodist minister's wife, the little girl in- 
 cautiously sat down on the stove-hearth. She was 
 instantly convinced that the hearth was exceedingly 
 hot, and on loudly bewailing the fact, was rescued 
 by her mother and carried home for medical treat- 
 ment. A few days later Mrs. Smith burst in great 
 excitement into the room of a young law student, 
 who was one of her boarders, and with tears and 
 lamentations disclosed to him the fact that her 
 child was indelibly branded with the legend, 
 " Patented. 1872." These words in raised letters 
 had happened to occupy just that part of the stove- 
 hearth on which the child had seated herself, and 
 being heated nearly to red-heat they had repro- 
 duced themselves on the surface of the unfortunate 
 child. 
 
 The law student entered into the mother's 
 sorrow with much sympathy, but after he had in 
 some degree calmed her mind he informed her that 
 a breach of law had been committed. " Your child,"
 
 40 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 he remarked, " has never been patented, but she is 
 marked ( Patented. 1872.' This is an infringe- 
 ment of the statute. You falsely represent by 
 that brand that a child for whom no patent has 
 issued is patented. This false representation is 
 forgery, and subjects you to the penalty made and 
 provided for that crime." 
 
 Mrs. Smith was, as may be supposed, greatly 
 alarmed at hearing this statement, and her first im- 
 pulse was to beg the young man to save her from 
 a convict's cell. With a gravity suited to the oc- 
 casion, he explained the whole law of patents. He 
 told her that had she desired to patent the child, 
 she should have either constructed a model of it or 
 prepared accurate drawings, with specifications 
 showing distinctly what parts of the child she 
 claimed to have invented. This model or these 
 drawings she should have forwarded to the Patent 
 Office, and she would then have received in due 
 time a patent provided, of course, the child was 
 really pateutable and would have been authorized 
 to label it "Patented." "Unfortunately," he
 
 A PATENTED CHILD. 41 
 
 pursued, " it is now too late to take this course, 
 and we must boldly claim that a patent was issued, 
 but that the record was destroyed during the 
 recent fire in the Patent Office." 
 
 This suggestion cheered the spirits of Mrs. 
 Smith, but they were again dashed by the further 
 remarks of the young man. He reminded her that 
 the child might find it very inconvenient to be 
 patented. "If we claim" he went on to say 
 " that she has been regularly patented, it follows 
 that the ownership of the patent, including the 
 child herself, belongs to you, and will pass at your 
 death into the possession of your heirs. Holding 
 the patent, they can prevent any husband taking 
 possession of the girl by marriage., and they can 
 sell, assign, transfer, and set over the patent-right 
 and the accompanying girl to any purchaser. If 
 she is sold to a speculator or to a joint stock com- 
 pany, she will find her position a most unpleasant 
 one. To sum up the case, madam, either your 
 child is patented or she is not. If she is not 
 patented, you are guilty of forgery. If she is
 
 42 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 patented, she is an object of barter and sale, or, in 
 other words, a chattel." 
 
 This was certainly a wretched state of things, 
 and Mrs. Smith, to ease her mind, began to abuse 
 Mrs. Brown, whose stove had branded the unfor- 
 tunate little girl. She loudly insisted that the 
 whole fault rested with Mrs. Brown, and demanded 
 to know if the latter could not be punished. The 
 young man, who was immensely learned in the law, 
 thereupon began a new argument. He told her 
 that where there is a wrong there must, in the 
 nature of things, be a remedy. " Mrs. Brown, by 
 means of her stove, has done you a great wrong. 
 In accordance with the maxim, ' quifacitper alium 
 facit per se, Mrs. Brown, and not the stove, is the 
 party from whom you must demand redress. She 
 has wickedly and maliciously, and at the instiga- 
 tion of the devil, branded your child, and thus 
 rendered you liable for an infringement of the 
 patent law. It is my opinion, madam, that an 
 action for assault and an action for libel will both 
 lie against Mrs. Brown, and, ' semUe,' that there is
 
 A PATENTED CHILD 43 
 
 also ground for having her indicted for procure- 
 ment of forgery." Finally, after much further 
 argument, the young man advised her to apply to 
 a magistrate and procure the arrest and punish- 
 ment of Mrs. Brown. 
 
 Accordingly, Mrs. Smith applied to the Mayor, 
 who, after vainly trying to comprehend the case 
 and to find out what was the precise crime alleged 
 against Mrs. Brown, compromised the matter by 
 unofficially asking that lady to appear before him. 
 When both the ladies were in court, Mrs. Smith, 
 prompted by the clerk, put her complaint in the 
 shape of a charge that Mrs. Brown had branded 
 the youthful Smith girl. The latter was then 
 marked " Exhibit A," and formally put in evidence, 
 and both complainant and defendant told their re- 
 spective stories. 
 
 The result was that the court, in a very able 
 and voluminous opinion, decided that nobody wns 
 guilty of anything, but that, with a view of avoid- 
 ing the penalty of infringing the patent law, the 
 mother must apply to Congress for a special act
 
 44 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 declaring the child regularly and legally patented. 
 If Congress finds time to attend -to this important 
 matter, little Miss Smith will be the first girl ever 
 patented in this country, and the legal profession 
 will watch with unflagging-interest the lawsuits to 
 which in future any infringement of the patent 
 may lead.
 
 RIGHTEOUS RETRIBUTION. 
 
 "A /f~RS. Col. Lewis, of Clinton, 111., is univer- 
 -LA-J- sally respected by those who know her. 
 It is certainly not her fault that she was con- 
 structed at a period when the " sugar and spice, 
 and everything nice," which Dr. WATTS assures us 
 are the chief ingredients of girls, were apparently 
 exhausted, and there were no materials available 
 except vinegar and mustard. In spite of her 
 severe and acrid disposition, no one doubts that 
 she is a sincere and earnest woman. She has a 
 soul above frivolity and pleasure, and she is un- 
 sparing in her denunciations of the wicked. Of 
 course, she is not the sort of woman with whom, 
 one would care to take long walks in the country, 
 but her boldness and inflexible adherence to the 
 path of duty compel public respect. 
 
 To this good woman her husband is a constant
 
 46 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 trial. Col. Lewis is a man of excellent moral 
 character and sandy hair, but he has an undeniable 
 fondness for innocent flirtation, which, in his wife's 
 estimation, is the gravest of all crimes. Naturally, 
 she throws all possible obstacles in her husband's 
 objectionable path. But the world is full of girls 
 and, except when the Colonel is locked up in his 
 bedroom by his determined wife, she can never be 
 absolutely sure that he is not wrecking her domes- 
 tic happiness by bowing to young ladies, or by say- 
 ing good morning to wicked married women who 
 have the audacity to be beautiful, and who aggra- 
 vate that crime by assuming a pleasant and genial 
 manner. 
 
 Three weeks ago Clinton resolved to have its 
 first masked ball. It is needless to say that Mrs. 
 Lewis was shocked when she learned that this 
 infamous scheme was advocated by several hither- 
 to respectable people, and that it was reasonably 
 certain to be successfully carried out. To her 
 delight, Col. Lewis expressed to her his strong 
 disapprobation of masked balls, and said that he
 
 RIGHTEOUS RETRIBUTION. 47 
 
 was really glad that business interests would 
 require his presence in Chicago on the night of the 
 contemplated crime. A week before that date, 
 however, she was horrified at discovering in the 
 Colonel's desk a catalogue of fancy costumes which 
 a Chicago tradesman offered to let upon very rea- 
 sonable terms to persons about to attend masked 
 balls. Among these costumes was one which 
 was designed to enable the wearer to personate a 
 horse. It consisted chiefly of a horse's head and 
 silk tights. An unfinished letter in the hand- 
 writing of the Colonel showed that the wretched 
 man intended to be present at the masquerade 
 in this revolting costume, and that his pretence 
 of business at Chicago was merely designed to 
 deceive the wife of his bosom. It was a crush- 
 ing blow, but that intrepid woman bore it 
 nobly. Instead of acquainting Col. Lewis with 
 her knowledge of his guilt, Mrs. Lewis instantly 
 wrote to the costumer, ordering the dress of a 
 jockey to be sent to her. When, twelve hours 
 before the evening of the ball, her husband bade
 
 48 SHOOTING STARS 
 
 her good-bye and ostensibly started for Chicago, 
 she never intimated that she knew his plans, but 
 she took leave of him almost tenderly. That mis- 
 guided man went no further than the next street, 
 where he concealed himself in the house of a de- 
 praved friend, and chuckled over the way in which 
 he " had sold the old woman." 
 
 It was not until ten o'clock in the evening that 
 Col. Lewis, beautifully arrayed in his equine cos- 
 tume, and exhibiting the faultless proportions of 
 his manly legs, entered the ball-room. The beauty 
 and fashion of Clinton were already assembled, 
 and among them was a closely-masked lady wear- 
 ing the dress of a horse-jockey and carrying a 
 riding-whip. No one dreamed that she was the 
 severe and earnest Mrs. Lewis, for a lavish use of 
 the great staple of the Gulf States had wrought so 
 marvelous a change in her dimensions that her 
 husband mistook her for a blooming corn-fed beauty 
 of Peoria. In fact she was the very first lady to 
 whom he addressed himself, and when his first 
 compliment was answered by a blow of the whip
 
 RIGHTEOUS RETRIBUTION 49 
 
 on his unprotected legs, he almost doubted whether 
 he would not follow her even at the risk of a 
 second blow. 
 
 Prudence, however, prevailed, and the gallant 
 Colonel selected another lady as the object of his 
 attentions. He was just beginning a promising 
 flirtation when the avenging jockey smote his 
 calves, and in a thoroughly professional tone 
 ordered him to "g'lang now." His tights were 
 very thin, and the blow wrung from him a hasty 
 theological expression, which caused the object of 
 his attentions to hurriedly leave him. Meanwhile, 
 the cruel jockey had passed on and vanished in the 
 crowd, and it was several minutes before Col. 
 Lewis could bring himself to cease rubbing his 
 suffering legs, and to resume the attempt to enjoy 
 the ball. When next he accosted a fair masker, 
 he looked anxiously around for the jockey, and not 
 perceiving her, took courage and began a new flir- 
 tation. He was just about to request the honor of 
 a waltz when two swift and cruel blows descended 
 upon his already lacerated extremities, and the 
 3
 
 50 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 voice of the terrible jockey counseled him to 
 " g'lang," and likewise to " gettup." The misera- 
 ble man forgot his partner, and limping to a seat, 
 sat down and indulged in language which, had he 
 not spoken in a suppressed tone, would have cast 
 a sulphurous glare over the assembly. 
 
 Twice more during the evening did the wretched 
 Colonel try to mingle in the gayeties of the ball, 
 but each time the awful jockey, inexorable as fate, 
 lashed him with constantly increasing violence. 
 When he was about to enter the supper room she 
 followed him closely, and so emphasized her sug- 
 gestion that he should descend to the stable in 
 search of oats, that in mingled despair and rage he 
 fled from the ball-room to return no more. The 
 jockey lingered until the ball was over, and then, 
 full of peace and triumphant joy, sought her home. 
 
 For once Mrs. Lewis, although she was a woman, 
 was magnanimous. When her unhappy husband 
 returned from his pretended trip to Chicago, she 
 never once mentioned the ball to him, but quietly 
 handing him her jockey costume, told him to send
 
 RIGHTEOUS RETRIBUTION. 51 
 
 it to the owner and pay the bill, adding that he 
 would find a bottle of arnica in his room. The 
 cotton was, it is believed, subsequently used in the 
 manufacture of two " comfortables " of extra thick- 
 ness, and the Colonel presented his wife with a new 
 silk dress, a set of furs, and a costly bracelet. It 
 
 * 
 
 is thought that he will never attend another 
 masked ball, and that he will shoot any man who 
 mentions the subject in his hearing.
 
 PRACTICE AMONG THE PIUTES. 
 
 fTlHE Piutes are not among the most intelligent 
 -*- or warlike of our Indian tribes. Indeed, 
 they are generally treated with contempt by the 
 bold miners of the Pacific slope, who speak of 
 them much in the same tone as that used by a 
 practical statesman when discussing the question 
 of civil service reform with the frequenters of his 
 bar-room. Still, the Piutes are by no means stupid. 
 If a solitary and unarmed white man, with a good 
 head of hair, comes within a Piute's reach, he 
 knows what to do with that hair quite as well as 
 if he were a Sioux or an Apache. Similarly, he 
 fully comprehends the uses of whisky, and there 
 are said to be occasional Piutes who have mastered 
 the profound principles of draw-poker. When it is 
 also mentioned that the Piutes have thrown open 
 the profession of medicine to women, with a hearty
 
 PRACTICE AMONG THE PIUTES. 53 
 
 liberality as yet unknown among whiter and more 
 civilized people, the fair sex can hardly fail to 
 conceive a warm regard for that peaceful and pro- 
 gressive tribe. 
 
 There are certain features connected with the 
 practice of medicine among the Piutes by female 
 physicians which show that the whole community 
 takes a warm interest in the matter. In England 
 and among the white people of this country the 
 female doctor can hope for nothing more than cold 
 toleration. No venerable male physician, for ex- 
 ample, pats Dr. MAKY WALKER on the shoulder, 
 and smilingly remarks, " Go on, dear little girl, in 
 your noble career, and may your drugs prove half 
 as efficacious as your beautiful smile and the soft 
 rustle of your coat-tails." If our female doctors 
 happen to cure a patient, the cold world ignores 
 their skill and insinuates that nature alone deserves 
 the credit of the cure ; while if the patient dies no 
 one pays the female doctor the common courtesy 
 of suggesting that she is in partnership with the 
 undertaker. The general attitude of the public
 
 54 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 toward female physicians is that of affected disbe- 
 lief in their ability either to kill or to cure, and of 
 entire indifference as to the actual results if any 
 of their practice. How differently this matter is 
 viewed by the Piutes will appear from the follow- 
 ing incident in the career of a Piute medicine 
 woman. 
 
 The medicine woman in question wore the sim- 
 ple, modest, yet picturesque name of " Heap- 
 Chokee," a name given to her in memory of the 
 able manner in which, during her fifteenth year, 
 she strangled two wounded emigrants whom her 
 dear father had previously scalped. She became a 
 widow at the age of sixty, and having been duly 
 examined by the chief men of the tribe and pro- 
 nounced to be far too ugly for matrimonial pur- 
 poses, she was duly licensed to practice medicine 
 according to the tenets of the regular Piute medi- 
 cal school. 
 
 Shortly afterward Dr. Heap-Chokee was called 
 in to prescribe for a squaw who was in the last 
 stages of consumption. Having made a careful ex-
 
 PRACTICE AMONG THE PIUTES. 55 
 
 animation of the patient by punching her in tender 
 places with the handle of a hoe, the doctor decided 
 that the case was one which did not call for drugs, 
 but for "pow-wow." She therefore shut herself 
 up in the patient's wigwam, and danced and howled 
 with much vigor for several hours, at the expira- 
 tion of which the patient was found to be dead, 
 It so happened that the consumptive squaw was 
 not a valuable one, and, in fact, her husband was 
 rather glad that she was dead. Still, the death of 
 the doctor's first patient was not adapted to give 
 her a reputation for medical skill, and the affair 
 was therefore investigated by a council of able 
 warriors. The council decided that the doctor 
 had committed an error in not prescribing medicine, 
 and while it was expressly conceded that it was 
 not worth while to severely reprimand her for the 
 death of a valueless squaw, she was affectionately 
 warned that she would do well in future to pre- 
 scribe a good dose of real medicine. 
 
 A fortnight later a young warrior was brought 
 into camp suffering from an acute attack of grizzly
 
 56 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 bear, the leading symptoms of which were the 
 fracture of a dozen or two of his ribs and a general 
 mashing of the internal organs. This time the 
 doctor compounded a medicine that really ought 
 to hare worked wonders. It was made by boiling 
 together a collection of miscellaneous weeds, a 
 handful of chewing tobacco, the heads of four rat- 
 tlesnakes, and a select assortment of worn-out 
 moccasins. The decoction thus obtained was sea- 
 soned with a little crude petroleum and a large 
 quantity of red pepper, and the patient was di- 
 rected to take a pint of the mixture every half hour. 
 He was a brave man, conspicuous for his fortitude 
 under suffering, but after taking his first dose, he 
 turned over and died with the utmost expedition. 
 
 Again the council of leading warriors investi- 
 gated the case. They analyzed and tasted the 
 medicine, and agreed that it was faultless in its 
 way, and strong enough to cure any reasonable 
 disease. While they fully approved of the pre- 
 scription, they found that the doctor had relied 
 upon it alone, and had omitted to dance and yell
 
 PRACTICE AMONG THE PIUTES. 57 
 
 to any extent worth mentioning. This innovation 
 upon the recognized method of treating diseases 
 could not be passed over in silence, and Dr. Heap- 
 Ohokee was solemnly warned that she must either 
 practice medicine properly or meet the conse- 
 quences, and that young and valuable warriors 
 could not be wasted with impunity. 
 
 Soon after the daughter of the leading chief 
 was attacked by what was undoubtedly an inflam- 
 mation of the brain. Warned by experience, the 
 doctor brought the entire resources of the medical 
 art to bear upon the case. She not only admin- 
 istered large doses of her favorite decoction, but 
 she took a large tin pan into the patient's wigwam 
 and hammered it for twenty-four hours, during 
 which time she never ceased to dance and to yell 
 at the top of her lungs. Her zeal called forth 
 the admiration of the whole tribe, and it was con- 
 sidered certain that the patient must recover, but, 
 strange as it may seem, the doctor emerged from 
 the wigwam in the morning of the second day and 
 sadly announced that the girl was dead.
 
 58 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 Once more the council met, but its delibera- 
 tions were short. Dr. Heap-Chokee had attended 
 three patients and every one had died. There 
 could be no doubt that she was an unsuccessful 
 physician, and that if she continued to practice the 
 tribe would soon, become extinct. The course to 
 be pursued was too plain to be ignored. The doc- 
 tor was summoned, and was mildly but firmly told 
 that her professional. career was at an end. Three 
 warriors then led her outside the limits of the 
 camp, and administered to her six revolver-bullets, 
 after which lots were drawn for the possession of 
 her scalp, and the rest of her was quietly buried. 
 
 The Piutes may be dull and ignorant savages 
 in comparison with ourselves, but it is a false pride 
 which would forbid us to learn from them any 
 really useful lesson. The warm interest which 
 they take in the success of female physicians is 
 conspicuously at variance with the indifference 
 which we exhibit, and there is certainly something 
 in the example which they set us that we might 
 do well to follow.
 
 GIBBERISH. 
 
 "T~T is estimated that there are at this moment 
 *** seven million small boys in this country. Of 
 this number if we except those who are deaf, 
 dumb, blind, and idiotic there is not one who is 
 not familiar with that mystic formula known as 
 " aina maina mona mike," and who does not habit- 
 ually use it as a means of divining who shall be 
 " it," in the various games incident to boyhood. 
 How each successive generation of small-bo} r s 
 comes into the possession of this formula is one 
 of the most profound and difficult questions of 
 the age. 
 
 The superficial thinker fancies that the solu- 
 tion of this problem is a very simple one. He 
 hastily assumes that one generation teaches " aina 
 maina " to its successors, and that the knowledge 
 of the formula is thus handed down from father to
 
 60 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 son. But is there a single instance on record in 
 which a father has deliberately imparted this 
 knowledge to his son? We all know from our 
 own experience that long before we have arrived 
 at manhood, and become seized and possessed of 
 our personal small-boy, we have forgotten the lore 
 of our childhood, and, hence, are not in a condition 
 to impart it to any one. There always comes a 
 period in our lives when we hear our sons re- 
 hearsing " aina maina " with confidence and accu- 
 racy, and as we suddenly remember that we, too, 
 once knew those mystic words, we wonder from 
 whence the new generation of small-boys learned 
 them. The fact that fathers do not teach them to 
 their sons will appear so plain, upon a very little 
 reflection, that it is unnecessary to dwell longer 
 upon it at this time. In whatever way the vener- 
 able formula comes into the possession of one gen- 
 eration, it is quite certain that it is not learned 
 from the previous generation. 
 
 It is a noteworthy fact that no small-boy is 
 ever able to tell from whom he learned "aina
 
 GIBBERISH. 61 
 
 maina." If we ask any casual small-boy who 
 taught him the mysterious syllables, he will invari- 
 ably reply "Dunno," and promptly change the 
 subject. We cannot tell how we ourselves learned 
 them, and all our memory can tell us is that there 
 was an exceedingly remote period when we did 
 not know them, and a somewhat later period when 
 they were perfectly familiar to us. Here then we 
 have the remarkable phenomenon of an elaborate 
 formula in an unknown tongue, which every boy 
 knows, without knowing from what source he 
 learned it, and as to which we simply know that he 
 does not learn it from the preceding generation. 
 Whence comes this knowledge, and in what way 
 is it handed down through the centuries ? This 
 is a problem which Sir ISAAC NEWTON said he 
 " would be hanged if he could solve," and of which 
 COMTE remarked " that it is beyond the limit of 
 our intellectual powers, and hence should not re- 
 ceive the slightest attention." 
 
 G 
 
 The ancient sages and philosophers were as 
 much in the dark as to this matter as we are.
 
 62 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 PLATO mentions that IPHIGENIA was selected for the 
 sacrifice by a soothsayer, who repeated " aina 
 maina " until the lot fell upon that unhappy 
 damsel ; and he adds, " that this method of divina- 
 tion was brought to Greece by CADMUS, who doubt- 
 less learned it from the barbarians." This may or 
 may not be true, but in either case it throws no 
 light upon the question how the formula has been 
 handed down to the present day. SOCRATES al- 
 luded to the matter once, if not twice, and is re- 
 ported to have said to ALCIBIADES : " Tell me now, 
 ALCIBIADES, whence did you learn to divine through 
 (or by means of) l aina maina ' ? " to which ALCIB- 
 IADES replied, " I dunno." " Then," continued the 
 sage, " it is impious for you to ask me how it hap- 
 pened that I was last night banged as to the head 
 with the dirt-devouring broom ; for he has no right 
 to propose delicate personal conundrums who is 
 unable, whether through his own dullness or the 
 displeasure of the gods, to answer simple and easy 
 questions in two syllables." This conversation 
 shows that SOCRATES perceived the mystery which
 
 GIBBERISH. 63 
 
 enshrouds the subject, but it does not appear that 
 he ever successfully penetrated it. 
 
 Now, it is evident that if the knowledge of this 
 strange formula is not taught by one generation to 
 another and we know perfectly well that it is not 
 it must be developed spontaneously in every 
 small-boy's mind. The small-boy has his measles 
 and chicken-pox, and other strictly juvenile physi- 
 cal diseases, and he ought, by analogy, to have 
 some form of mental disease peculiar to his age. 
 Medical men are well aware that talking in un- 
 known tongues or gibbering, as it is usually 
 called is a symptom of certain forms of brain 
 disease, and it is credibly asserted that most of the 
 remarks made in unknown tongues by the followers 
 of the erratic EDWARD IRVING, were simply repeti- 
 tions of " aina maina." Let us, then, suppose that 
 when the small-boy suddenly breaks out with the 
 same curious formula, it is a symptom of a juvenile 
 brain disease, just as the eruption which at some 
 time roughens every small-boy's surface is a symp- 
 tom of chicken-pox. This hypothesis fully ex-
 
 64 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 plains the whole mystery. No small-boy learns 
 the chicken-pox from his father, and yet every 
 small-boy has it. No small-boy learns "aina 
 maina " from his father, and yet if a small-boy 
 were to be kept in solitary confinement from his 
 birth up to his fourteenth year, he would infallibly 
 break out with the knowledge of " aina maina." 
 When a hypothesis meets all the facts of any given 
 case, it may properly be accepted until another and 
 better hypothesis is devised. The hypothesis that 
 this knowledge of " aina maina " is a symptom of 
 brain disease, stands precisely upon the same 
 ground as the hypothesis of development, and the 
 moment this fact is brought to Professor HUXLEY'S 
 attention he will adopt the one as eagerly as he has 
 adopted the other.
 
 CARRIE'S COMEDY. 
 
 . BARTHOLOMEW, of Towanda Falls, 
 Pennsylvania, is the proud possessor of an 
 extremely precocious child. Miss CARRIE BAR- 
 THOLOMEW is only ten years old, but, nevertheless, 
 she is a young person of extraordinary acquire- 
 ments and conspicuous culture. At the age of six 
 she could read with great ease, and before reach- 
 ing her eighth birthday she had developed a marked 
 taste for novel-reading. About the same period 
 she made her first attempt at authorship, and soon 
 achieved an enviable reputation in several local 
 nurseries, where her fairy tales were recited with 
 immense applause. In her ninth year she wrote a 
 novel, of which, unfortunately, no copies are now in 
 existence, and began an epic in six books upon " St. 
 Bartholomew's Day " which sanguinary event she 
 classed among the ancestors of her family. The
 
 66 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 epic was discontinued after the completion of the 
 second book, owing to the premature extermination 
 of the Huguenots, but the young author lashed the 
 Catholic party with great vigor, and denounced 
 CHARLES IX. as the scarlet person mentioned in 
 the Apocatypse. The latest effort of Miss BAR- 
 THOLOMEW was, in all respects, her crowning work. 
 It was a drama in blank verse and in five acts, 
 entitled "Robinson Crusoe; or, the Exile of 
 Twenty Years," and it was publicly performed in 
 the Baptist lecture-room by a company of children 
 drilled by the author. The proceeds of the enter- 
 tainment were designed for the conversion of the 
 heathen, and it was attended ,by a large and hila- 
 rious audience. 
 
 The entire work of mounting the drama fell 
 upon the shoulders of the author. The stage was 
 beautifully ornamented with borrowed shawls; and 
 three fire-screens, covered with wall-paper and with 
 tree and flower patterns, did duty as scenery. 
 The costumes were unique and beautiful, and a 
 piano ably played by a grown-up young lady sup-
 
 CARRIE'S COMEDY. 67 
 
 plied the place of an orchestra. The curtain rose 
 at the appointed time, and displayed Crusoe in his 
 English home in the act of taking tea with his wife. 
 A cradle in the corner held a young Crusoe 
 played with much dignity by Miss BARTHOLOMEW'S 
 best doll and a wooden dog reposed on the hearth- 
 rug. Crusoe, after finding fault with the amount 
 of sugar in his tea a touch that was recognized as 
 wonderfully true to life announced that he was to 
 sail the next morning on a voyage to South Amer- 
 ica. Mrs. Crusoe instantly burst into tears, and 
 remarked : 
 
 " Our wedded life has scarce begun ! 
 But three months since you led me to the altar, 
 And now you leave me, friendless and forlorn ! " 
 
 Crusoe, however, soon comforted his wife, and 
 bidding her teach her surprisingly precipitate in- 
 fant to revere his absent father, put on his ulster, 
 and after a last passionate embrace, departed for 
 South America. 
 
 The second act presented Crusoe in his island 
 home, clad chiefly in seal-skin jackets, and much
 
 68 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 given to pacing the ground and soliloquizing. 
 According to his account, he had now been on the 
 island three years, and was beginning to feel rather 
 lonesome. He referred in the most affectionate 
 terms to the sole comrade of his joys and sorrows, 
 his gentle goat which animal, hired for the occa- 
 sion, from a Towanda Falls Irishman, was conspicu- 
 ously tethered in the background, and would obvi- 
 ously have butted Crusoe into remote futurity if 
 he could have broken loose. Presently Crusoe 
 heard a faint yell in the distance, and decided 
 that it was made by. a cannibal picnic party, 
 whereupon he announced that he would go for 
 his gun and sweep the wicked cannibals into 
 the Gulf. 
 
 Act three was brought to an unexpected but 
 effective climax. It opened with the entrance of a 
 dozen assorted cannibals dragging two helpless 
 prisoners, who were securely bound. After an 
 effective war-dance, one of the prisoners was killed 
 with a club, and was placed on a painted fire. 
 Just as the chief cannibal had announced that the
 
 CARRIE'S COMEDY. 69 
 
 dinner was nearly cooked, Crusoe s goat, which had 
 managed to escape from the green-room, burst 
 upon the cannibals. Two of them were knocked 
 over into the audience, where they wept bitterly ; 
 others were strewn over the stage, while a rem- 
 nant escaped behind the scenes. The prisoner, in 
 spite of the fact that he was dead and roasted, fled 
 at the first onset of the goat, and the curtain was 
 dropped amid wild applause. After the goat had 
 been captured by some male members of the audi- 
 ence, and Crusoe himself had explained that his 
 proposed massacre of the cannibals had been unin- 
 tentionally anticipated, the stage was set for the 
 fourth act, and the play went on. 
 
 This particular act was a magnificent proof of 
 the author's originality. The rising of the curtain 
 displayed Crusoe sitting on a grassy bank, sur- 
 rounded by four children, whom he calmly alleged 
 to be his own. Beyond vaguely alluding to them 
 as the gift of heaven sent to cheer his lonely hours, 
 that astonishing father did not offer to account for 
 their origin. The author's chief object in intro-
 
 70 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 ducing them was, however, soon disclosed. Friday, 
 who presently appeared, and whose lack of any 
 ostensible origin was doubtless due to the recent 
 interference of the goat, was requested to sit down 
 and undergo instruction in the Westminster Cate- 
 chism. The scene that followed was closely 
 modeled after the exercises of an ordinary Sunday- 
 school; and Crusoe s four inexplicable children 
 sang songs to an extent that clearly proved that 
 singing was the object of their remarkable crea- 
 tion. Lest this scene should appear somewhat too 
 solemn, the author judiciously lightened it by the 
 happy expedient of making Friday a negro, who 
 constantly said " Yes ! Massa," and " yah yah ! " 
 and who always spoke of himself as " dis child." 
 Altogether, the act was a delightful one, and 
 whenever Crusoe alluded to his "dear chil- 
 dren," and regretted that they had never seen 
 their dear mamma, the audience howled with 
 rapture. 
 
 How Crusoe and his interesting family escaped 
 from the island the author omitted to mention.
 
 CARRIE'S COMEDY. 71 
 
 The fifth and last act depicted his arrival home 
 and his final reunion with the bride of his youth. 
 Mrs. Crusoe was sitting at her original tea-table, 
 precisely as she was in the habit of doing twenty 
 years earlier, when there was a knock at the door, 
 and Crusoe entered, followed by his four children 
 and Friday carrying a large carpet-bag and a 
 bundle of shawls. Mutually exclaiming " 'Tis he," 
 and "'Tis she," the long-separated husband and 
 wife rushed into each other's arms. After the 
 first greetings were over, Crusoe remarking in the 
 most elegant blank verse that though he had 
 brought neither gold nor gems, he had neverthe- 
 less returned rich, presented in evidence thereof 
 his four children. Whereupon that noble woman, 
 remarking that she, too, had been wonderfully 
 blest, brought in seven children from the next 
 room and told them to kiss their father. After 
 which the drama was brought to a graceful end by 
 the singing of " Home, Sweet Home," by the en- 
 tire strength of the Crusoe family. 
 
 For originality and rare dramatic genius, it is
 
 72 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 clear that this play has never been equaled by any 
 previous American dramatist ; and we may be 
 sure Miss CARRIE BARTHOLOMEW will in future look 
 back upon it with at least as much wonder as 
 pride.
 
 A CHICAGO IDYL. 
 
 A GREAT intellect can be confined in a small 
 *"*- body, but a large foot cannot be comfortably 
 compressed into a small shoe. Mr. STANLEY MAT- 
 THEWS, for example, who is believed to have at 
 least twenty-seven more cubic feet of intellect than 
 any other man now living, is able to successfully 
 conceal the whole of it in one or another part of his 
 body, but he would be utterly unable to crowd one 
 of his feet into Mrs. MATTHEWS' slipper. Neverthe- 
 less, man is so constituted as to be a constant prey 
 to the belief that he can wear shoes several sizes 
 too small for him, from whence arise physical 
 agony, vexation of spirit, and grievous violations of 
 the third commandment. 
 
 It is rare that a young man is as modest and 
 bashful as is a certain young man now residing in 
 Chicago. He is an excellent youth, but it has
 
 74 SHOOTING STARS 
 
 been frequently asserted by his female acquaint- 
 ances that should he ever be placed in circumstances 
 where it would be his duty to remark " boo " to a 
 goose, he would fail to make that remark. His 
 present occupation is the study of chemistry, and 
 he has blown himself up so many times that the 
 small stock of self-confidence which he may origin- 
 ally have had has completely vanished. Neverthe- 
 less, he had the strange audacity to fall violently 
 in love with a beautiful young lady, the daughter 
 of a grim and prosaic Chicago pork person, and 
 continued to prosecute his suit in spite of the 
 brutal want of respect shown to him by the father, 
 who would frequently call down over the banisters 
 to his daughter, in whose society the bashful young 
 man was lingering " Jane ! it's eleven o'clock. 
 Turn out that there gas and come to bed this 
 minute." 
 
 Not very long ago there was a concert- at the 
 Chicago opera-house, to which the bashful lover 
 escorted the object of his affections. It was the 
 first time that he had ever visited a public place in
 
 A CHICAGO IDYL. 75 
 
 company with a lady, and he was naturally ex- 
 tremely nervous. . He dressed himself with the 
 greatest care, and put on a new pair of patent 
 leather gaiters purchased expressly for the occa- 
 sion. Of course, the gaiters were much too small 
 for him, for, as Sir ISAAC NEWTON conclusively 
 shows, the size of a lover's shoes varies inversely 
 as the force of his passion. It took him a long 
 while to get into his gaiters, but he accomplished 
 the feat after tremendous efforts, and in due time 
 found himself seated in the parquet of the opera- 
 house, with the beautiful young lady by his side. 
 
 There was one of his shoes in particular which 
 inflicted upon him absolutely fiendish tortures, 
 and the latter increased in intensity as the moments 
 came and went. Before the first half of the per- 
 formance was ended he was nearly wild with pain. 
 It was perfectly obvious to him that either he 
 must obtain immediate relief or become a demon- 
 strative idiot on the spot ; and he therefore availed 
 himself of the screen afforded by the lady's skirts 
 to remove the offending shoe and give liberty to
 
 76 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 the captive foot. It was his intention to put the 
 gaiter on again, at the close of the concert, without 
 attracting attention, and had it not been for an un- 
 foreseen accident his purpose might have been 
 carried into effect. 
 
 It so happened that he occupied a seat next to 
 the aisle. Soon after he had removed the shoe, a 
 lady who sat on the same row of seats rose up to 
 leave the house. As she brushed by the bashful 
 young man his disengaged shoe became entangled 
 under her skirts and was swept away. Half way 
 up the aisle it escaped from confinement, and be- 
 came an object of intense interest to several 
 thoughtless young men, one of whom finally seized 
 it and tossed it in a playful Chicago fashion into 
 the lowest gallery. 
 
 The full horror of his situation smote the shoe- 
 less youth. His face became first scarlet and then 
 pale as he thought of the spectacle he would pre- 
 sent when the time should come for him to limp 
 out of the theatre, with one shoe off and one shoe 
 on, in little better plight than was the allegori-
 
 A CHICAGO IDYL 77 
 
 cal Richard Doubt mentioned in BUNYAN'S Pil- 
 grims Progress. There "was no possible lie which 
 he could frame to account for the absence of that 
 shoe, and he knew that his beloved companion 
 would accuse him either of intoxication, of idiocy, 
 or of a penuriousness which permitted him to buy 
 only one shoe at a time. In his great distress, he 
 even attempted to possess himself of one of a pair 
 of India-rubber overshoes which a man sitting in 
 front of him had deposited within reach of his cane, 
 but as he was in the act of drawing the overshoe 
 to him with the handle of his cane he was detected 
 and scowled at with such violence that he was glad 
 to abandon the effort and to murmur an incoherent 
 apology. All this time he kept his unshod foot 
 concealed under the hem of his companion's dress, 
 but he well knew that the hour was rapidly ap- 
 proaching when concealment would be no longer 
 possible. The idea of raising a false alarm of fire, 
 and of imputing the loss of his shoe to the panic 
 which would inevitably ensue, occurred to him ; but 
 his better feelings prevailed, and he resigned himself
 
 78 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 to his fate. A few days afterward he remembered 
 how he had wished that his lady love was a St. 
 Louis girl, in which case he would have told her 
 all, in the expectation that she would nobly say : 
 " Never mind. Share one of my shoes with me, 
 for it is large enough for us both ;' ' but perhaps 
 the Chicago press is mistaken in its description of 
 the shoes of the girls of St. Louis, in spite of the 
 attention which it has paid to the subject, and per- 
 haps the average St. Louis female shoe is not of 
 abnormal size. 
 
 The concert came to an end. With the calm- 
 ness of desperation the unhappy youth escorted his 
 companion to her carriage amid the sneers and 
 laughter of the heartless public. As he left her at 
 her door, she freezingly remarked that he would 
 never have another opportunity to insult her, and 
 that her father would take prompt measures to 
 punish his outrageous conduct. It is believed that 
 the young man is still alive, and that he has con- 
 cealed himself in his laboratory. The St. Louis 
 papers, however, think that if he is not dead he
 
 A CHICAGO IDYL 79 
 
 ought to be, and that his failure to borrow the 
 young lady's glove and to use it as a temporary 
 substitute for his shoe, no matter how loosely it 
 might have fitted, stamps him as a person devoid 
 of all intelligence and ingenuity.
 
 SCIENTIFIC MENDACITY. 
 
 ri THE dog is a noble animal. No one who has 
 r*- kept a dog in his cellar and noticed the way 
 in which the intelligent beast lays hold of the man 
 who comes to inspect the gas-meter, can help 
 loving and admiring him. Of course, the more we 
 can improve the dog physically, mentally, and 
 morally, the better, and hence every effort at de- 
 veloping new and improved breeds of dogs ought 
 to be warmly welcomed. 
 
 Scientific persons also, as well as dogs, deserve, 
 as a general rule, our respect and admiration. 
 Science, if indulged in moderately by men who 
 have strength of mind enough to avoid all mathe- 
 matical excesses, is a useful and pleasing thing. 
 Every honest and fair-minded man prefers to put 
 confidence in scientific persons, rather than to view 
 them with doubt and suspicion. Nevertheless, it
 
 SCIENTIFIC MENDACITY. 81 
 
 is undeniable that at times certain scientific persons 
 will make assertions which are utterly incredible. 
 Such, it is sad to say, is the conduct of the Scien- 
 tific Person who, in a recent number of the Scien- 
 tific American, has described a new breed of dog, 
 which he calls " an improved saw-mill dog." The 
 ordinary saw-mill dog, although of mixed and in- 
 definite breed, is a useful animal, and can be 
 trained to catch small pieces of timber that go 
 adrift, as well as to warn children away from the 
 buzz-saw.. An improved saw-mill dog would, un- 
 doubtedly, be very acceptable, but the alleged 
 animal described by the Scientific Person in ques- 
 tion is not merely unprofitable, but is so thoroughly 
 impossible as to be an affront to human intelli- 
 gence. It is a publifc duty to expose the menda- 
 cious character of this description, and to convict 
 the writer of the unparalleled impudence of which 
 he has ventured to be guilty. 
 
 He begins, with a certain degree of moderation, 
 by informing us that the " improved saw-mill dog" 
 is constructed of " the best material, is strong and
 
 82 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 durable, has very few joints, and retains the log 
 with great firmness." While we do not at once 
 perceive what is gained by diminishing the num- 
 ber of joints with which nature originally provided 
 dogs, there is nothing in the statement just quoted 
 which is absolutely incredible. The writer, how- 
 ever, soon yields to the temptation to play upon 
 public credulity, and informs us that the dog's 
 teeth " are easily taken out and sharpened, or re- 
 placed by duplicates ! " Is this credible ? Who 
 ever heard of taking out a dog's teeth, sharpening 
 them, and returning them to their sockets ; or of 
 putting artificial teeth in a dog's mouth? Even 
 were such a thing possible, it would be an atro- 
 cious act of cruelty. The Scientific Fabulist, how- 
 ever, is quite willing to be thought guilty of 
 cruelty to animals. He proceeds to say that 
 "shafts" meaning, of course, clubs are "con- 
 venient and effective in forcing the dogs on to the 
 log and holding them with a relentless grip." That 
 is to say, the poor animals are to be beaten until 
 they bite so deeply in the log which they are re-
 
 SCIENTIFIC MENDACITY. 83 
 
 quired to hold that they may be said to be " forced 
 into it." We don't believe a word of this, for 
 mendacious as the Scientific Person is, he cannot 
 be as cruel as he pretends to be. 
 
 He next proceeds to tell us that the dog is 
 " made to slide on an upright bar." This is mere 
 nonsense. A dog might be trained to slide on a 
 nearly horizontal bar, but to make him slide on an 
 upright bar would be impossible. What does this 
 man mean by his preposterous stories ? Does he 
 suppose that we are all as ignorant as Western 
 statesmen, or as credulous as Communists ? He 
 pretends that the dog's " lower end is pivoted to 
 the knee, and that the upper end will recede and 
 allow large logs to come back." ! it is, is it ? 
 How would the Scientific Person like to have him- 
 self pivoted in a similar way ; and if so pivoted 
 would his upper end recede and allow large logs to 
 come back ? Does he expect us to believe that 
 logs are intelligent ; that they will run away when 
 the dog is at large, and will have courage to return 
 when they see that he is securely pivoted ? It is
 
 84 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 positively blood-curdling to read the atrocious 
 falsehoods which this shameless person tries to 
 palm off upon us. 
 
 The dog's fore-legs are courteously spoken of 
 as arms. This is unobjectionable, but when intel- 
 ligent men are told that these arms are " made 
 adjustable by spring pins," and can be lengthened 
 or shortened at pleasure, the desire to go and. kill 
 the audacious author of such atrocious stories can 
 hardly be restrained. Think of lengthening or 
 shortening a dog's fore-legs at pleasure, either with 
 spring pins or with early summer needles ! This 
 is too much. Of course, this is a free country, and 
 a man has a right to free speech, provided he 
 always expresses the sentiments of the mnjority ; 
 but are our homes to be polluted with pretended 
 scientific statements concerning alleged dogs with 
 adjustable fore-legs ? If science has come to this, 
 let Mr. COMSTOCK look to it. The United States 
 mails must not and shall not be used to disseminate 
 monstrous scientific falsehoods, subversive of the 
 very first principles of canine anatomy.
 
 SCIENTIFIC MENDACITY. 85 
 
 Toward the end of his description the scientific 
 moral monster became incoherent. He alludes 
 without any explanation to a " board dog " who, it 
 appears, is " carried in a socket." This may be 
 madness combined with mendacity, and in all 
 probability it is. Then we are told that "the 
 single dog " what single dog ? " with straight 
 tooth or bit is easily kept in order and easily 
 operated." Who ever said the contrary ? Any 
 dog, whether single or wedded, can be kept in 
 order without the slightest trouble if his owner un- 
 derstands the nature and habits of dogs. The 
 Scientific Person, however, may have alluded to 
 the docility of the single dog in order to contrast 
 him with what he calls " improved yielding spring 
 dogs," for he goes on to say that the latter " catch 
 the under side of the cant and hold its lower edge." 
 This man must die. There is nothing else that 
 will satisfy an outraged public. Who ever heard 
 of " improved yielding spring dogs," and what in 
 the name of zoology and saw-mills is " the under 
 side of the cant " ? We know what scientific cant
 
 86 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 is, and that it is as disgusting as religious cant, but 
 how can its under side be seized by spring or fall 
 or winter dogs ? If there are any improved yield- 
 ing spring dogs in existence with a fondness for 
 seizing the under side of things, let them be loosed 
 upon the Scientific Munchausen and kept in opera- 
 tion. Such is the very mildest punishment which 
 should be inflicted upon him.
 
 THE BELLE OF VALLEJO. 
 
 ~T"T~ALLEJO, California, possesses a young lady 
 * of extraordinary beauty. She is, moreover, 
 as intelligent and bold as she is beautiful, and in 
 grappling with a sudden emergency she is probably 
 unequaled by any one of her sex. Naturally, she 
 is the admiration of every young man in the town. 
 In fact, she is beyond the reach of rivalry. The 
 other young ladies of Yallejo are perfectly well 
 aware that it is hopeless for them to enter the lists 
 with her. They never expect to receive calls from 
 marriageable young men except on the off nights of 
 the Vallejo belle, and, though they doubtless mur- 
 mur secretly against this dispensation, they appa- 
 rently accept it as a law of nature. 
 
 For two years the beauty in question, whom we 
 will call Miss Ecks, received the homage of her 
 multitudinous admirers, and took an evident delight
 
 88 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 in adding to their number. So far from selecting 
 any particular young man for front-gate or back- 
 piazza duty, she preferred to entertain one or two 
 dozen simultaneous admirers in the full blaze of 
 the brilliantly-lighted front parlor. It is only fair 
 to add that she was an earnest young woman, who 
 despised coquetry and never dreamed of showing 
 favor to one young man in order to exasperate the 
 rest. 
 
 That so brilliant a girl should have finally 
 selected a meek young minister on whom to lavish 
 her affections was certainly a surprise to all who 
 knew her, and when it was first rumored that she 
 had made such a selection, Vallejo refused to 
 believe it. The minister made his regular nightly 
 calls upon the object of his affections, but an aver- 
 age quantity of eleven other young men never 
 failed to be present. Of course, he could not ob- 
 tain a single moment of private happiness with his 
 eleven rivals sitting all round the room, unless he 
 made his evening call at a preposterously early 
 hour. He did try this expedient once or twice,
 
 THE BELLE OF VALLEJO. 89 
 
 but the only result was that the eleven admirers at 
 once followed his example. In these circumstan- 
 ces he began to grow thin with suppressed affec- 
 tion, and the young lady, alarmed at his condition, 
 made up her mind that something must be done 
 without delay. 
 
 About three weeks ago the young minister 
 presented himself in his beloved's front parlor at 
 6:50 P. M., and in the ten minutes that elapsed 
 before the first of his rivals rang the bell, he 
 painted the misery of courting by battalions in the 
 most harrowing terms. Miss Ecks listened to him 
 with deep sympathy, and promised him that if he 
 would stay until nine o'clock, the last of the objec- 
 tionable young men would be so thoroughly dis- 
 posed of that for the rest of the evening he would 
 have the field to himself. Full of confidence in the 
 determination and resources of his betrothed, his 
 spirits returned, and he was about to express his 
 gratitude with his lips, as well as his heart, when 
 the first young man was ushered into the room. 
 
 Miss Ecks received her unwelcome guest with
 
 90 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 great cordiality, and invited him to sit on a chair 
 the back of which was placed close to a door. The 
 door in question opened outward and upon the top 
 of a flight of stairs leading to the cellar. The 
 latch was old and out of order, and the least pres- 
 sure would cause it to fly open. In pursuance of a 
 deep-laid plan, Miss Ecks so molded her conversa- 
 tion as to place the visitor at his ease. In a very 
 few moments, he ceased to twist his fingers and 
 writhe his legs, and presently tilted back his chair 
 after the manner of a contented and happy man. 
 No sooner did the back of the chair touch the door 
 than the latter flew open, and the unhappy guest 
 disappeared into the cellar with a tremendous 
 crash. Checking the cry that arose from the 
 astonished clergyman, Miss Ecks quietly reclosed 
 the fatal door, placed a fresh chair in its vicinity, 
 and calmly remarked, " That's one of them." 
 
 In five minutes more the second young man 
 entered. Like his predecessor, he seated himself 
 on the appointed chair, tipped back upon its hind- 
 legs, and instantly vanished. " That's two of
 
 THE BELLE OF VALLEJO. 91 
 
 them," remarked the imperturbable beauty, as she 
 closed the door and once more re-set the trap. 
 From this time until nine o'clock a constant suc- 
 cession of young men went down those cellar-stairs. 
 Some of them groaned slightly after reaching the 
 bottom, but not one returned. It was an unu- 
 sually good night for young men, and Miss Ecks 
 caught no less than fourteen between seven and 
 nine o'clock. As the last one disappeared she 
 turned to her horrified clergyman and said, " That's 
 the last of them ! Now for business ! " but that 
 mild young man had fainted. His nerves were 
 unable to bear the strain, and when the moment 
 of his wished-for monopoly of his betrothed had 
 arrived he was unable to enjoy it. 
 
 Later in the evening he revived sufficiently to 
 seek a railway station and fly forever from his 
 remorseless charmer. The inquest that was subse- 
 quently held upon the fourteen young men will 
 long be remembered as a most impressive scene. 
 Miss Ecks was present with her back hair loose, 
 and the tears stood in her magnificent eyes as she
 
 92 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 testified that she could not imagine what induced 
 the young men to go down cellar. The jury with- 
 out the slightest hesitation found that they had 
 one and all committed suicide, and the coroner 
 personally thanked the young lady for her lucid 
 testimony. She is now more popular than ever, 
 and, with the loss of her own accepted lover, has 
 renewed her former fondness for society, and 
 nightly entertains all the surviving young men of 
 Vallejo. 
 
 This shows what the magnificent climate of 
 California can accomplish in the production of girls 
 when it really tries.
 
 THE SLIPPER REPORT. 
 
 nnHE rapidity with which the Bureau of Statis- 
 -*~ tics does its work is admirable. Within a 
 week after New Year's day, the Bureau was able 
 to publish its annual Clerical Slipper Report, which 
 includes complete returns from nearly every Pro- 
 testant minister in the United States, of whatever 
 denomination. Were it not that the presentation 
 of slippers is a ceremony not recognized by the' 
 Church of Rome, the report would, of course, have 
 included a still greater aggregate of slippers, and 
 the task of preparing it would have been propor- 
 tionally greater. When it is remembered that the 
 6/,418 ministers mentioned in this report are scat- 
 tered over an entire continent, and that the slippers 
 of each one of them have been accurately enumer- 
 ated, an approximate idea of the enormous work 
 done by the bureau can be formed.
 
 94 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 The total number of clerical slippers present- 
 ed during the last holiday season was 887,215. 
 These figures represent single slippers and not 
 pairs, as might be hastily imagined the bureau 
 having been compelled to take cognizance of single 
 slippers only in consequence of the fact that there 
 is a number of one-legged ministers who are never 
 presented with more than one slipper at a time. 
 Even if we divide the figures given in the report 
 by two, and assume that they represent 443,607 
 pairs of slippers, and only one solitary single slip- 
 per, we may well be startled at the immense pro- 
 portions to which clerical slipper presentation has 
 arrived. The previous report showed that 717,508 
 single slippers were presented during the holiday 
 season of 1875-6, or 169,707 less than the number 
 mentioned in the present report. A like increase 
 next year will bring more than a million slippers 
 to the parsonages of our land, and it is probable 
 that the number will fall little, if any, short of 
 1,200,000. 
 
 The number of Protestant ministers among
 
 THE SLIPPER REPORT 95 
 
 whom these slippers were divided is 67,418. 
 This gives an average of about thirteen slippers to 
 each minister. Of course, there was no such im- 
 partial distribution. While the one-legged Metho- 
 dist minister at Grand Rapids, Washington Terri- 
 tory, received a solitary slipper made of birch-bark 
 by an aboriginal parishioner, the fortunate Bishop 
 of a New England diocese received 73 pairs. The 
 latter was the highest number of slippers received 
 by any one clergyman, though a Methodist Pastor 
 in Chicago and a Cumberland Presbyterian in 
 Louisville, who received respectively 71 and 70 
 pairs, were but little behind. About three-sevenths 
 of all ministers received two and three pairs each, 
 thus leaving an enormous quantity to be distributed 
 among the other four-sevenths. It will not escape 
 the notice of students of the report that Baptist 
 ministers receive in proportion fewer slippers than 
 ministers of other denominations. This, however, 
 is easily explicable upon the theory that the love 
 and admiration of their flocks are expressed mainly 
 in the shape of water-proof boots which latter
 
 96 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 articles cannot, of course, be included among slip- 
 per statistics. 
 
 A new feature has been added to the report 
 this year, which much increases its interest. This 
 is a classification of the slippers in accordance with 
 their patterns. Thus, there are "ecclesiastical" 
 slippers," or slippers bearing ecclesiastical emblems, 
 such as crosses and open Bibles ; " slippers of the 
 affections," upon which hearts, clasped hands, and 
 such like devices are embroidered; and "textual 
 slippers," which are ornamented with the chapter 
 and verse of some particular text; as, for example, 
 "Luke xcviii : 17." Apparently, slippers of this 
 kind are presented chiefly to unmarried ministers, 
 since the majority of them refer to texts inculcating 
 the duty of marriage. " Motto slippers " are evi- 
 dently extremely popular, for it appears that no 
 less than 2,170 slippers bore the legend " Bless 
 our Pastor." Among " miscellaneous slippers," 
 a pair which were embroidered with a beautiful 
 picture of DANIEL in the Lion's Den is mentioned, 
 and it is to be regretted that the artist, owing to
 
 THE SLIPPER REPORT. 97 
 
 want of space, was compelled to put the lions on 
 one slipper and DANIEL on the other ; thus seriously 
 interfering with the unity of. the design. 
 
 What becomes of all these slippers ? It is well 
 known that a popular clergyman never ventures 
 to wear his Christmas slippers, for the reason that 
 whatever pair he may wear, he thereby incurs the 
 anger of the givers of the other pairs. Of course, 
 he cannot openly sell his superfluous slippers, and 
 he cannot give them away or destroy them. It is 
 thus seen that the question " what does he do with 
 them?" is one that touches a great and solemn 
 mystery. Hitherto no one has been able to solve 
 this mystery, but unless we are grossly deceived, 
 the clue to it is at length in our hands. 
 
 It would occur to the dullest mind that the 
 existence of a " Clerical Co-operative Slipper Soci- 
 ety and India-rubber Guild " must have some con- 
 nection with clerical Christmas slippers, but a 
 copy of the constitution and by-laws of the Society, 
 which, in spite of the secrecy in which the matter 
 has hitherto been shrouded, recently came into the 
 5
 
 98 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 hands of a well-known resident of this city, throws 
 a flood of light upon the slipper problem. Under 
 the rules of the Society every member forwards his 
 slippers and India-rubbers to the Central Agency, 
 in Boston. The agency forwards them to London, 
 where they are quietly sold by a sub-agent. 
 From the proceeds are first paid the salaries of the 
 chief agent and his assistants and the cost of han- 
 dling the slippers. The rest of the money is then 
 divided pro rata among the original slipper-owners, 
 each of whom pledges himself to devote a tenth of 
 his annual receipts to purchasing shoes for bare- 
 footed children. The Society recognizes no eccle- 
 siastical or sectarian differences. The Episcopal 
 Bishop and the Primitive Methodist minister are 
 united by the common bond of superfluous slippers. 
 At what rate the slippers are sold and what is the 
 average amount per pair which each member of the 
 Society receives the public will doubtless learn at a 
 later day. All that is now known of the society is 
 its existence and its method of operation. Of 
 these there can be no doubt, provided, of course,
 
 THE SLIPPER REPORT. 99 
 
 the well-known citizen to whom reference has just 
 been made is as trustworthy as he is universally 
 believed to be. 
 
 Hitherto Congress has not ordered the Slipper 
 Report to be printed for public distribution, but it 
 is earnestly to be hoped that the present report will 
 be printed, and that every citizen will receive and 
 study a copy of what is really one of the most able 
 documents ever prepared.
 
 POPULAR ELECTRICITY. 
 
 A \ J ITHIN the present century vast progress 
 * * has been made in the study of the nature 
 and applications of electricity. From the first 
 sparks drawn from the back of the primeval cat by 
 her cave-dwelling master, to the discovery of the 
 phonograph, there is an immense distance. Never- 
 theless, it is believed by many scientific persons 
 that we are as yet merely on the threshold of elec- 
 tricity, and that in the future we shall make dis- 
 coveries infinitely more important than those 
 which the ablest electricians have hitherto made. 
 
 It is only just beginning to be understood that 
 the electric currents of the earth have an intimate 
 connection with a great quantity of things. The 
 aurora-borealis is believed to be in some mysterious 
 way connected with spots on the solar disk, and 
 these spots in their turn have an influence upon
 
 POPULAR E 
 
 LID 
 
 our climate, and upon the spread of pestilential 
 diseases. Recently it has been asserted that no 
 man can sleep well unless the major axis of his 
 bed, and consequently his personal major axis, 
 corresponds with the position of the axis of the 
 earth. This is due to the fact that the currents 
 of earthly electricity flow in the direction of the 
 earth's axis ; or, in other words, from pole to pole. 
 If they enter a recumbent human being at his feet, 
 and pass out at his head, he becomes sleepy, while 
 if, owing to the wrong position of his bed, they 
 enter him from one side or the other, their strug- 
 gles to get out again produce such a derangement 
 of his nervous system, as to render it impossible 
 for him to sleep. These are but a few of the hosts 
 of facts which might be mentioned to prove the in- 
 fluence of earth-currents upon man and his sur- 
 roundings, and we shall yet make discoveries in 
 this particular field, which no one outside of an 
 insane asylum will be capable of believing. 
 
 The reason why the cats whose howls disturb 
 our nocturnal slumbers are uniformly found on
 
 102 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 back fences running in a direction perpendicular, or 
 nearly perpendicular to the axis of the earth, has 
 never hitherto been ascertained. Sir ISAAC NEWTON 
 attempted to explain the fact by asserting that the 
 great majority of fences are built parallel to the 
 equator, but this explanation is glaringly at variance 
 with well-ascertained facts. BUFFON suggested that 
 cats are mysteriously influenced by the moon, and 
 that hence they prefer fences which are built in the 
 general direction of the plane of the moon's orbit. 
 This is certainly a plausible explanation, but it has 
 yet to be proved that moonlight is the cause, rather 
 than a mere incident, of nocturnal cat concerts. 
 The other explanations which have been hazarded 
 by lesser authorities are scarcely worth mention- 
 ing. All that we really know is the single fact 
 that nocturnal cats are distributed around the 
 eartti in belts parallel to the equator. Fully 
 ninety-three per cent of the cats that bring us from 
 our midnight couches with bootjacks in our hands 
 and rage in our hearts, are found perched upon 
 the east and west fences, and to the truth of
 
 POPULAR ELECTRICITY. 103 
 
 this assertion every New Yorker will readily 
 agree. 
 
 In examining this very interesting and impor- 
 tant problem, let us begin by asking why the mid- 
 night cat howls. Superficial observers have al- 
 leged that howling is the natural expression of the 
 tender passion among cats, and that the intensity 
 of a cat's admiration for the female of his species 
 may be accurately measured by the hideousness of 
 his howls. This is an insult to human intelligence 
 and feline self-respect. Would any young man, 
 desiring to plead his suit with the lady of his heart, 
 place himself under her window and yell as if he 
 were undergoing the severest torments ? Of course 
 he would not, and equally of course, no intelligent 
 cat would be guilty of a like folly. The yells of the 
 midnight cat bear every sign of being the expres- 
 sion of the keenest suffering, and only the most 
 perverse ingenuity can regard them as the voice of 
 love. 
 
 We have thus learned that the cat perched on 
 a back fence perpendicularly to the axis of the
 
 104 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 earth, and to the direction of the earth currents of 
 electricity, howls because he or she, as the case 
 may be is undergoing acute agony. Very possi- 
 bly cats pass over fences running from north to 
 eoiith quite as frequently as they do over fences 
 running in the direction of the equator, but in the 
 former case they experience no pain, and hence do 
 not attract attention by their outcries. The mo- 
 ment, however, that a cat finds himself on an east 
 and west fence he is racked by internal pains ; he 
 tries to relieve his mind by howls and profanity, 
 and he thereby excites the rage of his human au- 
 diences. Now, if we ascertain what produces these 
 pains, we shall have found the true answer to the 
 question under discussion. May it not be that 
 electricity is really at the bottom of the whole 
 affair? 
 
 The cat, be it remembered, is more addicted to 
 electricity than any other animal, except the elec- 
 trical eel, and hence is peculiarly susceptible to the 
 influence of the earth currents. So long as the cat 
 walks over fences running from north to south his
 
 POPULAR ELECTRICITY. 105 
 
 axis is coincident with the direction of these cur- 
 rents. They pass smoothly through his spinal 
 column, and heyond gently stimulating his mind 
 and tail, they have no perceptible effect upon him. 
 When, however, he tries to walk on a fence built 
 parallel to the equator, his private axis becomes 
 perpendicular to the earth-currents. They pene- 
 trate his vitals and they wrench him all to pieces 
 in their efforts to force their way through him. 
 Filled with anguish, he stops, clings fiercely to the 
 fence, and lifts up his voice in frenzied agony. To 
 some extent the muscles of his legs are paralyzed, 
 and he is unable to move until the unfeeling boot- 
 jack comes hurtling through the air and stimulates 
 him into action. He then springs from the fence ; 
 his pains vanish, and his voice is silent. Is not 
 this a complete and scientific explanation of the 
 question which has so long defied the ablest scien- 
 tific minds ? 
 
 We thus see how beautiful are the reasoning 
 processes by which true science investigates 
 abstruse questions. We also see that one of the
 
 106 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 most common incidents of every-night life is due 
 to the electricity of the earth. Let us, then, be 
 thankful that we live in a scientific age, and that 
 there are more uses for electricity than any one has 
 yet dreamed of.
 
 LONG ISLAND HUNTING. 
 
 MORE than six months have come and gone 
 since the Long Island Hunt was organized. 
 During that time the gallant hunters have chased 
 the wild anise-seed hag at least twice every week. 
 One would suppose that by this time every mem- 
 ber of the hunt must have been in at the death, 
 but, strange as it may seem, not a single anise-seed 
 bag has been killed. A matter so serious as this 
 cannot be passed over in silence, and it becomes 
 necessary to inquire why the chase has in every 
 instance proved unsuccessful. 
 
 It will not do to say that the hunters have 
 abstained from killing anise-seed bags in order to 
 avoid the premature extirpation of the animal. 
 Although our most learned naturalists were until 
 recently unaware of the existence of the anise-seed 
 bag on Long Island, there can be no doubt that the
 
 108 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 animal is abundant in Queens and Suffolk Counties. 
 In every instance the dogs have struck the scent 
 without any difficulty. This shows conclusively 
 that the covers of Long Island are full of anise- 
 seed bags, and refutes the pretext that the hunters 
 forbear to kill because they fear that the animal 
 will be exterminated. 
 
 It is, perhaps, hardly worth while to notice the 
 ludicrous mistake made by certain provincial papers, 
 that the anise-seed bag is a literal cloth bag, filled 
 with a supposed substance called anise-seed, and 
 dragged on the ground by a mounted groom. The 
 absurdity of this supposition is glaringly apparent. 
 Is it probable that a dozen or more men would ride 
 after a pack of hounds in pursuit of a miserable 
 prosaic bag? Very small boys might agree to 
 make believe that a bag is a live animal, just as 
 very little girls sometimes make believe that a 
 dust-brush wrapped in a towel is a living infant, 
 but men have outgrown such childish plays. This 
 preposterous mistake of the rural press is mentioned 
 here because it may be reiterated by Philadelphian
 
 LONG ISLAND HUNTING. 109 
 
 or Oshkoshian papers in explanation of the failure 
 to kill. Chasing wild animals may or may not be 
 an improving occupation, but the supposition that 
 the Long Island hunters deliberately chase a 
 " make-believe " animal, does them a gross injustice. 
 The anise-seed bag is somewhat larger and 
 fiercer than the fox, but rather smaller than the 
 wolf. It is of a light brown color, with an enor- 
 mous mouth and a fierce disposition. Neverthe- 
 less, it shuns the sight of man, and lurks in the 
 depths of the forest, or makes its way across the 
 country by availing itself of the shelter of ditches 
 and stone walls. It is much fleeter than the fox, 
 but a good pack of hounds can always run it down. 
 The anise-seed bag, in spite of its fierceness when 
 driven to bay, rarely attacks man except in numbers, 
 and when suffering from hunger. In the early his- 
 tory of the Plymouth colonists the anise-seed bags 
 were very numerous and bold. They would gather 
 at the outskirts of the settlement in packs of several 
 hundred, and sit on end howling dismally, and 
 longing to stay their stomachs with even the most
 
 110 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 sour and angular pilgrim in all Plymouth. Still, it 
 does not appear that any of the colonists were actu- 
 ally killed by these animals. True, we read in the 
 journal of Capt. MILES STANDISH an entry to the 
 effect that " it is said that Mr. JOHN ALDEN was 
 last night devoured by anise-seed bags, and that 
 his vain and fickle widow is in much tribulation. 
 There are those who think that he hath received 
 his deserts; " but it subsequently proved that the 
 rumor was false. BUFFON asserts that the anise- 
 seed bag will fight desperately when its means of 
 escape are cut off, and that the hunter frequently 
 pays for his temerity with his life. This, however, 
 was written of the larger species which inhabits the 
 desert of Gobi, and may not be true of the Long 
 Island variety. The latter may be as dangerous 
 as local legends claim that it is ; but there is no 
 well-authenticated case of the death of any Long 
 Islander at the hands, or rather the teeth, of an 
 anise-seed bag. 
 
 Can it be possible that the gallant huntsmen 
 who have hitherto ridden so unsuccessfully are
 
 LONG ISLAND HUNTING. Ill 
 
 really afraid to bring the animal to bay, lest they 
 or their dogs should suffer serious injury ? Al- 
 though this supposition does no credit to their 
 bravery, it cannot be said to be without some 
 foundation. The huntsmen follow the flying anise- 
 seed bag until the hounds are within a short dis- 
 tance of the animal, when the horses are pulled up, 
 the dogs called off, and the panting anise-seed bag 
 allowed to make its escape. The other day the 
 hounds were so nearly successful in running the 
 beast to earth, that a tame fox was let out of a 
 bag expressly to divert their attention, while the 
 anise-seed bag escaped. As the fox insisted upon 
 lying down to sleep, it was necessary to whip him 
 into activity, and even when this was done, he re- 
 fused to run, and permitted the master of the hunt 
 to kill him with a club. Why should all this 
 trouble have been taken to prevent the hounds 
 and the huntsmen from reaching the flying anise- 
 seed bag, unless it was that the huntsmen 
 feared to risk an encounter with the desperate 
 animal ?
 
 112 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 This sort of thing cannot go on indefinitely. 
 Man's dominion over the animals is due to their 
 consciousness that he does not fear them. The 
 smallest puppy will attack the largest man if the 
 latter shows any signs of fear. The anise-seed 
 bags will soon arrive at the opinion that the hunt- 
 ers are afraid of them, and will then introduce a 
 pleasing variety into Long Island hunting. We 
 shall witness the novel spectacle of a dozen scarlet- 
 clad horsemen and a pack of dogs with downcast 
 tails flying across the country with a score of anise- 
 seed bags in swift pursuit. The mind shudders to 
 think what the consequences would be should the 
 unfortunate huntsmen be overtaken, but we can- 
 not shut our eyes to the possibility that such a 
 catastrophe may occur. 
 
 The huntsmen must make up their minds to 
 let no more anise-seed bags escape. At the end 
 of the next hunt the brush of the dead animal must 
 be taken. If they are afraid to close with the 
 anise-seed bag at bay, let them abandon the sport 
 at once. If they are not afraid, let them show it
 
 LONG ISLAND HUNTING. 113 
 
 by bringing home the brush and pads of the next 
 anise-seed bag that is driven from cover. Their 
 reputation is at stake and it rests with themselves 
 to redeem it*
 
 MR. SIMPKINS' DOWNFALL. 
 
 "A /TAN is the only animal that wears short socks. 
 -*-*-*- This is not only a more accurate definition 
 than any hitherto devised by scientific persons, but 
 it shows the inferiority of man to all other animals, 
 and ought to have even more effect in humbling 
 our wicked pride than has the famous story of the 
 little girl who was excessively proud of her silk 
 dress until she was told that it was spun, woven, 
 cut out, made up, and trimmed by a loathsome 
 worm. 
 
 The great trouble with the short sock is that it 
 will not keep its place. There being nothing what- 
 ever to hold it, the force of gravitation necessarily 
 drags it down about the ankle. This causes an 
 amount of misery which is appalling. There is no 
 man who can feel any confidence in his socks. 
 Whether he is walking or sitting, he knows that
 
 MR. SIMPKINS' DOWNFALL. 115 
 
 his socks are slowly but surely slipping down. 
 Garters being out of the question, since the short- 
 ness of the sock does not permit a garter to be 
 placed in a position where it will not slip, there is 
 absolutely no remedy for what we may fairly call 
 the giant evil of the age. Pins and mucilage have 
 both been tried by desperate men, but they have 
 proved useless, and have merely added to the 
 misery of the user. In these circumstances there 
 is nothing left for man to do except to bear the 
 sock in silence, or to boldly cast it aside and adopt 
 the full-grown stocking. 
 
 The latter alternative was recently chosen by 
 that eloquent but unfortunate clergyman, Rev. 
 CHARLES SIMPKINS, of Westbridge, Pennsylvania. 
 Previous to the catastrophe which lately overtook 
 him, the Church did not possess a more popular 
 and promising young clergyman. He could repeat 
 the opening exhortation all the way from " Dearly 
 beloved " to " forgiveness for the same," without 
 once pausing for breath, and it has been asserted 
 that he could monotone the entire Apostles' Creed
 
 116 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 while breathing only three times. As he was un- 
 married, and not yet twenty-seven years old, he 
 was regarded with peculiar reverence by the un- 
 married ladies of his parish, and he received more 
 annual slippers than any other clergyman in the 
 United States. 
 
 Neatness was one of the distinguishing charac- 
 teristics of Mr. SIMPKINS, and there are probably 
 few men who have suffered more keenly from short 
 socks. When walking through the village, he was 
 in continual dread lest his socks should descend 
 into public view, and even while preaching his most 
 eloquent sermons, the perspiration would gather on 
 his brow as he felt that one of his socks was 
 gradually slipping down. This wore upon him to 
 that extent that his massive intellect threatened 
 to totter, and on the morning of the eighty-first 
 Sunday after Trinity he deliberately paused, after 
 remarking "here endeth" and stooped down to 
 repair damages. That night he resolved that 
 vigorous measures must be taken, and he accord- 
 ingly wrote a confidential letter to his sister's
 
 MR. SIMPKINS' DOWNFALL. 117 
 
 husband, who resided in this city, and inclosed the 
 necessary measurements. Shortly afterward he 
 received, ostensibly from the husband, but really 
 from the affectionate sister, two dozen pair of Bal- 
 briggan hose, together with a pair of scarlet elastics 
 an inch in width, and of precisely the right size. 
 
 As soon as Mr. SIMPKINS had learned by re- 
 peated experiment how to wear the scarlet appli- 
 ances, his spirit began to rise. He was no longer 
 a prey to doubt and despair. His stockings firmly 
 kept their place, and he felt that he could even 
 attend a church picnic and climb over a fence with- 
 out fear of consequences. Accordingly, for the 
 first time during his residence at Westbridge, he 
 consented to attend the Sunday-school picnic of 
 the 21st of October last, and thereby filled with 
 unutterable delight the souls of all the unmarried 
 teachers of the church. 
 
 Mr, SIMPKINS, being free from care, entered into 
 the sports of the picnic with great zest, and the 
 children insisted that he, together with their teach- 
 ers, should take part in a game of blind-man's buff.
 
 118 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 The request was acceded to, and the usual running, 
 laughing, and shrieking followed. It was while 
 Mr. SIMPKINS was fleeing, in company with six 
 excited teachers, from the pursuit of a blindfolded 
 small boy, that he suddenly noticed that one of his 
 elastics had become unclasped and had fallen to 
 the ground. At the same moment it was perceived 
 by the prettiest of the teachers, who made a fran- 
 tic effort to seize it, but was anticipated by the 
 unhappy clergyman. It was bad enough for him 
 to know that the teacher had discovered his mis- 
 fortune, but what was his horror and amazement 
 when, with every appearance of anger, she de- 
 manded that he should " hand her that " instantly. 
 He was so astonished at her evident desire to 
 make sport of him that lie did not deign to answer 
 her, but put the disputed article in his pocket and 
 walked away. Whereupon the teacher burst into 
 tears and informed her confidential friends that 
 Mr. SIMPKINS had had the inconceivable audacity 
 to steal one of her in fact, her private property. 
 The scandal spread rapidly and widely, and
 
 MR. SIMPKINS' DOWNFALL. 119 
 
 grew as rapidly as it spread. At the end of half 
 an hour every lady at the picnic had cut the 
 clergyman in the most marked manner. Burning 
 with shame and indignation, he forgot to repair 
 the deficiencies of his toilet, and went home feel- 
 ing rather more crestfallen than did the prophet 
 DANIEL when he found that the lions would not 
 recognize his existence. It was not until he was 
 on the point of seeking a sleepless pillow that he 
 discovered that both his scarlet elastics were in 
 their proper place, while the one which he had 
 picked up at the picnic lay on his table. The full 
 horror of his situation flashed upon him. The 
 teacher had really dropped a scarlet elastic, and 
 he had seized it under the impression that it was 
 his own. 
 
 The utter hopelessness of ever making any 
 satisfactory explanation of the affair was only too 
 apparent. Early the next morning Mr. SIMPKINS 
 fled from Westbridge a ruined man. The fatal 
 articles which had caused his downfall he left be- 
 hind him, and they teach with mute but powerful
 
 120 
 
 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 eloquence the lesson that we should bear the 
 
 socks we have, and never dream of flying to 
 
 stockings, of which we know nothing except by 
 hearsay.
 
 THE SIX-BUTTON PRINCIPLE. 
 
 A LTHOUGH the female dress-reformers always 
 4-A- demonstrate at their annual conventions that 
 the practice of supporting stockings by what are 
 deliberately termed ligatures insures the moral and 
 physical ruin of the sex, no successful substitute 
 for the denounced article of dress has yet been 
 invented. Certain dress-reformers have, it is true, 
 devised a system of halyards, brails, and down- 
 hauls, which they assert are far superior to the 
 deadly ligature, but the intricacy of all this run- 
 ning rigging, and the difficulty which inexperienced 
 persons find in its management, have prevented it 
 from coming into use. The inexperienced woman 
 when thus rigged is very apt to make mistakes, and 
 to find herself scudding under bare poles, in conse- 
 quence of having hauled away on the downhaul 
 when she had merely intended to take a small pull 
 at the halyards. Thus, few persons except dress- 
 6
 
 122 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 reformers are rigged with the improved stocking 
 gear, and even these confess that, for the purpose 
 of catching an early morning train, the despised 
 ligature has its manifest advantages. 
 
 About two months ago the ladies of three con- 
 tiguous counties in Pennsylvania were successively 
 visited by a slight, graceful, and unassuming young 
 woman, who announced that she was the agent of a 
 " Women's Dress-Reform Benevolent Association," 
 and that she desired to call their attention to a new 
 invention of immense hygienic value. The new 
 invention consisted of the application of the six- 
 button-glove principle to hosiery. Of course, this 
 is a delicate subject, but, in the interest of reform 
 and public morality, it must be discussed. It is 
 idle for us to ignore the existence of stockings, and 
 it is cowardly to shrink from performing a public 
 duty because it involves an allusion to a delicate 
 topic. Let us, then, go boldly forward and relate 
 the strange conduct of the unassuming young 
 woman, as reported among the police news of a 
 Pennsylvania paper.
 
 THE SIX-BUTTON PRINCIPLE. 123 
 
 While the substitution of buttons for ligatures 
 or running rigging struck the ladies of the three 
 counties as an admirable invention, the amazing 
 cheapness with which the agent of the alleged asso- 
 ciation offered to sell the improved garments created 
 immense enthusiasm. She said that the only ob- 
 ject of the association was to do good, and that it 
 was therefore prepared to sell the best quality of 
 six-buttoned goods at one-half of their original cost. 
 In confirmation of this statement she submitted 
 lithographic copies of letters from President HAYES, 
 Mr. TILDEN. PETER COOPER, STANLEY MATTHEWS, and 
 other eminent statesmen, all of whom asserted that 
 they felt that the introduction of six-buttoned 
 hosiery was the greatest boon which could be con- 
 ferred upon the women of America, and simul- 
 taneously ordered six dozen pairs of assorted sizes 
 to be sent to their respective addresses. In addi- 
 tion to these letters, the agent exhibited a sample 
 of the garment in question, which appeared to be 
 of the very best quality. The opportunity was 
 one which no prudent lady could permit to pass
 
 124 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 unimproved, and nearly every one to whom the 
 agent applied ordered at least half a dozen pairs, 
 to be paid for upon delivery. 
 
 There was, however, one little preliminary 
 which the agent- insisted was indispensable, if she 
 was to execute her orders to the satisfaction of her 
 customers. The human mind shrinks from men- 
 tioning this preliminary, but it cannot be ignored. 
 If the buttons were to be of any use, they must 
 be so placed in relation to the button-holes that 
 the garment would be neither too tight nor too 
 loose. Hence, when the agent produced a tape- 
 measure and a note-book, her view of the matter 
 was at once conceded to be correct, and the agent's 
 note-book was furnished with the required data. 
 Thus, that unassuming agent went from house to 
 house throughout almost the whole of three coun- 
 ties, cheering the female population with the hope 
 of miraculously cheap and beautiful hosiery, and 
 filled her note-book with statistics. Unfortunately, 
 that otherwise astute agent drank too much whisky 
 at the last town which she visited, and being ar-
 
 THE SIX-BUTTON PRINCIPLE. 125 
 
 rested for disorderly conduct, confessed that she 
 was a man. 
 
 When the ladies who had ordered six-button 
 hosiery learned the truth as to the unassuming 
 agent and the fate which had befallen him, they 
 denounced the wretch with great vigor, and were 
 unanimously of the opinion that a combination of 
 wild horses and red-hot pincers could alone do 
 justice to him. To this outburst of indignation 
 succeeded the terrible thought, what had the felon- 
 ious agent done with his collection of statistics? 
 Naturally, this thought led straight to hysterics, and 
 for the next week the sale of sal volatile in Central 
 Pennsylvania increased to an unprecedented extent. 
 
 A deputation of indignant fathers waited upon 
 the inconceivable villain in jail, and demanded the 
 immediate destruction of his note-book. To this 
 request he declined to accede. He admitted that 
 his pretended association did not exist, and that 
 he had no intention of executing the orders which 
 his deceived customers had given him, but he ex- 
 plained that he was an earnest reformer, and that
 
 126 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 he intended to publish the statistics in question, 
 in order that the medical fraternity might become 
 convinced of the blighting effect of the ordinary 
 ligature. Nothing could shake his determination. 
 He said that he had a great duty to perform, and 
 that much as it pained him to grieve anybody, he 
 must perform that duty. The indignant parents 
 
 
 
 left his cell much cast down in spirits, and after 
 vainly applying to the local court for an injunction 
 forbidding the false agent to publish his statistics, 
 went home and reported their failure to their wives 
 and daughters. 
 
 The one question now agitating the public mind 
 in Pennsylvania is whether that wretched felon 
 will really publish his statistics. The contingency 
 is one which cannot be contemplated without a 
 shudder ; but at the same time, it is possible that 
 there is more or less merit in the pretended plan 
 of adapting the six-button-glove principle to more 
 esoteric garments, and that the pretended reformer 
 has really solved the problem with which profes- 
 sional dress-reformers have proved themselves in- 
 competent to grapple.
 
 A REMEDY FOR BRASS INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 ~T~N order to be a great military commander it is 
 *- generally conceded that a certain amount of in- 
 difference to human suffering is requisite. GRANT 
 would never have dealt his terrible blows at the 
 army of Gen. LEE, had he been constantly filled 
 with pity for the tattered and battle-worn Con- 
 federates, and our President could hardly have 
 achieved his present proud position as the great 
 conciliator of the age had his heart continued to 
 bleed for the poor negro as it bled before the elec- 
 tion. A like callousness of heart is a necessary 
 characteristic of the man who undertakes to learn 
 to play upon a musical instrument. 
 
 The sum of human agony caused by the early 
 efforts of players upon stringed, reed, and brass in- 
 struments, is incalculable, and it is noticeable that 
 wherever musical amateurs abound the Universalist
 
 128 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 faith makes no progress, and the Calvinistic doc- 
 trine, that a place of future torment is a moral 
 necessity, finds multitudes of believers. Many 
 learned commentators have discussed the nature of 
 the insanity under which King SAUL frequently 
 suffered, but it is odd that no one has perceived 
 that it was due to the youthful DAVID'S persistent 
 practice upon the harp. We know that on one 
 occasion, while DAVID was playing an air, which 
 doubtless closely resembled " Silver Threads 
 Among the Gold," SAUL, remarking " S'help me 
 Father ABRAHAM, this is too much," flung a javelin 
 at the musician and drove him away. Doubtless, 
 the king was hasty, but let us remember his ex- 
 treme provocation. As for DAVID, not content with 
 having already killed the leading Philistine giant, 
 he went and played the harp to that unhappy 
 nation, with the view of demoralizing the people so 
 that he could make an easy conquest of them on 
 coming to the Israelitish throne. 
 
 While the javelin is probably a specific for all 
 suffering due to accordeons, violins, cornets, and
 
 A REMEDY FOR BRASS INSTRUMENTS. 129 
 
 flutes, it is not a remedy which is available at the 
 present day. The most successful mode of treat- 
 ment which has been devised is that which was 
 recently tried, with admirable results, in the case 
 of a young man residing in a Twenty-second street 
 boarding-house, who was addicted to the French 
 Lorn ; and it is due to the medical profession that 
 the history of the case should be briefly given. 
 
 The young man in question occupied the 
 second-story front hall-bedroom. He was appa- 
 rently a quiet and well-meaning person, but under 
 a smooth and spotless shirt-bosom he concealed a 
 heart heedless of human suffering. It would not 
 have made much difference where he concealed his 
 heart, for it would have been quite as callous had 
 he kept it under his waistband, or inside of his boot. 
 That he preferred to learn the French horn rather 
 than any other and more common instrument of 
 torture, does not palliate his offense ; for although 
 the horn lacks the ear-piercing shrillness of the 
 cornet, its tone has a wonderfully penetrating 
 power, and is to the last degree depressing to the 
 G*
 
 130 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 spirits. Unfortunately, he was free from those 
 forms of vice which lead young men to spend their 
 evenings elsewhere than in their rooms and to lie 
 in bed late in the morning. Moreover, he paid his 
 room rent in advance with cold-blooded punctuality. 
 Hence, although he rose up early and sat up late 
 to practice the horn, his landlady could not make 
 up her mind either to request him to leave or to 
 hint to him, by the discreet method of helping him 
 exclusively to cold coffee and bare bones, that his 
 presence in her house was undesirable. 
 
 The man who begins to play a wind instru- 
 ment employs the most of his time in what may be 
 called " sighting shots." For example, when this 
 particular young man desired to sound B flat, it 
 would take him a long while before he could get his 
 elevation and his wind-gauge regulated. He would 
 hit three or four notes above B flat, and three or 
 four notes below it, a score of times before he 
 would finally make a bull's-eye. Even when, after 
 long effort, he succeeded in hitting the desired note, 
 the sound produced would be what is technically
 
 A REMEDY FOR BRASS INSTRUMENTS. 131 
 
 called a " blaat," or, in other words, an uncertain, 
 toneless, and most unmusical sound. It is needless 
 to speak of the effect which this sort of thing had 
 upon his fellow-boarders. At the end of two 
 weeks public indignation had grown to that extent 
 that it was seriously proposed to melt the horn and 
 to pour the metal down the throat of the player, as 
 a warning that unless he promptly reformed he 
 would be dealt with severely. It was then that a 
 homeopathic physician residing in the house called 
 a meeting of the aggrieved boarders in order to 
 propose what he believed would prove a radical 
 cure. 
 
 After describing with great clearness the pain- 
 ful symptoms which prolonged practice upon the 
 horn develop in the unfortunate and unwilling lis- 
 teners, and unfolding at much length HAHNEMANN'S 
 theory of cure, he asserted that in order to success- 
 fully combat the effects of horn-playing, the use of 
 other instruments which produce analogous symp- 
 toms was clearly indicated. Hence, he proposed 
 that each boarder should provide himself with a
 
 132 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 cornet, a violin, an accordeon, a flute, or a drum, 
 and administer these remedies whenever any symp- 
 toms of the French horn wera manifested. Few of 
 the boarders believed in homeopathy, but they 
 were in that state of mind in which men clutch at 
 any nostrum which promises relief. They there- 
 fore resolved to follow the doctor's prescription, 
 and immediately laid in a full supply of the indi- 
 cated instruments. 
 
 The next evening at seven o'clock the familiar 
 gasp of the horn was heard. Instantly it was fol- 
 lowed by the screech of the violin, the spasmodic 
 choking of the cornet, the drone of the accordeon, 
 the wail of the flute, and the fierce uproar of the 
 drum. In two minutes a crowd was collected in 
 the street, under the impression that a large 
 orchestra was rehearsing WAGNER'S " Meister- 
 singer," and the young man with the French horn 
 was lying on the floor of his room in strong con- 
 vulsions. 
 
 The cure was complete. Early the next morn- 
 ing the French horn player was removed to a
 
 A REMEDY FOR BRASS INSTRUMENTS. 133 
 
 lunatic asylum, where he still remains. He is 
 quiet and harmless, but he believes that he is a 
 remnant of the wall of Jericho, which fell down 
 under the assault of the Hebrew trumpets, and 
 constantly insists that Congress should make an 
 appropriation to repair him and mount him with 
 barbette guns. His horn has vanished, no one 
 knows whither, and the inmates of his former 
 boarding-house are contented and happy. We thus 
 see that homeopathic treatment is certain to cure 
 brass instrument players, and we may be reason- 
 ably sure that it would prove equally efficacious in 
 cases of violin and accordeon playing.
 
 SNORING. 
 
 fTlHERE is a wide popular misapprehension as 
 -*- to the true nature of snoring. It is almost 
 universally regarded as a mere weakness of the 
 flesh, whereas it is really a crime, and should be 
 treated as such. Instead of being an involuntary 
 act, it is a willful and shameless outrage. It is 
 true that the snorer is usually a person who lacks 
 nervous force and whose physical frame not being 
 kept in constant restraint, becomes limp and loose 
 during sleep and thus readily yields to the tempta- 
 tion to snore. The drunkard is likewise a fickle 
 and irresolute person, who is unable to govern his 
 bodily appetites, but we do not accept this as an 
 excuse for drunkenness. It is the duty of every 
 man to abstain from snoring, no matter how 
 strongly he may be tempted. ST. PAUL remarked 
 that he " kept his body under," or ; in other words,
 
 SNORING. 135 
 
 that he did not permit himself to snore, and every 
 person should follow his example. As a matter of 
 fact, it is notorious that no self-respecting person 
 is ever guilty of snoring. Women never snore, 
 except in those rare instances where age has dulled 
 their delicacy, and led them to neglect their hair, 
 and to wear slippers several sizes too large for 
 them. Such women occasionally shock their 
 friends by snoring, but youth and beauty never 
 snore. Among men, snoring must be preceded 
 by a loss of self-respect, and an indifference to the 
 feelings of others. Weak men and coarse men 
 may snore, but no great and good man ever 
 mocked the calm midnight with the brawling of a 
 brutal nose. 
 
 In these days when men constantly travel in 
 sleeping-cars, some efficacious prescription for the 
 prevention and cure of snoring is eagerly desired. 
 The most popular remedy for the end in question 
 is a liberal dose of soap the yellow variety being 
 preferable inserted in the mouth of the snorer. 
 As a rule, the criminal always lies on his back, and
 
 136 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 keeps his mouth open. If a wedge-shaped piece 
 of soap, of about the size of a piece of cheese, or 
 say a trifle smaller than a piece of chalk, is placed 
 in the snorer's mouth, he will undergo temporary 
 strangulation, and then sit up and make theological 
 remarks. The trouble with this remedy is that it 
 is not lasting in its eifects. The snorer who is 
 soaped will in most cases resume his loathsome 
 practice as soon as he falls asleep. Of course, if 
 he be killed, his snoring is permanently cured, but 
 the sickly sentimentality that is so common in our 
 day renders men shamefully loath to kill even the 
 most abandoned snorer. The recent treatment to 
 which a snorer was subjected on board a Union 
 Pacific sleeping-car was certainly effective, and 
 may afford a useful hint to the traveling public, 
 although it will not, perhaps, prove feasible in all 
 circumstances. The train was bound west, and 
 the rear sleeping-car was nearly full. At the 
 usual hour the beds were made, and the travelers 
 climbed into them with comparatively few contu- 
 sions. Precisely half an hour afterward a man in
 
 SNORING. 137 
 
 one of the lower berths began to snore. His was 
 not the brilliant, brassy snore of the New England 
 nose, but the heavy, sonorous, trombone-like snore 
 of the middle-aged German. In range, power, and 
 tone it was unique, and it instantly awoke the en- 
 tire company several of the passengers being im- 
 pressed with the belief that a collision had oc- 
 curred, and that a hostile locomotive had entered 
 the car. The noise was endured for a time, with 
 the faint hope that the snorer would strangle him- 
 self, but as he settled down to a uniform rhythmic 
 snore, that was evidently meant to last all night, 
 it was felt that active measures were imperatively 
 needed. 
 
 The porter was found and bribed to shake the 
 snorer, and to explain to him that his conduct was 
 really intolerable. The culprit awoke with a wild 
 start, made a few feeble remarks in German, and 
 then, sinking back to his pillow, recommenced his 
 refrain. In these circumstances it was plain that 
 the only hope lay in keeping him awake for the 
 rest of the night, and a stalwart Texan, nobly offer-
 
 138 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 ing to sacrifice his own rest for the benefit of the 
 others, was detailed to constantly prod the German 
 with a stick. Even this plan proved a failure. 
 The snorer could not be thoroughly aroused, and 
 the only effect of the constant insertion ' of the 
 stick in his ribs was to vary the character of his 
 snore, and to render it rather worse than it 
 had been. 
 
 By this time the passengers were convinced 
 that mild measures would never do. A vigilance 
 committee of six members was therefore appointed, 
 and the German, who was a small man, was dragged 
 from his bed and placed on the wood-box in the 
 rear of the car. He was now thoroughly awake, 
 and protested with great vehemence against his 
 treatment. A number of shawl-straps were pro- 
 duced, and he was firmly fastened to a staple, and 
 warned that if he indulged in any further language, 
 or ventured to fall asleep again, he would be taken 
 apart with a screw-driver and distributed along the 
 track. Although he was an obstinate man, he did 
 not lack discretion, and so relapsed into silence.
 
 SNORING. 139 
 
 Gradually the vigilance committee yielded to the 
 desire to sleep, and at eleven o'clock the snorer 
 was left in sole charge of the noble Texan. At 
 11:15 his head sank on his bosom, and he uttered 
 a prolonged snore that jarred the very frame-work 
 of the car. Grimly the Texan produced from his 
 valise a porous plaster, which he firmly applied to 
 the mouth of the unhappy wretch. The snoring 
 ceased ; a few convulsive kicks marred the varnish 
 on the side of the wood-box, and all was still. In 
 the morning the corpse was removed into the 
 baggage-car, and the enthusiastic passengers made 
 up a purse of three hundred dollars, which, to- 
 gether with a beautifully engraved copy of laud- 
 atory resolutions, was presented to the ingenious 
 Texan. 
 
 It thus appears that a porous plaster when 
 applied to the mouth and nose of a snorer will 
 effect a permanent cure. The only objectionable 
 feature of this mode of treatment consists in the 
 difficulty of disposing of the body. In a city like 
 New York, the meddlesome interference of coroners
 
 140 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 would prove troublesome. Still, it is something to 
 know that there is a way of silencing the loudest 
 snore, and at the same time doing something like 
 justice to the wretched victim, of an atrocious and 
 wholly inexcusable vice.
 
 THE BAFFLED BOY. 
 
 A CCORDING to the best scientific authorities 
 T-^" the small-boy becomes a boy at the age of 
 sixteen. At that age he ought to put away small- 
 boyish things, and to put on the bashful awkward- 
 ness of semi-intelligent boyhood. At all events, he 
 ought to know that his presence is not desired by 
 young men who come to see his sister. We do not 
 expect this amount of intelligence in the small-boy, 
 and it is often necessary to bribe him with candy 
 or to persuade him with clubs before he will con- 
 sent to treat his sister with common humanity ; 
 but the sixteen-year-old boy usually perceives 
 when an area of courting, accompanied with gradu- 
 ally increasing pressure in the region of the waist 
 and marked depression of the parlor gas, is about 
 to set in, and thereupon discreetly, even if sneer- 
 ingly, withdraws.
 
 142 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 Master HENRY T. JOHNSON, of Warrensburg, Il- 
 linois, is a boy who has just reached the period of 
 boyhood, and who is remarkably clever in the in- 
 vention of traps. If you were to ask him to make 
 you any variety of trap, from a rat-trap to a man- 
 trap, he would satisfy your demand with prompt- 
 ness and skill. His father's premises, both in 
 doors and out, are infested with traps, and there is 
 no style of animal inhabiting Warrensburg that has 
 not been caught in one or another of these traps. 
 On one morning, early in January, it is confidently 
 asserted that no less than two cats, a tramp, a small 
 dog, six chickens, and three small-boys were found 
 in Mr. JOHNSON'S yard in the close embrace of a cor- 
 responding number of traps. The truth is the boy 
 has real mechanical genius, and it is a great pity 
 that he is totally lacking in modesty and a regard 
 for the rights of others. 
 
 Last fall a young man who had met Master 
 JOHNSON'S sister at a picnic and escorted her home, 
 was seized with a great admiration of Master 
 JOHNSON'S traps, and evinced a great fondness for
 
 THE BAFFLED BOY. 143 
 
 that ingenious boy's society. In fact, he engaged 
 the boy to give him a series of lessons in trap- 
 making, and seemed to throw his whole soul into 
 rat-traps. Gradually this passion began to fade, 
 and the young man, instead of studying traps in 
 the back yard, formed the habit of resting himself 
 as he called it in the parlor with Master JOHN- 
 SON'S sister. The boy, of course, could not consent 
 to hurt his friend's feelings by abandoning him to 
 the society of a mere girl, and, therefore, followed 
 him into the parlor, and monopolized the conversa- 
 tion. After a time the young man openly aban- 
 doned traps, and only visited the house in the 
 evenings ; but Master JOHNSON:, mindful of the laws 
 of hospitality, always spent the evenings in the 
 parlor, and more than once apologized to his friend 
 for the silence and general uselessness of his sister. 
 His astonishment, when on one eventful evening 
 the young man, with the full approbation of his 
 sister, deliberately told him to " get out," and in- 
 formed him that if he had not sense enough to know 
 that he was a nuisance, he would try to knock
 
 144 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 sense into him with a base-ball club, cannot be ex- 
 pressed in words. Not only did he wonder at the 
 unscientific idea that sense can be imparted with a 
 base-ball club, but he could not comprehend the 
 young man's sudden dislike of his once-courted 
 society. However, he promptly withdrew, and 
 devoted himself to schemes of swift and deadly 
 vengeance. 
 
 For the next week Master JOHNSON spent a 
 large part of his time in the parlor with the doors 
 locked, alleging that he was perfecting a new in- 
 vention, and that his intellect could not work ex- 
 cept in quiet and seclusion. Strange as it may 
 appear, he told the truth. He was perfecting a 
 new kind of trap intended for the benefit of the 
 rude young man and of his unnatural sister. The 
 former was accustomed to sit in a large easy-chair 
 and the latter in a small and fragile rocking-chair 
 
 \D CJ 
 
 on the opposite side of the room. To each of these 
 chairs the boy affixed a most ingenious trap, which 
 was concealed underneath the seat, and was so 
 contrived as to be sprung by the weight of any
 
 THE BAFFLED BOY. 145 
 
 person who might sit in the chair. If the young 
 man, for example, were to sit down in his accus- 
 tomed chair, he would be instantly clasped around 
 the waist by a pair of iron arms, while two other 
 iron clasps would seize him by the ankles. A like 
 result would follow any attempt of the sister to 
 seat herself in the rocking-chair, and it was Master 
 JOHNSON'S intention, after having caught his game, 
 to leave them for an hour or two in close confine- 
 ment, and to then read them a severe lecture upon 
 their rudeness. 
 
 The young man was due on the next Saturday 
 evening, and Master JOHNSON set his new traps at 
 precisely 7:35 P. M. At 8:40 the young man 
 arrived, and Master JOHNSON ostentatiously marched 
 out of the front gate just as the young man rang 
 the front-door bell. An hour passed, and the re- 
 vengeful boy returned and listened at the parlor- 
 door, expecting to hear low wails of agony. On 
 the contrary, he heard what seemed to him the 
 outward expressions of much contentment on the 
 part of the young man, and he thereupon entered 
 7
 
 146 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 X 
 
 the room full of fear lest his revenge had mis- 
 carried. 
 
 He found that the trap which he had set for the 
 rude young man had fulfilled its mission, and that 
 he was held in the firm embrace of the iron bands. 
 To his unutterable surprise, his sister was also 
 caught although her particular trap was unsprung 
 and her chair unoccupied. One pair of iron arms 
 clasped both the victims, and one male and one 
 female ankle were held in close confinement. As 
 the astonished boy entered his sister faintly strug- 
 gled, but soon resigned herself with Christian pa- 
 tience to her bonds, while the shameless young 
 man pleasantly remarked, " Thank you, HAKRY ! 
 this trap is worth all the others you ever made, 
 and we wouldn't be let out of it for more than six 
 million dollars." Master HARRY listened to these 
 taunting words ; listened also to a renewal of the 
 sounds that he had accurately interpreted as evi- 
 dence of contentment, and then angrily opening 
 the trap and smashing it to pieces, withdrew to 
 weep in solitude over the failure of his revenge.
 
 THE BAFFLED BOY. 147 
 
 This shows that wickedness often overreaches 
 itself, and that to set two distinct traps for one's 
 sister and her private young man is as useless as 
 was the superfluous hole which Sir ISAAC NEWTON 
 cut for the kitten, he having previously cut a larger 
 one for the cat.
 
 CARTHAGINIAN PIRATES. 
 
 town of Carthage, Mo., was lately sur- 
 -*- prised by the disappearance of two local small- 
 boys, but the pleasure which this disappearance 
 naturally excited was marred by the fact that two 
 small girls also disappeared. The small-boys were 
 thirteen and fourteen years of age respectively, and 
 were thus too old to be kidnapped and too young 
 to be killed in any " difficulty " or aflair of honor. 
 Although, of course, Carthage did not want to re- 
 cover the missing small-boys, the missing girls were 
 considered sufficiently valuable to be sought for 
 with carefulness and dogs. For a whole week the 
 search was fruitless, and had not one of the small- 
 boys weakly confided in another small-boy, who 
 betrayed him, Carthage would still be mourning its 
 missing children. The story of their disappearance 
 has a fine flavor of romance, and will be of interest 
 to all who have felt a youthful yearning for piracy.
 
 CARTHAGINIAN PIRATES. 149 
 
 JAMES and HENRY, the two erratic young Cartha- 
 ginians, were violently in love with two contempo- 
 raneous small girls. They had full reason to know 
 that their love was returned, and they confided to 
 each other their hopes and fears. Up to a certain 
 point the course of their true loves ran smoothly. 
 They met the girls daily at school, and presented 
 them with apples, slate-pencils, and other pledges 
 of affection. They were not, however, permitted 
 to call upon their beloved objects at the respective 
 homes of the latter, under penalty of being hooted 
 at by cold and brutal small-boys, who had never 
 felt the sacred flame, and who held that a small- 
 hoy could not play with a girl without a serious 
 loss of dignity. Of course, they yearned for the 
 uninterrupted society of the loved ones, and after 
 much consultation they decided that the easiest 
 way in which to attain this object would be to seize 
 upon their brides, to make their way to the Span- 
 ish Main, and to enter upon a career of piracy. 
 At first the question which one should assume com- 
 mand of the proposed piratical schooner was dis-
 
 150 . SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 cussed with a warmth that threatened to wreck 
 the entire scheme, but it was finally agreed that 
 the command should be given to JAMES, but that 
 the first prize captured should be placed under the 
 independent command of HENRY, and that he should 
 at the same time be presented with a two-bladed 
 pen-knife and a set of jack-stones. 
 
 This important preliminary being arranged, a 
 night was fixed upon for the intended elopement, 
 and half a pound of molasses candy, four apples, 
 and a set of chessmen were laid in by way of sup- 
 plies. Each small-boy armed himself with a stout 
 stick, and JAMES also carried a pistol, the efficiency 
 of which was somewhat impaired by the absence 
 of ammunition, and the fact that the pistol had no 
 hammer. In the dead of night, or to be precise, at 
 7:15 in the evening, the two girls stealthily met 
 their lovers by appointment, behind the barn, and 
 after exchanging a few rapturous endearments, 
 started for the Spanish Main. For obvious reasons, 
 they preferrred the short cut through the fields ra- 
 ther than the turnpike, and after two hours of easy
 
 CARTHAGINIAN PIRATES. 151 
 
 marching they reached a solitary haystack four 
 miles from the town, and in close proximity to an 
 orchard. Here they halted for the night, and ex- 
 cavating niches in the hay, made themselves com- 
 paratively comfortable. In fact, they would have 
 been very comfortable had not Capt. JAMES thought 
 it necessary to smoke a cigar in order to keep up 
 his reputation as a bold and hardened pirate. The 
 cigar made him dreadfully sick, and his compan- 
 ions were naturally somewhat cast down at the 
 sight of their commander hovering for hours on the 
 very confines of the basin. Of course, there was 
 no actual basin in the camp, but if there had been, 
 the gallant pirate would have hovered over it to a 
 very great extent. 
 
 It is sad to be compelled to mention that piti- 
 less nature, instead of smiling on these preposter- 
 ous little pirates, rained on them for six consecu- 
 tive da}'s, confining them closely to the friendly 
 haystack. Marching in the rain was not to be 
 thought of, for although the small-boys calculated 
 that they could reach the Spanish Main in two
 
 152 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 days, in spite of the weather, they could not ask 
 their delicate brides, who had neither umbrellas 
 nor overshoes, to brave the fury of the elements. 
 In these circumstances provisions soon became 
 scarce. Apples were abundant, but apples, when 
 eaten without other food, pall upon the appetite 
 after two or three days. The energetic Captain 
 JAMES led a gallant cutting-out expedition on a 
 neighboring chicken-coop and captured a hen ; but 
 owing to the absence of matches, the hen could 
 not be cooked. Finally, the Captain secretly re- 
 turned to town in search of provisions, and revealed 
 the location of the haystack to a heartless small- 
 boy who promptly conveyed the information to the 
 Captain's father. A company of coarse, prosaic 
 men thereupon captured the entire expedition, and 
 the two pirates expiated in their respective wood- 
 sheds their unholy longing for the Spanish Main. 
 Bereft of their brides, and placed under strict sur- 
 veillance, they are now undergoing grinding tor- 
 ments, and it is feared that, thwarted in their prac- 
 tical aspirations, they will become reckless, and
 
 CARTHAGINIAN PIRATES. 153 
 
 grow up to be savings bank presidents or life in- 
 surance officers. 
 
 What is remarkable is the fact that in spite of 
 a week spent in a damp haystack without any food 
 but apples, not one member of the expedition 
 wanted to go home. Both the girls and their 
 piratical lovers were thoroughly happy, and pro- 
 tested against being dragged back to Carthage. 
 There are few grown people whose ardor would 
 outlast a week of wet and hunger, and the happi- 
 ness of the pirates and their brides may well be 
 envied by older and wiser lovers.
 
 TOO MUCH CABBAGE. 
 
 donation party is a shrewd device on the 
 -*- part of thrifty church-goers to compound for 
 their failure to pay their minister a proper salary 
 by giving him a collection of bulky and cheap 
 articles which he does not want. Still, upon the 
 broad principle that something is better than 
 nothing, the impecunious minister clings to the 
 donation party, and cheerfully hopes that the day 
 will come when his parishioners will cease to be- 
 lieve that a full-grown minister and a growing 
 family can subsist exclusively upon beans and pen- 
 wipers. In its inception, the donation party was, 
 of course, a voluntary affair ; but in many places 
 it is now as regular and inevitable as Christmas. 
 Occasionally a congregation endeavors to let the 
 season pass by unnoticed, but in most cases the 
 minister boldly meets the emergency by announcing
 
 TOO MUCH CABBAGE. 155 
 
 from the pulpit that " the annual visit to the pas- 
 tor " will take place on such a day ; whereupon the 
 congregation meekly collects its beans and pen- 
 wipers, and testifies in the usual manner its love 
 for its pastor. 
 
 The donation party is a very depressing affair. 
 When people who do not want to give away any- 
 thing, give to their pastor things which he does not 
 want, the ceremony does not promote hilarity. In 
 order to render the donation party somewhat less 
 gloomy than a funeral those who bring gifts usually 
 include among them a supply of cake, sandwiches, 
 and in some cases ice-cream. These refreshments 
 are distributed in equal proportion between the in- 
 terior of the visitors and the exterior of the minis- 
 ter's carpets and chair-cushions, and a hollow pre- 
 tence of cheerfulness is thus kept up. Meanwhile, 
 all the children of the congregation retire to the 
 second-story front bed-room, where they play va- 
 rious games and break a good deal of furniture. 
 The children have much the best of the whole 
 affair, and they add materially to the anguish of
 
 156 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 the minister's wife, as she wonders how many of 
 them will fall against the stove, and whether they 
 will set the house on fire when they upset the 
 lamp. 
 
 The peculiar character of Rev. Mr. WILCOX'S 
 recent donation party and the unfortunate results 
 which followed it, were due solely to his small-boy's 
 disgust at being forbidden to take part in the 
 juvenile cake orgies of the party. A week before 
 the date fixed for the annual visit to the pastor, 
 this small-boy had been detected in the act of 
 creeping into his bedroom window at midnight, after 
 a secret visit to the circus. The ensuing interview 
 with his father did not materially depress his 
 spirits, since he took the precaution to plate the 
 vital portion of his trousers with concealed shingles, 
 but when he was sternly told that, as a further 
 penalty, he would be put to bed at precisely six 
 o'clock on the night of the donation party, he felt 
 that his punishment was inhuman, and resolved to 
 be revenged. 
 
 During the next six days that astute but fear-
 
 TOO MUCH CABBAGE. 157 
 
 fully depraved small-boy called upon every one of 
 his father's parishioners, and first pledging them to 
 secrecy, explained, with tears in his eyes, that his 
 dear father was passionately fond of cabbages, and 
 if any one desired to gladden the parental heart 
 they would bring a few cabbages to the donation 
 party. The small-boy further asserted that his 
 father's sense of delicacy forbade him to make the 
 most distant allusion to cabbages, but that as an 
 affectionate son, he the small-boy felt it to be 
 his duty to mention the matter to some noble and 
 generous man. Each parishioner was delighted by 
 this display of filial affection and the recollection 
 that cabbages were extremely cheap, and unhesitat- 
 ingly promised that he would bring a whole load 
 of cabbages. 
 
 The night of the donation party arrived, and 
 the small-boy went to bed but not to sleep. With 
 much forethought he had stolen the key of his 
 bedroom, and thus rendered it impossible for his 
 father to keep him a close prisoner. Each parish- 
 ioner arrived in a large farm wagon, which, after
 
 158 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 having discharged its human freight at the front 
 door was driven into the yard. The minister and 
 his wife did not, of course, know the contents of 
 the wagons, but supposing that the popular feeling 
 was expressing itself to an unprecedented extent 
 in wood, flour-barrels, and winter apples, were 
 greatly delighted. At 8:30 sixty-three wagons had 
 entered the yard, and only three pecks of beans 
 and eleven pen-wipers had been deposited on the 
 parlor table. The happy minister was beginning 
 to think that at least twenty cords of wood, to- 
 gether with say a dozen barrels of flour, must have 
 been delivered in the back yard, when suddenly 
 his small-boy, confident that he would not be pun- 
 ished in public, entered the parlor and exclaimed 
 in an exulting tone : " Father, there's morenamil- 
 lion loads of cabbage out-doors." At this moment 
 the sixty-fourth wagon arrived, and the owner, 
 Deacon Lyman, put his head in the front door and 
 remarked that he " had brought a few cabbages, 
 but see'n as the yard was chock full, he calculated
 
 TOO MUCH CABBAGE. 159 
 
 he might as well dump them under the front win- 
 dows." 
 
 The alarmed minister went out hastily, and 
 beheld a mountain of cabbages. There was not a 
 stick of wood, nor a barrel of flour, nor a bushel 
 of apples in sight. Sixty -three full loads of cab- 
 bnges were piled up nearly to the second-story 
 windows of the parsonage, and Deacon Lyman was 
 just about to add his contingent to the pile. With 
 a stern and angry countenance Mr. Wilcox went 
 back to his parlor, and coldly informing his guests 
 that to make a jest of sacred things in his own 
 back yard was an insult which he could not par- 
 don, bade them good-night and withdrew to the 
 recesses of a back bedroom. The guests, in their 
 turn filled with indignation at his apparent ingrati- 
 tude and rudeness, went to their homes and de- 
 termined to change their minister at the earliest 
 opportunity, and the depraved small- boy, after 
 gorging himself with cake, went chuckling to his 
 room and stood on his head in ecstatic bliss. The 
 cabbages have since been sold at three cents per
 
 160 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 dozen, the minister has resigned his charge, and 
 the small-boy, having too late perceived the ruin 
 he had wrought, is now earnestly hoping that the 
 doctrine of Universalism may be true.
 
 VERY POPULAR SCIENCE. 
 
 OF late years there has grown up a large de- 
 mand for what is called " popular science," 
 or, in other words, a presentation of the facts of 
 science in terms intelligible to the uncultured pub- 
 lic. Scores of lecturers and hundreds of writers 
 have endeavored, with more or less success, to 
 popularize science, and their labors have been 
 warmly appreciated. As a result, almost every 
 man who knows how to read knows that the sun is 
 some distance from the earth ; that the cold of 
 winter is caused by a diminution of heat ; that the 
 earth and most of the South American Republics 
 complete one revolution every year, together with 
 various other interesting scientific facts. It is re- 
 markable, however, that in spite of all that has 
 been said upon the subject, the new doctrine in 
 regard to heat is yet very far from being generally
 
 162 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 comprehended. When scientific persons taught 
 that heat was an invisible substance, the presence 
 of which in any given object made it warm, while 
 its absence made the same object cold, there was 
 no difficulty in understanding the matter. Now, 
 however, when people are told that this theory is 
 all wrong, and that heat is a mode of motion, they 
 fail to understand what is meant, There is so 
 much ignorance and misapprehension in regard to 
 this subject that a familiar and lucid exposition of 
 the true theory of heat ought to be generally useful 
 and acceptable to our readers. 
 
 Heat is a mode of motion. In order to under- 
 stand this definition we must know what motion is, 
 and according to the best authorities motion is a 
 correlative of heat. To make the matter clearer 
 to the Western mind it may be said that motion is 
 a sort of interconvertible currency that can be al- 
 ways exchanged for heat, while, in its turn, heat can 
 be converted into motion. Having thus shown in the 
 clearest possible manner what heat is, we can proceed 
 to prove the truth of the definition by experiments.
 
 VERT POPULAR SCIENCE. 163 
 
 Friction, it will be conceded, is motion, and it 
 infallibly produces heat if it is kept up long enough. 
 Thus, if we take a scientific person and rub his 
 hair with great violence, we produce a brilliant dis- 
 play of heated temper. In this case, just as in the 
 more familiar and less scientific experiment of rub- 
 bing a match on the wall, motion is converted into 
 heat. The law illustrated by this experiment is 
 universal and admits of no exceptions. If you 
 take a slab of water, say two inches thick, six 
 inches wide and a foot long, and placing it on a 
 common dining-table, rub it vigorously with sand- 
 paper, it will ultimately be brought to the boiling 
 point, or in other words the motion of the sand- 
 paper over its surface will be converted into heat. 
 In like manner, the human boot, if brushed long 
 enough, will be calcined with the heat set free by 
 the movement of the brush, to such an extent that 
 it will be undistinguishable from the beefsteak of 
 commerce which is familiar to the inmates of an 
 American boarding-house. An unlimited number 
 of experiments of the same general nature may be
 
 164 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 tried, with a uniform result. Thus, we see that the 
 mode of motion called friction is always convertible 
 into heat, just as a Western debtor is convertible 
 into an advocate of the Silver bill. 
 
 There is another class of experiments which 
 shows that motion, when suddenly arrested, is in- 
 stantaneously changed into heat. If a cannon ball 
 strikes an iron target, the latter immediately be- 
 comes hot. In fact, a blow always produces heat, 
 or, in other words, the motion inseparable from a 
 blow is always converted into heat. The experi- 
 ments which illustrate this are of exceptional inter- 
 est. If you take a cold foot, whether your own or 
 some one else's though this experiment is more 
 conclusive if the foot is your own and strike it a 
 series of heavy blows with a large hammer or the 
 back of an axe, the foot will become warm. Of 
 course, a single blow may not develop a very ap- 
 preciable amount of heat, but if the experiment is 
 continued for some time, and the hammer or axe is 
 used vigorously, the foot will soon cease to feel cold. 
 A similar experiment is often tried by a school-
 
 VERY POPULAR SCIENCE. 165 
 
 teacher with the aid of a small-boy and a club. 
 When the latter is applied to the former with force 
 and rapidity, the boy becomes thoroughly warm 
 whence we have the popular juvenile expression 
 descriptive of this kind of experiment, " the teacher 
 just everlastingly warmed him, you bet " ! 
 
 The important fact that heat is developed by 
 suddenly arrested motion might be applied to vari- 
 ous useful purposes were it generally known. 
 Eggs can be cooked without fire simply by pound- 
 ing them with a hammer until sufficient heat is 
 developed to fry them nicely. Furnaces, grates, 
 and stoves could be dispensed with were the mem- 
 bers of every family to provide themselves with the 
 old-fashioned flails formerly in use among farmers, 
 and to thrash one another, together with the walls 
 and furniture of their houses, until the thermometer 
 should indicate a pleasant and healthful tempera- 
 ture. In fact, if you have motion enough, you can 
 produce any amount of heat, or if you have heat 
 enough, you can produce any amount of motion ; 
 of which latter fact the familiar experiment of kin-
 
 166 SHOOTING -STARS. 
 
 dling a straw fire under a balky horse affords a con- 
 vincing illustration. 
 
 Had Professor TYNDALL and his fellow-lecturers 
 presented the new theory of heat in a clear and in- 
 telligible way, it would not have been necessary to 
 thus put them to the blush. Still, it is unendurable 
 that the public should be ignorant of the grand 
 doctrine of the correlation of forces, and the scien- 
 tific persons ought not to feel jealous if our explana- 
 tion leaves them nothing further to explain.
 
 A SLEIGHING TRAGEDY. 
 
 "A /TR. JOHNSTON, of North Lyme, Connecti- 
 -L-V-L cut, is an upright man, and in many re- 
 spects a wise one. He is, however, weak enough 
 to imagine that he can keep his pretty daughter 
 from all amusements except the weekly prayer- 
 meeting and the annual donation party. The 
 amusements in which young girls delight, no mat- 
 ter how innocent they may be in the eyes of other 
 men, Mr. Johnston summarily condemns as vain 
 and frivolous. Of course, this line of conduct can- 
 not be commended, but it is, nevertheless, true 
 that Miss Johnston ought to obey the commands 
 of her father while she is yet in her minority and 
 under his roof. It is painful to be compelled to 
 mention that such is not the view of the matter 
 taken by the spirited and undutiful girl. While 
 she does not venture to openly defy the author of
 
 168 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 her existence, she does not hesitate to deceive him. 
 She snatches surreptitious joys whenever the 
 paternal back is turned, and such is her versatility 
 that she has been known to entertain three dis- 
 tinct and simultaneous young men one in the 
 woodshed, another at the back gate, and a third 
 under the lilac-bush in the front yard, at the very 
 time when Mr. Johnston fondly imagined that she 
 was in her room studying the Shorter Catechism 
 by lamp-light. The neighbors, from sympathy 
 with youth and beauty subjected to parental 
 tyranny, assist her in her undutiful conduct, and 
 conceal from her unsuspecting father her indul- 
 gence in picnics and skating parties. 
 
 Among the young lady's warmest admirers is 
 the young man who presides over the local public 
 school. He is an unexceptionable person, except 
 in point of muscle. He is not strong, and he is 
 not familiar with out-of-door sports. Still, these 
 faults do not affect his moral character, and most 
 certainly did not justify Mr. Johnston in leading 
 him out of the house by his left ear on the solitary
 
 A SLEIGHING TRAGEDY. 169 
 
 occasion on which he had rashly ventured to call 
 on the stern old gentleman's daughter. As was 
 only natural, this want of delicacy and hospitality 
 exasperated the school-teacher, and though, as he 
 afterward explained to a friend who happened to 
 be passing the house at the moment when the 
 pedagogical ear was undergoing undue familiarity, 
 he did not feel at liberty to inflict personal chas- 
 tisement upon Miss Johnston's father, he was, 
 nevertheless, determined to " get square " with 
 him, let the consequences be what they might. 
 
 A few weeks later the first heavy fall of snow 
 occurred in North Lyme, and Mr. Parker for 
 that was the school-teacher's name determined to 
 invite Miss Johnston to accompany him on a sleigh- 
 ride. He knew that she would be delighted to 
 accept an invitation, and that her father regarded 
 sleigh-riding as one of the worst vices in which his 
 daughter could possibly indulge. To please him- 
 self and the young lady and to triumph over her 
 objectionable parent, presented itself to his mind 
 as a delicious combination of pleasure and revenge, 
 8
 
 170 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 and accordingly he wrote to Miss Johnston to meet 
 him in a quiet lane a short distance from the vil- 
 lage, and proceeded to the livery stable to hire a 
 sleigh. 
 
 Mr. Parker was not, as the event proved, a 
 judge of sleighs. Moreover, there was just at that 
 time an excessive demand upon the resources of 
 the livery stable, and every sleigh but one was en- 
 gaged. This one was an aged " cutter " of a de- 
 cidedly rickety appearance, but Mr. Parker found 
 no fault with it, and, after hiring a horse warranted 
 to be old and gentle, he entered the sleigh and 
 drove cautiously to the rendezvous. Miss John- 
 ston, with her cheeks and nose glowing with frost 
 and expectation, was waiting for him, and his 
 heart beat high as he alighted and prepared to 
 assist her to the seat. 
 
 A surfeit of small-boys and a prolonged course 
 of boarding-house beefsteak had reduced Mr. Par- 
 ker's weight to 103 pounds, as he afterward 
 testified before the Justice of the Peace. Miss 
 Johnston, on the other hand, was a plump young
 
 A SLEIGHING TRAGEDY. 171 
 
 person, who weighed 139 pounds without her back 
 hair. The sleigh had borne the school-teacher, 
 though with much ominous creaking, but it was 
 unequal to the strain of 139 pounds of girl. As 
 Miss Johnston stepped into the middle of the 
 " cutter," and paused to arrange her skirts with a 
 view to sitting down, a sharp crackling sound was 
 heard, and the unhappy girl suddenly went through 
 the bottom, and was held fast by cruel splinters, 
 with her feet just touching the snow. 
 
 Mr. Parker rushed to the rescue with the ut- 
 most promptness, and mounting on the seat, strove 
 to extricate his companion from the wreck ; but 
 the inexorable splinters would not yield. He 
 tried to break the entire bottom out of the sleigh, 
 but his strength was unequal to the feat. With 
 rare inventive genius, he next proposed to crawl 
 under the sleigh to extricate Miss Johnston by 
 cutting away the splinters with his knife, but she 
 declared with vigorous eloquence that if he dared 
 to even bend his head down she would never speak 
 to him again the longest day she lived. Just at
 
 172 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 this point the horse showed signs of restlessness, 
 and the young lady insisted that the animal should 
 be instantly cast loose from the sleigh, lest his 
 movements should further complicate her misfor- 
 tune. Accordingly, the horse was sent adrift, and 
 the discouraged Mr. Parker was left alone with 
 his weeping companion, who constantly upbraided 
 him, and as constantly refused all his offers of 
 assistance. 
 
 At the end of half an hour Miss Johnston began 
 to suffer from the cold, and as she firmly refused 
 to allow a blanket to be wrapped around that is 
 to say, to be placed in position beneath the sleigh, 
 the situation became alarming. Finally, Mr. Parker 
 hit upon the idea of gently dragging the sleigh, 
 while the imprisoned fair one feebly imitated the 
 movement of walking. This gentle exercise pre- 
 vented her from freezing, but it was obviously im- 
 possible for her to enter the village in such an un- 
 precedented style, and she actually hailed with 
 delight the sudden appearance of her father, in 
 connection with a load of wood. That gentleman
 
 A SLEIGHING TRAGEDY. 173 
 
 was naturally surprised at the spectacle which he 
 beheld, but he was wrong in characterizing it as a 
 wicked and willful attempt to play at circus. 
 
 Mr. Johnston, with the help of his whip, con- 
 vinced the school-teacher that he had better hasten 
 home ; and he then extricated his daughter, by 
 summarily knocking the sleigh to pieces. He has 
 since sued Mr. Parker for damages inflicted upon 
 Miss Johnston by means of splinters and exposure 
 to the weather, and though the case has not yet 
 been decided, it is generally thought that the plain- 
 tiff will succeed. The story is a very sad one, and 
 is well adapted to awaken within us a variety of 
 painful, though salutary, emotions.
 
 THE MANAGING YOUNG MAN. 
 
 fin HIS world is full of painful duties which are 
 -*- constantly assigned to the conscientious jour- 
 nalist. Close upon the sleigh-riding tragedy at 
 North Lyme comes the news of a still more appal- 
 ling incident of sleighing in New Jersey, which de- 
 mands to be delicately, yet firmly, set before the 
 public. It is not the journalist's fault that these 
 things happen. It has long been the opinion of 
 thoughtful men that the constant tendency of 
 things to happen ought to be checked ; but alas ! 
 we are as yet powerless to check it. Every man 
 will wish that the tragedy which it now becomes 
 necessary to relate had never occurred, but regrets 
 are useless. We can only strive to draw from it 
 lessons that may teach us to guard against similar 
 calamities, and that may sustain and strengthen us 
 in moments of heated anguish.
 
 THE MANAGING YOUNG MAN. 175 
 
 The whole responsibility of the affair belongs 
 to a young man whose name it would be an un- 
 necessary act of cruelty to mention. It is out of 
 regard to this well-meaning but unfortunate person 
 that the name of the New Jersey village in which 
 the tragedy occurred is not here specified. It is 
 sufficient to say that he was regarded as an expert 
 in young ladies, and had won universal female 
 gratitude by his intelligent efforts to please the 
 sex. When, therefore, he undertook to manage 
 what in the New Jersey dialect is called a " straw 
 sleigh-ride," it was generally believed that the suc- 
 cess of the affair was already assured. 
 
 The essential ingredients of a " straw sleigh- 
 ride " are from fifteen to twenty-five young men 
 and women, a large box sleigh without seats, and a 
 quantity of straw. The straw is strewn in the bot- 
 tom of the sleigh, and the pleasure-seekers sit on 
 the straw, leaning their respective backs against 
 the sides of the sleigh. Of course, they are un- 
 comfortable, but the sense of doing something un- 
 usual and unconventional gives a zest to a straw
 
 1 76 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 sleigh-ride which renders it immensely popular with 
 the young. There is, however, one serious draw- 
 back to the pleasure of such an excursion. The 
 cold air will penetrate through the bottom of the 
 sleigh in spite of the straw, and will exercise a 
 chilling influence upon the mirth and the geniality 
 of the party. On this particular occasion the 
 Managing Young Man undertook to provide means 
 for keeping the young ladies thoroughly warm, and 
 the latter placed unreserved confidence in his wis- 
 dom and skill. 
 
 Everybody knows that bricks when thoroughly 
 heated and wrapped up in paper will preserve their 
 warmth for many hours. The Managing Young 
 Man determined to warm the young ladies of the 
 sleighing party with bricks, and by an elaborate 
 calculation arrived at the conclusion that each 
 young lady would require four bricks. As the 
 party was to consist of eleven girls and seven 
 young men, he laid in no less than forty-four bricks, 
 all of which he heated for several hours in the fur- 
 nace of the Town Hall, and subsequently placed in
 
 THE MANAGING YOUNG MAN. 177 
 
 the bottom of the sleigh, having first neatly wrapped 
 them in copies of the Tribune so that the girls 
 might feel thoroughly at home while sitting on 
 them. 
 
 At about 8 o'clock in the evening the sleigh 
 received its precious freight, and the Managing 
 Young Man was overwhelmed with thanks for his 
 thoughtful conduct in protecting the young ladies 
 from cold. The heat from the bricks was at first 
 exceedingly welcome, but after a time a certain 
 uneasiness on the part of the young ladies was 
 manifested. They conversed in an absent-minded 
 and preoccupied manner, and evinced that constant 
 tendency to uneasy movements which is said by 
 scientific persons to characterize a hen when placed 
 on a hot griddle, although there is no authentic 
 record that any such brutal experiment has ever 
 been tried. A little later and the girls abandoned 
 all attempts to join in general conversation, and 
 whispered to one another with every appearance of 
 anxiety and alarm. . Presently they began with 
 one accord to grope nervously and stealthily in the 
 8*
 
 178 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 straw, and several of them suddenly shrieked and 
 blew violently upon their fingers. At last the 
 astonished Managing Young Man was unanimously 
 called upon with frenzied energy to instantly stop 
 the sleigh, and as soon as tha order was obeyed 
 the young ladies sprang out with a haste that dis- 
 dained any masculine assistance. 
 
 The smell of singed paper had by this time 
 suggested an explanation of the mystery, and the 
 demand which was presently made that every 
 brick should be thrown out of the sleigh left no 
 further room for doubt in the mind of the Manag- 
 ing Young Man. He burned his fingers severely 
 while handling the overheated bricks, but he cared 
 not for his own physical pain. The thought that 
 instead of making the girls comfortable he had in- 
 flicted upon them the tortures of St. LAWRENCE, 
 filled him with humiliation. The girls were merely 
 human, and it was natural that they should feel 
 extremely dissatisfied with him, but it was scarcely 
 just for them to refuse to accept his apologies and 
 to treat him with cold disdain. The conduct of
 
 THE MANAGING YOUNG MAN. 179 
 
 one particular young lady, whom he ardently ad- 
 mired, and whom he had secretly provided with an 
 extra brick, pierced him to the heart. She per- 
 sistently sat on a snow-bank, and refused to be 
 comforted or to concede that he was not a hateful, 
 unfeeling brute. When the cargo of bricks was 
 finally thrown out and the girls resumed their 
 places in the sleigh, the whole pleasure of the 
 excursion was manifestly wrecked, and the Man- 
 aging Young Man, who had exiled himself to the 
 driver's seat, felt that he was a combination of half 
 a dozen distinct and infamous kinds of criminals. 
 
 It is all over now. The young ladies have re- 
 covered their spirits, and would perhaps forgive 
 the Managing Young Man were he to return and 
 sue for forgiveness. But he is far away, having 
 fled the village and buried himself in the wilds of 
 Chicago. May his fate be a warning to us all, and 
 may we remember that, though a warm brick has 
 its uses, there may be too much of a good thing.
 
 SEDENTARY ABILITIES. 
 
 "PRESIDENT BASCOM, who presides over a 
 -- Western college to which young ladies, as 
 well as young men, are admitted, has recently ex- 
 pressed his warm approval of the co-education of the 
 sexes and has asserted that girls are better students 
 than boys, for the reason that they are better 
 adapted to sedentary pursuits. In other words, 
 he claims that girls can sit down more successfully 
 than boys, and that this fact enables them to sur- 
 pass the other sex in study and in whatever busi- 
 ness or profession involves a large amount of sitting 
 down. Far be it from us to dispute the learned 
 President's facts. Doubtless he knows whereof he 
 affirms, and we should cheerfully concede that the 
 members of the gentler sex are unequaled in the 
 capacity for sitting down. Still, 'the inferences 
 which President BASCOM draws from this fact are
 
 SEDENTARY ABILITIES. 181 
 
 not necessarily true. A person, of whatever sex, 
 may be able to sit down to an immense extent and 
 may, nevertheless, be wholly unable to study. 
 The professional fat man and fat woman spend the 
 greater part of their lives in the sedentary occupa- 
 tion of being looked at and pinched by curious peo- 
 ple, but they have never, in a single instance, been 
 noted for scholarship. As for the theory that 
 because girls are peculiarly adapted to rocking- 
 chairs they should therefore be admitted to young 
 men's colleges, there is abundant reason why we 
 should unhesitatingly reject it. 
 
 While girls unquestionably have their uses in 
 the economy of nature, and possess merits exclu- 
 sively their own, it may be boldly asserted that 
 they are totally unfit to pursue in company with 
 young men the studies which constitute the cur- 
 riculum of every respectable college. One of the 
 earliest studies of the Freshman year is the art of 
 getting the janitor's cow into the fourth story of the 
 dormitory. This can be readily mastered by any 
 young man of good abilities and habits of industry
 
 182 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 and perseverance ; but between girls and cows there 
 is a great gulf fixed. The girl, from her earliest 
 youth, looks upon the cow as a ferocious beast, 
 prone to keep young ladies in the air in positions 
 fatal to the proper arrangement of the back hair. 
 To suppose that three or four young lady students 
 are capable of the complicated pushing and pulling 
 necessary to induce a cow to climb several flights 
 of stairs, is to suppose that the natural feminine 
 fear of cows can be eradicated by the mere process 
 of matriculation. Thus we see that one of the very 
 easiest of college studies is quite beyond the range 
 of the female intellect. 
 
 The Sophomore year in most of our colleges is 
 devoted to base-ball. Will President BASCOM have 
 the temerity to assert that this is a sedentary 
 pursuit, or that it is one in which it is possible for 
 girls to excel ? We all know that nature has so 
 constructed the girl that she cannot throw a ball 
 with any force or accuracy. If the most accom- 
 plished of President BASCOM'S young ladies were to 
 attempt to pitch a base-ball, the chances are that,
 
 SEDENTARY ABILITIES. 183 
 
 instead of coming within reach of the batsman, it 
 would describe a parabolic curve and smash the 
 President's front window. Nor can young lady 
 students strike or catch a ball when thrown with 
 the proper degree of force. In short, base-ball is a 
 study in which it is morally impossible that girls 
 should ever successfully compete with men. The 
 same may be said of foot-ball, which, in some 
 colleges, is an optional study, which those who do 
 not fancy base-ball are permitted to substitute for 
 the latter. It is barely possible, judging from the 
 remarks which Chicago and St. Louis newspapers 
 constantly make in regard to the feet of the ladies 
 of those cities, that Western girls are better adapted 
 for foot-ball than are the girls this side of the Alle- 
 ghanies, but it may be safely asserted that no girl 
 can graduate in foot-ball, especially in colleges 
 where the Rugby method is studied, with any. 
 honor, or, indeed, with any high standing in her 
 class. By far the most important study pursued 
 ' at any American college is that of rowing. From 
 this study girls are virtually debarred simply by
 
 184 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 reason of their sex. Man is so constituted that he 
 can reduce his clothing to a close-fitting undershirt 
 and a pair of attenuated trousers, which add 
 scarcely anything to his weight in a six-oared 
 shell. Jt is asserted by all scientific authorities 
 that girls are incased in many successive layers of 
 clothing, which are believed to be permanently 
 affixed to them, and the aggregate weight of which 
 is enormous. This would alone render girls unfit 
 to pursue the fascinating and improving study of 
 rowing, but there are other obstacles equally im- 
 possible to be overcome. Girls cannot run to any 
 extent worth mentioning ; and are hence unable to 
 run along the shore while a boat-race is in progress, 
 yelling encouragement to the oarsmen, and an- 
 nouncing the odds which they are prepared to bet 
 upon their favorite crews. Nor are they able to 
 Tie with the other sex in making hideous the night 
 after the race. Perhaps they would submit to the 
 deprivation of caramels and the total abstinence 
 from tea which are necessary while undergoing 
 training, but what plump young lady would be
 
 SEDENTARY ABILITIES. 185 
 
 willing to reduce herself to a gaunt and sun-burned 
 oarswoman, even in order to beat the Yale or the 
 Columbia crew ? It might also be mentioned that 
 a race is rowed principally with the muscles of the 
 oarsmen's legs, and it is well known that the 
 gentler sex But this is, perhaps, a branch of 
 the subject which can be discussed with proper 
 delicacy only by a convention of strong-minded 
 women. 
 
 In several of the minor studies of the college 
 course, such as euchre, the amputation of the 
 clapper of the chapel bell, the nailing up of the 
 tutor's door, and the introduction of goats and 
 other comparatively innocuous animals into the 
 recitation room, girls may very possibly be able to 
 maintain something like an equality with boys. 
 Still, enough has been said to show that they are 
 very far from being adapted to pursue those more 
 important studies which convert the industrious 
 undergraduate into a healthy, earnest, learned, 
 and Christian man. What, then, does President 
 BASCOM mean by his assuming that merely
 
 186 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 because girls can sit down rather more than 
 boys, they are peculiarly adapted to pursue 
 the regular studies of the Yale and Columbia 
 students ?
 
 CAT FISHING
 
 CAT-FISHING. 
 
 "IV IT ANY and ingenious are the remedies that 
 -L-*-L have been proposed for nocturnal cats, but 
 none of them seem to have proved thoroughly suc- 
 cessful. It was pointed out not very long ago that 
 the extirpation of all fences which run in a direction 
 parallel, or nearly parallel, with the equator, would 
 exempt cats from electrical difficulties in their in- 
 ternal organs, and would thus hush the cries that 
 now render night hideous ; but there is a practical 
 difficulty in dispensing with these fences. Another 
 remedy, which is a certain cure for nocturnal cats, 
 is suggested by the fact that cats cannot live at a 
 greater elevation than 13,000 feet above the sea. 
 If we build our back fences 13,500 feet high, not a 
 cat will scale their lofty summits ; but the labor and 
 expense of constructing fences of this height would 
 be so great as to forbid their erection by persons 
 of small incomes. Mere palliatives, such as boot-
 
 188 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 jacks and lumps of coal, never accomplish any 
 lasting benefit ; they may discourage an occasional 
 cat, but his place will instantly be filled. With 
 all their habitual caution, cats are bold, and will 
 often rush in where an average angel would fear to 
 tread. To deal effectually with them is a task 
 which calls for the highest form of inventive genius, 
 combined with patience and a reckless indifference 
 to Mr. BERGH'S opinions. 
 
 The young man in West Thirty-fifth street who 
 lately introduced cat-fishing as a manly and benefi- 
 cent sport, can scarcely be said to have devised 
 an absolute specific for cats, but he has unquestion- 
 ably contributed to lessen the number of cats in 
 his immediate vicinity. Early last fall a vast 
 area of cats, accompanied with marked depression 
 of the spirits of the inhabitants of West Thirty-fifth 
 street, overspread that unfortunate region. After 
 a thorough trial of most of the popular remedies, a 
 young man residing on the block between Fifth and 
 Sixth avenues, and who may be called not neces- 
 sarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good
 
 CAT-FISHING. 189 
 
 faith by the name of Thompson, hit upon the idea 
 of angling for cats. To the end of a strong blue- 
 fish line he affixed a salmon-hook, baited with 
 delicate morsels of meat. At first, this hook, 
 deftly dropped from a back window, was permitted 
 to lie on the top of the back fence. The first cat 
 that passed over the fence would investigate the 
 bait, and, finding it apparently free from fraud, 
 would begin to eat it. A slight pull at the line 
 would usually fix the hook in the cat's mouth, and 
 the angler would haul in his prey and knock it on 
 the head. It frequently happened, however, that 
 the cat could not be successfully " struck," and 
 would escape and warn his associates to beware of 
 concealed hooks. Moreover, the angler had his 
 bait gorged, upon one occasion, by a tramp, who 
 had climbed the fence with a view to gaining ac- 
 cess to the k,itchen, and, though the game was 
 successfully landed in the second-story back room, 
 after having been gaffed with a sword bayonet, he 
 had so much difficulty in subsequently disposing of 
 the body that he dreaded a repetition of the inci-
 
 190 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 dent He therefore altered his method of angling, 
 and adopted a modified style of fly-fishing. 
 
 This latter sport was carried on with the aid of 
 a long bamboo fishing-pole. The hook was baited 
 as before, but instead of being permitted to lie on 
 the top of the fence, was suffered to dangle in the 
 air, about two feet above it. As soon as a cat 
 perceived the bait, he assumed, with the intense 
 self-conceit characteristic of his race, that it was a 
 supernatural recognition of his extraordinary merits, 
 and could be fearlessly appropriated. In order to 
 seize it he was, of course, compelled to leap up- 
 ward, and it was very seldom that he failed to hook 
 himself. By this plan, not only was the necessity 
 of " striking " the cat obviated, but the danger that 
 the bait would be seized by tramps was greatly 
 lessened, while the excitement and interest of the 
 sport were increased. 
 
 The young man became greatly fascinated with 
 his new occupation, and having effected an arrange- 
 ment with a popular French restaurant, was en- 
 abled to dispose of his game easily and profitably.
 
 CAT-FISHING. 191 
 
 On moonlight nights, when the late fall cats were 
 in season, he often caught a string of from three to 
 four dozen during a single night, many of them 
 weighing ten or fifteen pounds each. So few cats 
 escaped after having once leaped at the bait, that 
 no general suspicion of the deadly nature of appar- 
 ently aerial meat was disseminated among the feline 
 population of the neighborhood. Before the win- 
 ter was over cats had become so scarce that the 
 sportsman was seriously contemplating the necessity 
 of artificially stocking the back fences of Thirty- 
 fifth-street, when an unfortunate accident brought 
 his beneficent occupation to a sudden end. An 
 old gentleman, residing in a house on Thirty-sixth 
 street, the back yard of which adjoined the fence 
 where the young man practised his sport, noticed 
 one evening that something attached to a string was 
 dangling over his back fence. As he had a pretty 
 daughter, he immediately suspected that it was a 
 surreptitious note, and stole softly out to seize and 
 confiscate it. Mounting on a barrel he clutched 
 the supposed note, and was instantly hooked.
 
 192 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 The tackle was strong, and he would perhaps have 
 been, landed had not the hook torn out when he 
 was about forty feet from the ground. After he 
 had recovered from the injuries caused by the fall 
 and the weakness consequent upon the amputation 
 of his legs, he showed so much annoyance at 
 the so-called outrage which had been inflicted upon 
 him, that the young man, who was a person of the 
 most delicate feelings, promised to give up cat-fish- 
 ing. Of course, had the old gentleman been thor- 
 oughly gaffed, he would not have fallen, and per- 
 haps the young man felt that his failure to gaff him 
 was an inexcusable error, which really called for 
 his graceful retirement from cat-fishing. 
 
 This example ought to bear fruit. At a very 
 small expense for tackle, any resident of this city 
 who occupies a back room, can secure excellent 
 sport, and at the same time can render a great ser- 
 vice to humanity by reducing the number of cats. 
 The sport ought speedily to become a very popular 
 one, and there can be but little doubt that in time 
 cat-fishing will rival trout-fishing in the estimation 
 of American sportsmen.
 
 A MOURNFUL INCIDENT. 
 
 rTIHE temperance crusade in Georgetown, Michi- 
 *- gan, which was carried on by the earnest 
 women of the village last winter, was a great 
 success. When the crusade began there were five 
 "saloons, 1 ' at which various immoral beverages, 
 from mild lager-beer to fiery benzine whisky, were 
 sold, but before spring only one of the '' saloon- 
 keepers " insulted female public sentiment by con- 
 tinuing to prosecute his business. Of the others, 
 three had sold out their entire stock to the crusa- 
 ders, at a profit of nearly 200 per cent., and had 
 removed to the next town, where they opened 
 larger and more attractive " saloons ;" while the 
 fourth reformed rum-seller openly repented for 
 $750 cash, and became a temperance lecturer, at 
 $50 a night, which, together with his income from 
 a gambling-house, made him very comfortable. In 
 9
 
 194 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 fact, he was accustomed to say that, as between 
 selling liquor for a profit of $800 a year, and prac- 
 ticing as a reformer for $11.000 a year, no intelligent 
 man could hesitate to choose the latter, and that 
 he hoped in the course of a few months to find an 
 opening as a reformed gambler that would make 
 his fortune at one blow. 
 
 The one obdurate liquor-dealer was without 
 doubt one of the most exasperating ruffians on 
 record. Night after night did the devoted women 
 of Georgetown enter his "saloon" and hold a 
 prayer-meeting of great size and strength, but he 
 never once openly insulted them, so as to enable 
 the male crusaders to smash his bottles about his 
 ears. On the contrary, he provided a parlor-organ 
 and six dozen hymn-books, and joined in the sing- 
 ing with great ardor. When he was personally 
 exhorted to give up his nefarious business, he 
 always expressed a great desire to reform, but 
 fixed his price at $3,000, which was considered to 
 be altogether too high. It was useless to labor 
 with such a hardened reprobate, and after six
 
 A MOURNFUL INCIDENT. 195 
 
 months of unremitting effort, the earnest women 
 shook his sawdust from their feet and abandoned 
 the attempt to reform him. When he was told 
 that no more prayer-meetings would be held in his 
 "saloon," he expressed sincere regret, and offered 
 to reform for only $2,500, but even this offer was 
 rejected, and then, for the first time, he lost his 
 temper, and remarked that people who refused to 
 save an immortal soul and put an end to drunken- 
 ness at the low price of $2,500 were insincere, and 
 should no longer pollute his premises with their 
 hypocritical prayers. In spite of this one failure, 
 the crusaders had accomplished so much that, on 
 the 23d of November last, the anniversary of the 
 formation of the " Earnest Women's Anti Rum, 
 Beer and Tobacco League,' 1 they determined to 
 celebrate the occasion by a public procession and a 
 cold water festival in the Baptist meeting-house. 
 The procession was to march in front of the obdu- 
 rate liquor-seller's " saloon," with any quantity of 
 banners the Earnest Women singing temperance 
 hymns, thus dispensing with the services of a beer-
 
 196 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 drinking German brass band. When the "saloon" 
 keeper heard of the intended celebration, he smiled 
 grimly, and announced that if the procession did 
 not halt in front of his " saloon," he should feel 
 personally slighted. 
 
 Now, the sidewalk in front of that wicked 
 man's " saloon " was wide and was paved with a 
 peculiar mixture of tar and gravel. It was slightly 
 out of repair, and the liquor-seller remarked that 
 he should show his respect for the temperance 
 cause by having it put in complete repair. He, 
 however, postponed the work from day to day, 
 until it was generally thought that he had aban- 
 doned his design, but on the very night before the 
 procession a gang of men, with lanterns and tar 
 barrels, appeared on the scene, and before daylight 
 the sidewalk was finished. In the morning two 
 sentinels were stationed to warn pedestrians not to 
 step on the newly laid pavement, which, however, 
 the liquor-dealer asserted would be perfectly hard 
 before the hour fixed for the procession. 
 
 It was nearly 11 o'clock before the Earnest
 
 A MOURNFUL INCIDENT. 197 
 
 Women, singing a powerful hymn and carrying 
 more banners than a torch-light political proces- 
 sion, turned the corner and advanced toward the 
 "saloon." The two sentinels were hastily with- 
 drawn, and the liquor-seller, with his hat in his 
 hand, stood at his doorway to do homage to the 
 reformers. As they neared him they averted their 
 gaze, and would have passed him without recogniz- 
 ing his existence, but, unfortunately, the proces- 
 sion, instead of passing his door, halted before it, 
 and standing perfectly still, ceased singing, and 
 remarked with great unanimity "goodness gra- 
 cious," and other words to the same general 
 effect. 
 
 Contrary to the prediction of the liquor-seller, 
 the new pavement was not dry. The composition 
 had been spread to the unusual depth of six inches, 
 and the head of the procession, including twenty- 
 six Earnest Women, was securely stuck in the 
 adhesive compound. To lift their feet was an im- 
 possibility, and two ladies who rashly sat down 
 with the view of removing their boots, and thus
 
 198 SHOOTING STARS. * 
 
 making their escape, found it impossible to rise 
 again. The wicked " saloon "-keeper at first pre- 
 tended not to notice the misfortune which had be- 
 fallen the procession, and assuming that the ladies 
 had paused for refreshments, loudly begged the 
 ladies " to name their poison and he would be de- 
 lighted to supply them." Of course, he was soon 
 compelled to recognize the true cause of the stop- 
 page of the procession, and he then professed to' 
 be so overwhelmed with sorrow that he felt unable 
 to gaze upon the scene, and so put up his shutters 
 and retired by the back door into an adjoining 
 street. 
 
 The Earnest Women were ultimately pried out 
 with fence rails, after hot crowbars had been used 
 to soften the tenacious tar, and they were then 
 taken home in carriages and scraped by their de- 
 voted husbands. The affair, however, cast a gloom 
 over the reformers and seriously injured the cause. 
 The wicked liquor-dealer had a sudden increase of 
 custom, and it is understood that two new saloons 
 are to be opened at an early day. This melan-
 
 A MOURNFUL INCIDENT. 199 
 
 choly event may well fill us with sorrow, while it 
 conveys the solemn lesson that reformers should 
 take heed to their footsteps, lest haply they fall 
 into the snares of the wicked.
 
 DOGS AND GHOSTS. 
 
 TT is all very well to be a philosopher and to 
 -*- make all sorts of investigations with all sorts of 
 things ; but when it comes to trifling with the ho- 
 liest feelings of an honest Scotch terrier, under the 
 pretext of investigating his religious views, it is 
 time that prying philosophers should be told to 
 exercise some little self-restraint and decency. 
 
 M. COMTE, the philosopher who invented an 
 ingenious religion, based upon the cheerful and 
 sustaining doctrines that there is no GOD and that 
 the soul is not immortal, held that dogs have a 
 religion closely resembling fetichism. An English 
 philosopher, one Mr. GEORGE J. ROMANES, who is 
 evidently on intimate terms with dogs, but who is 
 obviously undeserving of that precious privilege, 
 has recently been investigating the alleged fetich- 
 ism of dogs, and has decided that while they are
 
 DOGS AND GHOSTS. 201 
 
 not really fetich-worshipers, they are firm believers 
 in ghosts and spiritualism. It is not with Mr. 
 ROMANES' conclusions that we need find fault, but 
 with his methods of investigation. That prying 
 and indelicate person arrived at his alleged facts 
 by a series of experiments upon a Skye terrier of 
 culture *and refinement, which, if generally known 
 in polite dog circles, would subject him to severe 
 barking, if not to actual biting. 
 
 His first experiment was made with a bone. 
 This is alone sufficient to show the heartless and 
 irreverent character of the man. If there is any 
 thing which a dog holds peculiarly sacred, it is a 
 bone. A terrier will submit to be deluded by 
 false representations that there are eligible cats in 
 the coal-scuttle, or that the piano is full of rats, 
 but he feels that bones are too sacred to be made 
 the subject of jest. But what did Mr. ROMANES 
 do ? According to his own confession, he tied 
 a small silk thread to a bone and gave it to a dog. 
 After that animal had convinced himself that it 
 was in all respects a genuine and substantial bone,
 
 202 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 the philosopher possessed himself of the end of the 
 thread and drew the bone slowly across the floor. 
 The astonished dog watched the unprecedented 
 spectacle of an apparently self-moving bone with 
 startled ears and terrified tail until he convinced 
 himself that he was not dreaming, but that a 
 ghostly bone had materialized itself in front of his 
 nose. When this conviction had mastered his 
 mind, he fled, howling and with every symptom of 
 terror, to his kennel, where he undoubtedly spent 
 a miserable night, torturing himself with inquiries 
 as to what this supernatural appearance might por- 
 tend, and whether he had committed some grave sin 
 in point of cats or rats for which the vision of the 
 ghostly bone was intended as a punishment. 
 
 Mr. ROMANES argues from this cruel experi- 
 ment that his dog recognizes the existence of su- 
 pernatural things and dreads them. Of course, the 
 philosopher fails to notice that the conduct of the 
 dog was far more sensible than is the conduct of 
 the average man who thinks he sees something 
 supernatural. In all probability had Mr. ROMANES
 
 DOGS AND GHOSTS. 
 
 ever seen a piece of roast beef in the act of cruis- 
 ing unassisted around the table, he would instantly 
 have asked it preposterous questions, and would 
 subsequently have let his hair grow long, and have 
 become a confirmed Spiritualist. His intelligent 
 dog did none of these things, but as soon as he 
 decided that he had seen a spiritual bone, he re- 
 fused to have anything more to do with it, and 
 continued to wear his hear of the usual length, and 
 to cling to that faith in which he was educated. 
 Still, although the experiment proved that the dog 
 was far superior to his master, it was a cruel tri- 
 fling with the most sacred feelings of his canine 
 soul, and the philosopher deserves to be classed 
 with the scarcely less cruel and far less mischiev- 
 ous practitioners of vivisection. 
 
 Not content with his first experiment, Mr. 
 ROMANES tried another. He blew soap-bubbles, 
 suffered them to roll along the carpet, and called 
 his dog's attention to them. It took some time 
 to convince the dog that they were not a new 
 kind of particularly dangerous rat, but he ulti-
 
 204 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 mately made up his mind to attack them. The 
 first bubble upon which he placed his paw instantly 
 vanished, much to his amazement. However, he 
 was not easily discouraged, and he attacked a 
 second bubble with a similar result. Then there 
 flashed upon him the recollection of the ghostly 
 bone, and he decided that soap-bubbles were also 
 supernatural. Again he fled, manifesting every 
 symptom of extreme terror, and has never since 
 consented to remain in a room in company with 
 even the smallest bubble. 
 
 Finally, Mr. EOMANES tried the dignified exper- 
 iment of " making faces " at his unfortunate dog. 
 Whether he is a handsome man in his normal state 
 or not, he refrains from informing us, but it is 
 certain that he made his face so hideously ugly 
 that the dog mistook him for a worse ghost than 
 any he had yet seen, and thereupon crept under 
 the sofa and tried to die. A world abounding in 
 supernatural bones and soap-bubbles, and infested 
 with an atrocious demon in the clothes, though 
 not the likeness, of his master, had no further
 
 DOGS AND GHOSTS. 205 
 
 charms for him, and he preferred to leave it, and 
 to hunt the unsubstantial cats of the other world, 
 in the appropriate character of an unsubstantial 
 and ghostly dog. 
 
 If that outraged dog had as little generosity as 
 the average man, he would tell his miserable tale 
 to all his acquaintances, and enlist their sympa- 
 thies in his behalf. If this were done Mr. RO- 
 MANES would be fitly punished. Avenging dogs 
 would lie in wait for him at every corner and bite 
 his sacrilegious legs. They would take turns in 
 howling before his midnight windows, until the 
 lack of sleep would drive him into insanity, and 
 they would finally convert his grave into a canine 
 base-ball ground. He ought not, however, to be 
 left exclusively to the vengeance of the dogs. He 
 has done his best to disseminate among dogs a be- 
 lief in ghosts which tands to unfit them for the du- 
 ties of their station. This is a direct injury to 
 every dog-owner, and Mr. ROMANES should not be 
 permitted to lead our dogs into evil ways with im- 
 punity.
 
 RED HAIR. 
 
 1 1 iHE name of the ladv who a few weeks since 
 
 ". 
 -*- dropped her back hair on the sidewalk of a 
 
 street in Clinton, Illinois, has never been ascertained. 
 The hair in question was of a bright red color, and 
 few persons imagined that it was dangerous when 
 unconnected with its owner. Nevertheless, that 
 seemingly innocent back hair led to a tragedy that 
 nearly ruined the peace of two happy and respecta- 
 ble families. 
 
 Messrs. Smith and Brown are two leading citi- 
 zens engaged in the grocery business in Clinton. 
 They are men of great worth of character, and have 
 reached middle age without incurring the breath of 
 slander. One evening Mr. Smith returned from 
 the store and sitting down at the tea-table, pro- 
 duced a Chicago paper from his pocket and re- 
 marked with much indignation, " That revolting
 
 RED HAIR. 207 
 
 Beech er scandal has been revived, and its loath- 
 some details are again polluting the press and cor- 
 rupting the minds of the public." 
 Mrs. Smith replied that " it was a shameful 
 outrage that the papers were allowed to publish 
 such disgusting things," and asked her husband 
 " which paper had the fullest account of the mat- 
 ter." That excellent man said that he believed the 
 Gazette contained more about it than any other 
 paper, and that after tea he would send one of the 
 boys to get a copy of it. His wife thanked him, 
 and was in the act of remarking that he was always 
 thoughtful and considerate, when the oldest boy 
 exclaimed, " Pa, you've got a long red hair on 
 your coat collar ! " 
 
 A prompt investigation made by Mrs. Smith 
 confirmed the boy's accusation. There was an un- 
 mistakably female hair on the collar of Mr. Smith's 
 coat, and it was obtrusively red. Mr. Smith said 
 that it was a very extraordinary thing, and Mrs. 
 Smith also remarking " very extraordinary, indeed," 
 in a dry, sarcastic voice, expressed deep disgust at
 
 208 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 red hair, and a profound contempt for the " nasty 
 creatures " who wore it. 
 
 About the same hour Mr. Brown was also seated 
 at his tea-table, and was endeavoring to excuse, 
 himself to Mrs. Brown for having forgotten to bring 
 home a paper. That lady, after having expressed 
 the utmost indignation at the revival of the Beecher 
 scandal, had asked for the paper in order to see 
 
 who was dead and married, and was, of course, in- 
 
 
 
 dignant because her husband had not brought it 
 home. In the heat of the discussion she noticed a 
 long red hair on Mr. Brown's coat-collar, and, hold- 
 ing it up before him, she demanded an explanation. 
 In vain did Mr. Brown allege that he had not the 
 least idea how the hair became attached to his col- 
 lar. His wife replied that what he said was simply 
 ridiculous. " Red hair don't blow round like thistle- 
 down, and at your time of life, Mr. Brown, you 
 ought to be ashamed of yourself. The less you say 
 the better, but I can tell you that you can't deceive 
 me. I'm not a member of Plymouth Church, and 
 you can't make me believe that black is white."
 
 EED HAIR. 209 
 
 Now, both Mr. Brown and Mr. Smith were 
 perfectly innocent. Of course, they were annoyed 
 by the remarks of their respective wives, but like 
 sensible men, they avoided any unnecessary discus- 
 sion of the painful topic. The next day they each 
 brought home all the Chicago papers that contained 
 any reference to the Beecher matter, and, as the 
 papers were received by Mrs. Brown and Mrs. 
 Smith with many protestations of the disgust which 
 they felt at hearing any mention of the scandal, 
 they naturally supposed that they had made peace. 
 But marital suspicion once awakened is not easily 
 put to sleep. While Mr. Brown was handing his 
 wife the bundle of newspapers, she was closely 
 scrutinizing his coat-collar, and, after she had laid 
 the papers on her plate and told the children not 
 to touch them, she quietly took two long red hairs 
 from her unfortunate husband's coat, and held 
 them solemnly before his face. 
 
 " Mary, I give you my solemn word," began 
 the alarmed Mr. Brown ; but he was not permit- 
 ted to finish his sentence. "Don't say one word,"
 
 210 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 exclaimed Mrs. Brown. " Falsehoods won't help 
 you ; I am a faithful and loving wife, and I'll have 
 you exposed and punished if there is any law in 
 Illinois." Thus saying she gathered up her news- 
 papers and rushing to her room, locked herself in. 
 It was not until later in the evening that Mrs. 
 Smith, as she was about to turn down her husband's 
 lamp, which was smoking, perceived that two red 
 hairs were attached to his shoulder. She said 
 nothing, but after laying them on the table before 
 him, burst into tears and refused to be comforted 
 until Mr. Smith solemnly swore that he had not 
 seen a red-haired girl for months and years, and 
 offered to buy her a new parlor carpet the very 
 next day. 
 
 Of the two ladies, Mrs. Brown was much the 
 stronger and the more determined. The next 
 evening, when Mr. Brown brought back from the 
 store no less than five red hairs on his coat-collar, 
 she broke a pie-plate over his head, and leaving him 
 weltering in dried apples, put on her bonnet and 
 left the house. Mrs. Smith, on the same even-
 
 RED HAIR. 211 
 
 ing, found four of the mysterious red hairs on her 
 husband's coat, but she refrained from violence, and 
 merely telling him that she would not believe in 
 his innocence if he was to swear till he was black 
 in the face, called loudly for her sainted mother, 
 and was about to faint when Mrs. Brown burst 
 into the room. Mr. Smith, like a wise man, fled 
 from the scene, and the two ladies soon confided 
 their wrongs to one another. 
 
 When Mr. Brown and Mr. Smith met the next 
 day, the former confessed to the latter that he was 
 in a terrible scrape. Confidence begat confidence, 
 and they soon became convinced that they were 
 the victims of a frightful conspiracy to which some 
 unknown wearer of red back-hair was a party. 
 Their distress was increased early in the afternoon 
 by the appearance of their respective wives, who 
 walked up and down the opposite side of the street 
 for hours, each carry ing a conspicuous rawhide, and 
 evidently lying in wait for the imaginary red- 
 haired woman. Messrs. Smith and Brown felfc 
 that they were ruined men, and that a tremendous
 
 212 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 scandal was about to overwhelm them. They even 
 wished that they were dead. 
 
 About 4 o'clock P. M. Mrs. Smith clutched her 
 companion's arm and bade her listen to a small-boy 
 who was relating one of his recent crimes to a 
 youthful companion. " I just picked up that there 
 hair," remarked the wicked youth, " and put some 
 of it on old Smith's and old Brown's coats; I kep' 
 a puttin' of it on every day, and you just bet 
 they ketched it from their old women when they 
 went home. Smith, he's as solemnsanowl, and old 
 Brown looks as if he was a goin' to be hung." 
 
 The remains of the boy were removed by the 
 constable, and the Smith and Brown families are 
 once more united and happy.
 
 THE PERIODICITY OF STORIES. 
 
 intelligent man now doubts the Copernican 
 theory. We know that the planets revolve 
 around the sun, and that every satellite revolves 
 around its own private planet. Still, mankind has 
 been curiously slow to perceive that the law upon 
 which the Copernican theory is based is of vastly 
 wider application than astronomers suppose. All 
 things do not literally revolve, but all things have 
 their periodic times. For many years after the 
 death of COPERNICUS it was imagined that the 
 comets were exempt from the laws which govern 
 the planets, and it is only within a few years that 
 astronomers have discovered that the whole stellar 
 universe is revolving around some central point. 
 With the solitary exception of the seventeen-year 
 locusts and certain forms of epidemic disease, the 
 law of periodicity is universally believed to have
 
 214 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 no application to mundane affairs. Nevertheless, 
 everything revolves, either actually or figuratively, 
 around something .else, and has its set times for 
 appearing and disappearing; and this great truth 
 will yet be recognized by scientific persons, as well 
 as by the small boys who have made a profound 
 study of the orbits and periods of circuses. 
 
 Take, for example, the British drum-beat. 
 DANIEL WEBSTER long ago announced the scientific 
 fact that this drum-beat encircles the earth, and 
 that its time of revolution is precisely that of the 
 axial revolution of the earth. But who, among all 
 our scientific persons, has noticed that the British 
 drum-beat revolves not in the plane of the equator, 
 but nearly in that of the ecliptic ? Its path may 
 be traced by a line drawn from Gibraltar, through 
 Jamaica, British Guiana, and the Fiji Islands, to 
 Australia, and thence bending northerly through 
 India, Suez, and Malta to the place of beginning. 
 It is idle to suppose that this a mere accident. 
 Nature, which caused Greenwich to be placed pre- 
 cisely equidistant between the first parallels of east
 
 THE PERIODICITY OF STORIES. 215 
 
 and west longitude, knew what she was about 
 when she ordained that the British drum-beat 
 should circle the earth in a plane but slightly in- 
 clined to that of the ecliptic. 
 
 The appearance in a Chicago paper of the 
 story of an alleged marriage ceremony which came 
 to an abrupt end because the bride and groom 
 mutually accused each other of awkwardness, fur- 
 nishes a fitting occasion to call attention to the fact 
 that all stories have their periodic times. The 
 story in question was a popular one precisely 
 twenty-six years ago, as will appear by an exam- 
 ination of the comic almanacs of the year 1851, 
 and its reappearance at this time shows that its 
 periodic time is, in round numbers, twenty-six 
 years. The Chicago paper, ignorant of this fact, 
 supposes that the story is a new one, just dis- 
 covered by one of its reporters. It is doubtful if 
 any story can be called new except in the qualified 
 sense in which the detection of a hitherto unob- 
 served comet is called the discovery of a new 
 comet. All comets and all stories have existed
 
 216 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 during incalculable ages, and their regular reap- 
 pearances do not justify us in assuming that they 
 are new. 
 
 There is a vast difference in the periodic time 
 of different stories, and it is probable that some of 
 them revisit the earth not oftener than once in 
 many millions of years. There is the story of 
 " Bridget and the Unpremeditated Cat," which 
 appeared in the year 1794, but of which no pre- 
 vious or subsequent observation has ever been 
 made. The periodic time of this improving and 
 retractile anecdote is at least six thousand years, 
 and may, for all we know, be six or sixty million. 
 There is a lamentable want of data in regard to 
 the revolution of stories, but from such imperfect 
 data as are accessible we can predict with much 
 confidence the reappearance of several prominent 
 stories. The one which appeared in the Chicago 
 paper will, of course if its time has been accu- 
 rately computed reappear in 1^02, when it will 
 suddenly dawn upon a score of simultaneous 
 newspapers, all of which will hail it as a genuine
 
 THE PERIODICITY OF STORIES. 217 
 
 novelty. Vastly longer is the period of the story 
 of the man who, with the aid of his father, a 
 widow, and the widow's daughter, and an intricate 
 system of intermarriage, hecame his own grand- 
 father. The first recorded appearance of this is 
 in a Sanscrit work, translated by BURTON, the 
 African explorer. Its second appearance was in 
 this city, in 1857, when it was told with much 
 applause at a negro minstrel entertainment. Be- 
 tween these two appearances there was an interval 
 of not far from 3,500 years. We need, therefore, 
 fear no recurrence of the story until about the 
 year 5650 ; a fact upon which we may fairly 
 congratulate ourselves, in view of its almost 
 unique tediousness and intricacy. In contrast 
 with the long cycle through which the grandfather 
 story sweeps, is the brief period of the anecdote 
 of the Irishman who thought that he would never 
 be able to put on a pair of tight boots without 
 previously wearing them for a day or two. This 
 reappears every two years with unvarying regu- 
 larity, and though it has been slightly modified
 
 218 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 since the date when the sandal expanded into the 
 boot, it has maintained the same period for at 
 least 3,000 years. 
 
 It would be impossible, within moderate limits, 
 to discuss the causes which first set stories in 
 motion and regulated them by law. Neither can 
 the perturbations and phases which certain stories 
 manifest, nor the disturbing influence which one 
 sometimes exerts upon another, be more than 
 barely alluded to at this time. Very little obser- 
 vation is, however, needed to establish the fact 
 that every story has its periodic time, and that 
 its path and its speed are governed by natural and 
 inflexible laws, as truly as are the path and speed 
 of the moon, or the British drum-beat.
 
 THE LATEST CASE OF " HAZING.'* 
 
 " T "T AZING " has of late become altogether too 
 -* - frequent as the Herald often remarks of 
 murder and other atrocious crimes. At several of 
 our leading colleges unhappy Freshmen have lately 
 been '' hazed," much to their astonishment and dis- 
 satisfaction. Bad as hazing is when it is perpe- 
 trated by boys, it is infinitely worse when young 
 ladies are the " hazers." Their little hands were 
 never made to pull each other's hair down, and 
 that they should take part in scenes of riot and 
 violence is particularly revolting to our nobler 
 instincts. Nevertheless we must expect that the 
 students of female colleges will emulate the prac- 
 tices of the students of male colleges, and we need 
 not be surprised to learn that a peculiarly atrocious 
 case of hazing recently occurred at a female college 
 the name of which shall, from obvious motives, be 
 suppressed.
 
 220 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 Among the Freshwomen of this nameless col- 
 lege was one who possessed an unusually indepen- 
 dent spirit, and refused to humble herself before 
 the haughty Sophomoresses. Although the latter 
 had forbidden Freshwomen to wear ribbons, or to 
 bang their hair, she openly fluttered the showiest 
 ribbons, and flaunted the most tightly-crimped bang 
 in the faces of her natural superiors. Moreover, 
 she wore a seal-skin sack a garment which, by 
 prescription, had become the badge of the upper- 
 class women and being an intrinsically pretty 
 girl, she attracted a degree of attention when with- 
 in sight of young men which was construed as a 
 personal insult to the older students. There is no 
 doubt that in these and other ways she not only 
 exasperated the Sophomoresses, but formed a sort 
 of n'ucleus around which other mutinous Fresh- 
 women might be expected to gather. 
 
 About 12 o'clock on the night of the 23d of 
 March ,last the independent Fresh woman was 
 aroused by a gentle knock at her door. On de- 
 manding who was there, the reply was made, " It's
 
 THE LATEST CASE OF "HAZING." 221 
 
 me, dear ; I've got a letter for you from a young 
 man." In her excitement she did not pause to 
 consider the essential improbability of this reply, 
 but hastily unlocked the door. Instantly seven 
 girls rushed into the room, locked the door behind 
 them, and seizing the unhappy Freshwoman, gag- 
 ged her with a " puff," and bound her hand and 
 foot with two of her own sashes. This done, she 
 was placed in a chair, and forbidden to move a 
 muscle under pain of having a live mouse, which 
 one of the aggressors had brought in a small box, 
 let loose on the floor. 
 
 Such a threat would have curdled the blood in 
 the veins of most girls, but this girl was made of 
 firmer material, and, instead of fainting, she sat 
 perfectly still and watched the " hazers." The 
 latter were led by one of the most riotous students 
 of the college, a girl who had repeatedly made sur- 
 reptitious tea in her own room after bed-time, and 
 had more than once been known to wave her hand- 
 kerchief at casual young men. The whole party 
 had prepared themselves for their lawless work by
 
 222 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 leaving their overskirts and their back hair in their 
 rooms. They were evidently already under the 
 influence of green tea, and they constantly made 
 use of such revolting expressions as " my gracious," 
 " my goodness me," and other equally shocking 
 blasphemies. They had brought with them two 
 quart bottles of cold tea, a supply of dry toast, and 
 a jar of jelly. Seating themselves around the table, 
 they rapidly consumed these intoxicating refresh- 
 ments, and the helpless Freshwoman's heart sank 
 within her as she perceived that they were delib- 
 erately stimulating themselves to a height of reck- 
 lessness which would fit them for the most atrocious 
 outrages. 
 
 For half an hour the revelers drank the fiery 
 green tea, and made the midnight air ring with the 
 rollicking songs of Messrs. MOODY and SANKEY. At 
 
 C G 
 
 length the leader judged that her companions were 
 ripe for any sort of crime, and thereupon summoned 
 them to carry out their nefarious design. They 
 began by taking out and confiscating their victim's 
 crimping-pins. They then carefully cut off with a
 
 THE LATEST CASE OF "HAZING." 223 
 
 pair of sharp scissors every vestige of her bang, 
 leaving in its place a short stubble that closely re- 
 sembled a masculine beard of three days' growth. 
 The entire contents of the victim's own bottle of 
 bandoline was then emptied upon her head, and her 
 hair, after being combed straight bac^ from her fore- 
 head, was secured in that position by a circular 
 comb. Every particle of ribbon in her possession 
 was seized by the " hazers," who, in cruel mockery 
 of her fondness for ribbons of becoming tints, pro- 
 ceeded to trim all her dresses with a hideous parti- 
 colored red and yellow ribbon. All this time the 
 victim of these outrages made no sound, although 
 the powder with which the "puff" was filled was 
 several times on the point of choking her. When 
 the " hazers " had finished their loathsome work 
 they removed the gag, and forced the Freshwomau 
 to solemnly promise on a volume of Emerson's Es- 
 says to wear only red and yellow ribbons, to send 
 her seal-skin sack home by express, and to hence- 
 forth wear her hair in the simple and excessively 
 unbecoming fashion in which they had arranged it.
 
 224 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 Probably she would have refused at any cost to 
 make such a promise had she not caught sight of 
 herself in the mirror and thus sustained a shock 
 which completely unnerved her. 
 
 It remains to be seen whether the college au- 
 thorities will permit this brutal assault upon a de- 
 fenseless student to remain unpunished ; or whether 
 the spirit of " hazing " is to be permitted to spread 
 among our female colleges, ruining the ribbons and 
 obliterating the bangs of innocent Freshwomen. 
 
 THE END.
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS have in preparation a scries of volumes, to be 
 issued usder the title of 
 
 CURRENT DISCUSSION, 
 
 A COLLECTION FROM THE CHIEF ENGLISH ESSAYS ON QUESTIONS 
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 INTERNATIONAL POLITICS, NATURAL SCIENCE. 
 
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 QUESTIONS OF BELIEF, 
 
 ECONOMICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE, 
 
 HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY, LITERARY TOPICS. 
 
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 ARCHIBALD FORBES'S Essay on "THE RUSSIANS, TURKS, AND BUL- 
 GARIANS;" Vsct. STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE'S "TURKEY;" Mr. GLAD- 
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 SPECTS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND;" W. H. MALLOCK's " Is LlfrJi 
 
 WORTH LIVING ? " FREDERIC HARRISON'S " THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE ; 
 and the Rev. R. F. LITTLEDALE'S " THE PANTHEISTIC FACTOR IN CHRISTIAN 
 THOUGHT." 
 
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