Pittston Gazette

              t* * _ ESTABLISHED 1 S.-DC) VOL. XTJII. NO. 4" Oldest Newspaper in the Wyoming Vi llev. IMTTSTON. I I'XKKNK CO., PA., F UDAY, .1 CNK 2.5, m:\. A Weekly Local and Family Journal. I *I.5« I'F.R ANN I'M I IN ADVANCE it I so of but one interpretation in r THE GOLDBUG blazing upon the hearth. 1 \*as heated with exercise ami sat near tike table. You, however, had drawn a chair clone to the chimney. Just asl placed the iiarcliuiejit in vour hand, and as you were in the act simple species—such, however, as would appear to the crude intellect of the sailor absolutely insoluble without the kev." '•It is now time that we arrange our key, as far as discovered, in a tabular form, to avoid confusion. It will stand to a search for buried treasure. 1 perceived that the design was to drop a bullet from the left eye of the skull and that a bee line, or. in other words, a straight line, drawn from the nearest point of the trunk through 'the phot' (or the sj«jt where the bullet fell), and thence extended to a distance of 50 feet, would indicate a definite point, and beneath this j«)int I thought it at least possible that a del»osit of value lay concealed." A BAD STREAK HtAPS OF TURKEY AND PIE. MEETING AX ORATOR. iittie crnia tnat was eanng a cookj- witn pink sugar on it. said in a gruff voice: 'Can t ye speak so's we can hear ye: Never mind the gestures. Speak up! Louder!' McSwat I iHlertMkf* to l'uint (lie Kitchen Oiilrons of lXt«i NcwKhoys* Lodging Hoqu Feast on tlie Fat of tlie I.ami. it yer pusliiii lDehiii diTe!'' "Bust io "Shove up «ie grub!" "Aw, let "Leimne ut Clefeed!" "Soup!" "Sau'whichtis!" "Meat 'd Pic!' "Wow!" "Whoop! Hoo- \nd von really solved it?" thus Moor "Readily. 1 have solved others of an abstruseness 10,000 times greater. Circumstances and a certain bias of mind have led me to take interest in such riddles, and it may well be doubted whether hnmau ingenuity can construct an enigma of the kind which human ingenuity may not, by proper application, resolve. In fact, having once established connected and legible characters, I scarcely gave a thought to the mere difficulty of developing their import. D re.prCCsents a "I'll paint tliut kitchen floor myself, Lobelia," said Mr. McSwat with decision. "There's no sense in paving a man half a dollar an hour and four prices for" the paint he uses and then getting the stove and woodwork all smeared with it and the house filled with the smell of stale tobacco smoke when I can do it just as well and save I'm going to tackle that job myself." "IJui BILL NYE TRIES TO CONSOLE AN UN By EDGAR ALLAN POR • if inspecting it. W olf, the N ewfoundland, entered and leaped upon your s4ioulders. With your left hand you caressed him and kept him off. while your riu'ht, holding the parchment, was permitted to fall listlessly lDetween your knees and in close proximity to the fire. At one moment I thought the blaze had caught it and was about to caution you. but before I could speak you had withdrawn it and wer« engaged in its examination. ;h' door :i feller in KNOWN ON THE TRAIN "Napoleon fetched a little kind of sob and took a glass of water. Then he tried again, beginning back where he started out, but raising his voice higher and higher till it was split and ruptured at the end of every sentence. * When he got through, the committee told him they thought that 'was a pretty easy way tc earn *s." but gave it to him, including a lead dollar. [contim KD.] Turkey Presently I took a candle, and seating myself at the other end of the room proceeded to scrutinize the parchment more closely. Upon turning it over 1 saw my own sketch upon the reverse just as I had made it. My first idea no\y was mere surprise at the really remarkable similarity of outline—at the singular coincidence involved in the fact that, unknown to me, there should have been a skull upon the other side of the parchment immediately beneath my figure of the scarabsens. and that this skull, not only in outline, but in size, shonld so closely resemble my drawing. I say the singularity of this coincidence absolutely stupefied me for a time. This is the usual effect of such coincidences. The mind struggles to establish a connection —a sequence of cause and effect—and being unable to do so suffers a species of temporary paralysis. p'tate!' ray t" Then From Hi* Advance Agent AVilllan Two hundred newsboys of all races, colors and ages shoved, hustled, shouted, whist led and whooped in the upper room of the Newsboys' Lodging house at 9 Duane Street. From below appetizing odors arose. The doors that separated the crowd from the 2*th newsboys' dinner creaked under the vigorous efforts of the famine stricken urchins. Finally they swung open, and a torrent of hungry humanity poured into the dining room and took possession of the benches that flanked the well supplied tahies. Then up rose a dull and continuous sound such as is made when a housewife chops up celery in a wooden dish. It. arose from 200 yairsof jaws working wit.h vigC* and speed. Occasionally there was an interruption and clu appeal to Superintendent Ileig. Learn* tlie True History of the Man Win Wanted to Talk on tlie lied Indian. "All this," 1 said, "is exceedingly clear, and. although ingenious, still simple and explicit. When you left the Bishop's hotel, what then?" Riding gayly on the vestibule train ant dressed in a ne'at and even expensivt way, as I now do, I saw in the sectioi ahead a wild looking man who might have been 19 or 91, 1 could not tell. HC looked at his watch, a young lady's hunt ing case watch, with a chain made oi human hair that needed a shampoo. ICopyrlght, 13SO, by K.lgar \V. Nye.} "We have therefore no less thata 10 of the most important letters repre- Mr. McSwat bought some floor paint, varnish and turiDentine, and at 9 o'clock that evening he carried the loose, furniture out of the kitchen, mixed his paint by stirring in a liberal quantity of turpentine and announced himself in readiness to begin the artistic work of the Bented, and it will be unnecessary to proceed with the details of tin- solution, 1 have said enough to convince you that "Aft. rward the Fly-Capper-Sigh, of which he was a member, gave him a banquet. (They had previously invited him, and so could not well back out.) He went, though there was a wihli hunted look in his eye as he started. The banquet was not quite ready, for, as the steward of the restaurant said, 'the Cove oysters had not came yet,' so Napoleon sat in the anteroom, and people went by and examined him as if they were taking a farewell look at him before the lid was screwed down. "When I considered all these particulars, 1 doubted not for a moment that beat had been the agent in bringing to light upon the parchment the skull which I saw designed ujion it. Yon are well aware tliat chemical preparations exist, and hare existed time out of mind, by means of which it is possible to' write upon eitl*er paper or vellum so that the characters shall become visible only when subjected to the action of fire. Zaffre digested in aqua regia and diluted with four times its weight of water is sometimes employed; a green tint results. The regulars of cobalt dissolved in spirit of niter give a red. These colors disappear at longer or .shorter intervals after the material written upon cools, but again become apparent upon the reaipplication of heat. "In the present cases—indeed in all cases of secret writing—the first question regards the language of the cipher, for the principles of solution, so far especially as the more ample ciphers are concerned, dejx-nd upon and are varied by the genius of the particular idioin. In general there is 110 alternative hut experiment (directed by probabilities) of every tongue known to him who attempts the solution until the true one lie obtained, but with the cipher now Tiefore us all difficulty was removed by the signature. The pan upon the word Kidd' is appreciable in no other language than th( English. But for this consideration ] should have begun my attempts with thC Spanish and French as the tongues ;i vbicli » of tfc " kin/l r "Why. having carefully taken the bearingsof the tree, I turned homeward. The instant that I left 'the devil's seat,' however. the circular rift vanished, nor could 1 get a glimpse of it afterward, turn as 1 would. What seems to me the chief ingenuity in this whole business is the fact (for repeated experiment has convinced me it is a fact) that the circular opening in question is visible from no other attainable point of view than that afforded by the narrow ledge upon the face of the rock. ciphers of this nature are readily soluble and to give you some insight into the rationale of their development. Hut bo assured that the fqiecimen before us appertains to the very simplest species of cryptograph, ft now only remains to give you the full translation of the characters upon the parchment as unriddled. Here it is- evening. Beginning at the portion of the floor near the rear door of the room he smeared the paint impartially in all directions. "I've got morn of it done already," lie said, stopping to rest a little at the end of 1(1 minutes' brisk exercise, "than a professional painter would have done in half an hour." ' Hey, mister, dis mug here's swipin me pie! 1 seen him chuckiu it down'is neck w'ile I wasn't lookin." " "A good glass in the bishop's hostel in the devil's seat 41 degrees and 13 minutes northeast and by north main branch seventh limb east side shoot from the left eye of the death's head a bee line from the tree through the shot GO feet out.' " "Iu this e-qiedition to the 'Bishop's hotel' I had been attended by Jupiter, who had no doubt observed for some weeks past the abstraction of my demeanor and took especial care not V. leave me alone. But Cqi the next day, getting up very early, j Contrived to give him the slip and wojit into the hills in search of the tree. After much toil 1 found it. When 1 came home at night, mv valet proposed to givo me a flogging. With the rest of the adventure I believe you are as well acquainted as myself," "Ah, go cut ytt t'roatwid a turkey lDone! How cud yer see me when yer wasn't lookin?""lie was very cold and quite hungrv, not having eaten any thing since he had agreed to deliver the lecture, but they put hini at tiie cold end of the room by the side of a trapped president, who made notes on the back of his menu and frigltfened out of Napoleon what little intelligence he had left. But when I recovered from this stupor there dawned up6a ne gradually a, conviction which startled me even far moro than the coincidence." I began distinctly, positively, to remember that there had been no drawing upon the parelunent when I made my sketch of the scaraba-r,?. I became perfectly certain of this, for I recollected turning up first one side and then the other in search of the cleanest spot. Had the skull been then there, of course I could not have failed to notice it. Here was indeed a mystery which I felt it impossible to explain, but even at that early moment there seemed to glimmer faintly within the most remote and secret chambers of my intellect a glowwormlike conception of that truth which last night's adventure brought to so magnificent a demonstration. I arose at once, and putting the parchment securely away dismissed all further reflection until I should 1De alone. "Seems tome it looks cloudy," ventured Mrs, McSwat, eying the painted portion critically. "Well, I seen yer." ayhow. Give up now." An examination proved the truth of the accusation, and the pie was returned amid the sobs of the despoiier. "That's because it dries unequally," he replied. "It dries faster in some places than others. It will all look alike after it is thoroughly dried. What you see is only the reflection from the lamp over there on the window sill." \ icli a secret o bia ui\ wou moi i "But." said I. "the enigma seems still in as hail a condition as ever. How is it possible to extort a meaniug from all this jar goo about "devil's-Feats,' "death's heads' and 'bishop's hotels? " "I now scrutinized the death's head with care. Its outer edges—the edges of the drawing nearest the edge of the vellum—were far more distinct than the others. It was clear that the action of the caloric had been imperfect or unequal. I immediately kindled a fire and subjected "every portion of the parchment to a glowing heat. At first the only effect *»as the strengthening of the faint lines in the skull, but upon ersevering in the experiment there became visible at the corner of the slip, diagonally opposite to the spot in which the death's head was delineated, the figure of what I at first supposed to lx* a goat. A closer scrutiny, however, satisfied me that it was intended for a kid." "Don't make me git out, mister. I on'y tuk it fer mesta* vin w ife an famWv." "Hie restaurant was a very poor one indeed, and the cliina had large, dark chips knocked ont of it by people who had tried to drive in picture nails with it. Dm courses were widely segregated, and the dishes came on each time warm and hurried and panting, as who should say: 'We may lie a little slow about it, but we do not miss a single course. We also aim to please.' "llow many starvin v.-ifenfamblys yej got?" demanded the boy on the other sidi of the speaker, extracting two turkey bones smothered in mashed potato and a piece of ham from the youngster's pocket. "I'll give yer a Wurap in th' ear yer go feed id ?er starvin wifenfambly on my grub." "I confess," replied Legrand, "that the matter still wears a serious asjiect when regarded with a casual glance. My first endeavor was to divide the sentence into the natural division intended by the crj'ptographist." He dipped the brush in the paint again, slapped it to and fro on the floor, and in a short time the surface was entirelv smeared.- "1 suppose," said I, "you missed the spot in tl»e first attempt at digging through Jupiter's stupidity in letting the bug fall through the right instead of through the left eye of the skull." "Now," he said, rising to his feet, "as soon as it's dry I'll put on the varnish." This was doubly strong evidence, and th« offender had to go, which he did, having previously stuffed his mouth full of everything within reach, with the noble resolvs to get all he could out of the dinner anyway. When the first 200 had devastated the tables a new supply was furnished, and mor» boys were let in. About 600 In all were fed. It took TOO pounds of turkey, 4 barrels eacb jf potatoes and turnips, 600 assorted pies, 280 pounds of ham aiid 60 gallons of tea tc satisfy them. All this waa the gift of .Mr. \\ illiam M. Fleiss of 47 Hroadway, who gives a dinner to tl'e boys every year. It was5»o'clock when the last lot of eater* Arose w ith sighs of repletion and filed out to stnoke cigarettes in the hall. This process finished, they scattered to their homes, a dy to get up in the morning and sturdily earn their own dinners throughout another year, by bootblaeking and the sale of "ex trys" until next winter brings them anotb .:r free banquet.—New York Sun. He looked at the watch, and then-he lookei at a railroad folder, then he looked at the MS. of an address or lecture which he took now and again from his handbag. Wetting his lips with some Restorative which scented up the car, he would practice in a low, retreating breath, fitting the gestures to it so that people near him vacated their seats, while ever and anon he would hiss something through his clinched teeth and bite a large hole in the somewhat fixed air of the car. Then he would open his satchel and-take ont a manuscript, which he read over earnestly. aud then he seemed to be repeating it in his mind. Then he would add gestures to, it and bite large holes in the atmosphere and look wild. TKYIXG TO CONSOLE HIM. "You mean to punctuate it?" "Something of that kind." "But how was it possible to effect this?" "flow long will it take to dry?" in quired his wife. "Precisely. This mistake made a difference of about 2i inches in the !s}iot" —that is to say. in the position of the peg nearest ilie tree—and had the treasure been beneath tl)9 'shot' the error would have' been of little moment, but the 'shot,' together with the nearest point of the tree, were merely two points fur the establishment of a line of direction. Of I'onrw the error, however trival in the beginning. Increased as \ve pro ceeded with the line, and by the time we had gone 50 feet threw ns quite off the scent. But for my deep seated impressions that treasure was here somewhere actually buried we might have had all our labor in vain." "Only a little while/' he answered, touching the floor gingerly in several places with his finger, ''You noticed that I put in plenty of turpentine, didn't you? The secret of mixing paint so it will dry soon," he continued, wiping the brush carelessly on a rag in order to clean it for the next operation, ''is to put in plenty of turpentine. Bring me the var nish. Lobelia. Thanks," ell, to make a long story short, the agony could not be drawn out any longer, and finally the president rapped on the table with the iron handle of his already exhausted knife and said, 'We have with us this evening'—just as though they hail been in the habit of entertaining all the crowned heads that came to town. Then lie spok© briefly and tersely of Napoleon iij.'t introduced him as the silver tongned representative of the Fly-Capper-Sigh of Jasper. "J reflected that it had been a point with the writer to run bis words together without division so as to increase the difficulty of solution. Now, a not overacute. man, in pnrDniisg S'i h an object. would be nearly certain to overdo the matter. When in the course of his composition he arrived at a break in his subject which would naturally require a pause or a point, he would lDe exceedingly apt to run his characters at this place more than usually close together: If yon will observe the MS. in the present instance, you will easily detect five such cases of unusual crowding. Acting upon this hint, 1 made the division thus: Lcijmvd,hairing relented the parehmcnt, submitted it to my inspection. naturally have been written by a pirate of the Spanish main. As it was, I assumed the cryptograph to be English. "Yon observe there are no divisions between the words. Had there been divisions, the task would have been comparatively easy. In such case I should have commenced with a collation and an analysis of the shorter words, and had a word of a single letter occurred, as is most likely (a or I, for example), I should have considered the solution as assured; but, there being no division, my first step was to ascertain the predominant lettors as well as the least frequent. Counting all. I constructed a table thus; "Of the character 8 there are 83, "When you had gone and when Jupiter was fast asleep, I betook myself to a more methodical investigation of the affair. In the first place, I considered thC- lnanner in which the parchment had come into my possession. The spot where •we discovered the scarabieus was on the roast of the mainland, abont a mile eastward of the island and but a short distance above high water mark. l'i»on lay taking hold of it. it gave mea sharp bite, which caused me to let it drop. "Ha! lia!" said 1. "to be sure I have no right to laugh at you—$1,500,000 of monev is too serious a matter for mirth —but you are not about to establish a third link in your chain—you will not find any special connection between your pirates and a goat—pirates, you know, have nothing to do with goats; they apjtertain to the farming interest." "I can't help thinking, Billiger," said Mrs, McSwat apprehensively, "that the floor is darker in some places than others. It looks streaked," • Napoleon arose, wiped his cold lips with a napkin, and taking the tablecloth with one hand by the corner he jerked it about due east as the crow flies, gave |the shriek of a demon, and tying the table linen around the throat of the president choked him to death. Then picking up a whole custard pie he struck a little fellow on the opposite side of the table so as to fill the. ear to overflowing, caught hold of a carving knife and fled through the village, cutting holes in constables and biting elderly people on their way home. He has cleared out two asylums already, and now he is on his way to Waupaca. He still thinks, poor boy, that he is to lecture at Jasper tonight and that if he should disappoint them he will be out $10." "What you don't know about painting a floor, madam," he retorted, "would build a viaduct from here to the moon. Those streaks are merely an optical illusion due to the reflection of the rays of that lamp over there. Is that plain enough for yonr comprehension?" "But I have just said that the figure was not that of a goat." Finally I went over and spoke to him. I asked him what seemed to be the trouble. He said that ho was billed to lecture at Archy that evening, and that already he was two hours behind. Jf we did not make it up, he would lose $10, he said, and he looked at his watch again and then at the schedule. Then lie ran over a portion of his lecture and examined the joints in some of his gestureto see if they wc-a« working smoothly. For some time I remained with him, talking with him and consoling him as best I might, finally telling him that I, too. was a lecturer, though I was keeping it us quiet as I could on account of my family, and so 1 went on trying to brace him up and give him courage even while I could hardly smile myself. His agent seemed to be along with him, and to him I finally addressed myself in the smoker a little later on. "But your grandiloquence and your conduct in swinging the beetle—bow excessively odd! I was sure yon were mad. And why did you insist upon letting fall the bug instead of a bullet from the shell?" "Jupiter, with his aC-customed caution, before seizing the insect, which had flown toward him, looked alxmt him for jb. leaf or something of tliat nature by which to take hold of it. It was at this moment that his eves, and mine also, fell upon the scrap of parchment which I then supposed to 1m- paper. It was lying half buried in the sand, a corner sticking up. Near the sjot where we found it I observed the remnants of the hull of what appeared to have lieen a ship's longboat. The wreck seemed to jfeve been there for a very great while, for the resemblance to lxDat timbers cpnld scarcely be traced. "Well, a kid, then—pretty much the same thing." " 'A good glass in the Bishops hostel in the devil's seat—41 degrees and 13 minutes—northeast and by north—main branch seventh limb east side—shoot from the left eye of the death's head—a bee lino from the tree through the shot 50 feet out.'" Tlie American and French Cabinet System* In France the president names his ministers, but they must have the confidence oi :he chainbcr—that is to say, they are not his ministers, but ministers of a fluctuat tag majority of the deputies. This fact aas made the president as a matter of fact removable during his term of office, as was proved when M. Grevy, unable to get a cabinet together which had the confidence of the chamber or to obtain the consent of the senate to its dissolution, was forced to resign, as if he had been an outvoted prim* minister. In practice the cabinet system, the system of ministerial responsibility to m elected chamber, seems to require, in orler to give it stability, a permanent and even hereditary head of the state, who can aot be affected by parliamentary fluctuations."Pretty much, but not altogether," said Legrand. "You may have heard of Captain Kidd. I hi once looked upon !he figure of the animal as a kind of punning or hieroglyphical signature. I say signature l»ecause its position upon the vellum suggested this idea. The death's head at the corner diagonally opposite had, in the same manner, the air of a stamp or seal. But I was 6orely put- out by the absence of all else—of be body to my imagined instrument— rDf the text for my context." "I thought you said awhile ago they were caused by the unequal drying.'' ♦ 4 iD 26. ]!(. 10. 13. "Why, to be frank, I felt somewhat annoyed by your evident suspicions touching my sanity, and so resolved to punish you quietly, in my own way, by a little bit of sober mystification. For this reason I swung the beetle, and fuf this rC...-Don I let it fall from the tree. An observation of j-r-urs a?Dont its great weight suggested the latter idea." "So far as the drying is concerned," said Mr. McSwat, touching the floor again with his finger, "that will take care of itself. You can't fool me on drying. All I ask is plenty of turpentine. In five minutes more that floor will lDe as drv as the catalogue of a codfish exhibit."""Even this division," said 1, "leaved me still in the dark." 5 „ 13. 6 .. n. "Of the character f 1 there are 8. 0 6. "It left me also in the dark," replied Legrand, "for a few days, during which I made diligent inquiry in the neighborhood of Sullivan's island for any building which went by the name of the 'Bishop's hotel.' for of course I dropped the obsolete word'hostel.' Gaining no information on the subject. I was on the point of extending my sphere of search and proceeding in a more systematic manner when one morning it entered into my head quite suddenly that this 'Bishop's hostel' might have sonio reference to an old family of the name of Bessop. which time out of mind had held possession of an ancient manor house abont /our miles to the northward of the island. He thinned the varnish, waited a few minutes, examined the floor again and pronounced it dry. Then he went across to the other side of the room and lDegan applying the varnish with much vigor, moving gradually backward on his hands and ktur-s as before. When the floor was about half covered with varnish, he straightened up in order to take the kinks out of his spine and looked back over his shoulder at the unvarnished portion. For the first time he saw it without any reflection from the lamp in the window, and there was something in the aspect of that floor that did not please "I presume you expected to find a let:er between the stamp and the signa- ''Yes, I perceive. And now there is only one point which puzzles me. What are we to make of the skeletons found in the hole?" "Well, Jupiter picked up the parchment, wrapped the beetle in it and gave it to me. Soon afterward we turned to go home and on the way met Lieutenant 'O . I showed him the insect, and he liegged me to let him take it to the fort. Upon my consenting he thrust it forthwith into his waistcoat pocket without the parchment in which it Lad been wrapped, and which I had continued to hold in my hand during HpwrMf.aciion. Perhaps he dreaded my changing my ;mind and thought it best to make sure «f the prize at once—you know how enthusiastic he is on all subjects connected vith natural history. At the same tim*, without lx-ir;g conscious of Yt».I must I lave deposited tiie iwrehment in tny own pocket. • *• "Now. in English, the letter which most frequently occurs is e. Afterward the succession runs thus: aoidhnrst uycfglmwbkpqxz. E predominates so remarkably that an individual sentence of any length is rarely seen in which it is not the prevailing character. tare.*' "Something of that kind. The fact is, [ felt irresistibly impressed with a presentiment of some vast good fortune impending. I can scarcely say why. Per- '•That is a question I am no more able to answer than yourself. There seems, however, only one plausible way of accounting for them—and yet it is dreadful to believe in such atrocity as my suggestion would imply. It is clear that Kidd—if Ridel indeed secreted this treasure. which I doubt not—it is clear that he must have had assistance in the labor. But this labor concluded, he may have thought it expedient to remove all participants in his secret. Perhaps a couple of blows with a mattock were sufficient while his coadjutors were busy in the pit; perhaps it required a dozen. Who shall tell?" The presidential system as exhibited in :he United States appears to owe its stability and working efficiency to the fact that the president is the master and not the servant of the cabinet, and that, neithet le nor it is dependent upon a majority of th» representative chamber nor at a general election. The attachment of the French people to the republican form—perhaps w« night rather to my their want of attach J lent to any other—with their record for personal ascendency, for the democratu autoritairc, suggests that they will find a stable equilibrium in remodeling their institutions after the American rather than the English fashion—that is to say, in th» qualified monarchy of the presidential sy» tem rather than in the unlimited demoo •acy of our modern parliamentary regirn* —Jxindon Saturday Review. "Can you not get a special or do something to relieve the anxiety of your attraction?" I inquired... "He seems to be suffering so much ovej it." haps, after all, it was rather a desire than an actual belief, but do yon know that Jupiter's silly wC /rds about the bug being of solid gold had a remarkable effect upon my fancy? And then ihe series of accidents and coincidences— these were so very extraordinary. DC» you oljserve how mere an accident it was that these events should have occurred upon the sole day of all the year in which it has been or may be sufficiently cool for fire, and that without the fire or without the intervention of the dog at the precise moment in wliich he ap- IDeared I should never have become aware of the death's head, and so never the possessor of the treasure?'' "Here, then, we have, in the very beginning the groundwork for something more than a mere guess. The general nse which may be made of the table is obvious, but in this particular cipher we shall only very partially require its aid. As our predominant character is 8, we will commence by assuming it as the e of the natural alphabet. To verify the supposition, le't us observe if the 8 be seen often in couples—for e is doubled with great frequency in English—in such words, for example, as •meet,' 'fleet,' 'speed,' 'seen,' 'been,' 'agree,* etc. In the present instance we see it doubled no less than five times, although the cryptograph is brief. "My attraction,' «aid the agent, biting off the ragged edge of his cigar wrapper and looking out at the frosty miles of northern country, "Las been this WHy fOI eight years, I am taking him to the asylum. Eight years ago he was a young man. He made a hit when he graduated and delivered a thrilling speech regard-. ing the American Indian. Never having seen the American Indian, he loved lum He said, among other things, that the American Indian approximated more nearly to what man should be—manly, grand, physically perfect, morally great and.'true to the instincts of his conscience —than any other race of beings, civilized or uncivilized. 'Where,' lie asked, 'do we hear such noble sentiments or meet with such examples of heroism and self sacrifice as the history of the American Indian furnishes? Where shall we go again to hear such oratory as that of Black Hawk and Logan? Certainly the records of our so called civilization do not furnish it, and the present century is devoid of it. They were the true children of the Great Spirit. They lived nearer to the great throbbing heart of the Creator than do their palefaced conquerors of today who mourn over the lost and undone condition of the savage. Courageous, brave and the soul of honor, their cruel and awful destruction from jff the face of the earth is a sin of such magnitude that the people of America may well shrink from the just punishment which is sure to follow the assassination of so brave a race.' He had quite i lot of things like that in his speech, and liis father, who had a chattel mortgage an the press of The Home and Vindicator if our place, got it printed to the exilusion of the tax list and other spicy reading. "I accordingly went over to fho plantation and reinstitnted my inquiries among the older negroes of the place At length one of the most aged of the women said that she had heard of such a place as Bessop's castle and thought that she could guide me to it, but that it was not a castle nor a tavern, but a high rock. him He bent down and examined it closely. Then lie looked at the brush, wiped it with some care on anotherand examined the rag. "Lobelia," he said, "what have you been using this brush for?" THE END. • "You remember that when I went to the table for the purpose of making a sketch of the beetle 1 found no paper where it was usually kept. I looked in the drawer and found none there. I searched iny pockets, hoping to find an old letter, when mv hand fell upon the parchment. I thus detail the precise mode in which it came into iriv possession, for the circumstances impressed roe with peculiar force. J!e I* Still Poor. "1 haven't used it for anything, Billiger," she answered, "for weeks and weeks. The last time I had occasion to use it I put a little blacking on the kitchen stove with it." "1 offered to pay her well for her trouble, and after some demur she consented to accompany me to the 8pot. We found it without much difficulty, when: dismissing her, I proceeded to examine the place. The 'castle' consisted of an irregular assemblage of cliffs and rocksone of the latter being quite remarkable for its height as well as for its insulated and artificial appearance. 1 clambered to its apex and then felt much' at a loss as to what should be next done. "Pave the pennies, and the dollars will lake care of themselves," is very good ad- The Heirs' Predicament. 1 followed Hucewwfully by a urc.it many nn»u i:i this city. I met 11 man yes- Heirs to property sometimes experience sonsiderable difficulty in entering into possession of the same, owing to the condition under which it is left to them. A case in point nbout which there has already been a good deal of litigation in France is fur aished by t he will of a Parisian restaurant keeper, who departed this life some year* ago, leaving his fortune, a matter of 330, 000 francs, to his two nephews. To this lie quest a condition was affixed, out of whicl has arisen all the trouble. The testator stipulated that instead of the epitaph usually to be read on tombstones his nephews should attach to that which marked his final resting plane a culinary Jocipe, to be renewed daily. vice SITTING DOWN BY THE ROADSIDE. "Well, you have heard, of course, the many stories current, the thousand vague rumors afloat, about money buried somewhere upon the Atlantic coast by Kidd and his associates. These rumors must have had some foundation in fact. And that the rumors have existed so long and so continuous could have resulted, it appeared to me, only from the circumstance of the buried treasure still remaining entombed. Had Kidd concealed his plunder for a time and afterward reclaimed it, the rumors would scarcely have reached us in their present unvarying form. "But proceed—I am all impatience." "Let us assume 8. then, as e. NiDw, of all words in the language 'the' is the most usual. Let us see, therefore, whether there are no repetitions of any three characters in the same order of collocation, the last of them being 8. If we discover rejietitions of such letters so arranged, they will probably represent the word 'the.' Upon inspection we find no less than seven such arrangements, the characters being ;48. We may therefore assume that ; represents t, 4 represents h and 8 represents e—the last being now well confirmed. Thus a great step has been taken. terday w.hb is the champion in the saving "You did, did your" he exclaimed in an awful voice. "Polished the stove with it, hey?' The lecturer has two or three great obstacles to overcome which the actor has not—viz. he has 110 scenery, he has to occupy the i Vire evening alone, and {here is 110 division into three or four acts with a chance for the audience to rest and run down the show. And yet the lecturer often starts out fearlessly without training, or with training that is far worse than none, and on the reputation he has made in some totally differ■nt art he fearlessly rushes- in where Angels would naturally hang back and idvertises to lecture. At the expense of the public he thus, if persistent and brave, at last learns to be natural—if he lidn't foolishly get his originality and individuality trained out of him by a journeyman elocutionist on the start— ind is then considered a professional. He can think of other more interesting "opics than his speech and sit himself down by the roadside cf life at limes tc calmly remove the thorns and brambles from his tired feet—thorns and brambles accumulated all along the harsh and fiercely thorny road over which he has traveled toward even a moderate success. line, hou ever. lie not only saves pennies, but fraction.-, of pC miicsas well. He was a yoniiji ti'ilow, withasolDer face alidade liberate manner. We weie standing n'iu "No, indeed, I didn't, Billiger. I polished it with an old broom. I simply put it on with the brush." ;i train The solemn younji C1 ion platform waitinp "Nodoubt yon will think me fanciful, but I had already established a kind of connection. I had put together two links of a great chain. There was a boat lying upon a seacoast, and not far from the boat was a parchment—not a pajxr —with a skull depicted upon it. You will of course ask. "Where is the conuec' Hon?" I reply that the skull or death's head is the well known emblem of the for a (low 11 t man smoking a cigarette, not an ex pensive, fat, ten cent, imported cigarette title on it, priitted in gold, but an ordinary truthful, domestic cigarette, of which you '.-an buy ten for five cents. It was about half smoked up. The train caine mmhliup along. The solemn young man did not throw hisfiguretteaway, as I did. Instead of tossing it one side lie kDocked the ashes oft carefully, pulled out Di little glass bottie jioeketand poked tliecigarette down the neck, lighted end first. Then li» put the bottled cigarette stump back in hie pocket and got on board. "Yon simply pnt it on with the brash, did you?'' roared Billiger. "That was all, was it?"' "While I was busied in reflection my eyes fell upon a narrow ledge in the eastern face of the rock, perhaps a yard below the summit upon which I stood. This ledge projected about 18 inches and was not more than a foot wide, while a niche in the cliff just above it gave it a rude resemblance to one of the hollow backed chairs used by our ancestors. 1 made no doubt that here was the 'devil's seat' alluded to in the MS., and now 1 seemed to grasp the full secret of the riddle. "Yes. It was Bridget's afternoon out "Do you know what you've done, madam?" he broke in fiercely. "You've wasted an hour and a half of my time, broken my back and ruined a good kitchen floor"  and"  To facilitate this he left 36i such  the object in view, according to his will, being to In- useful to his fellow citizens ifter his death. There exists, it should be «iid, in France, an epitaph committee, and the members of the same absolutely refused to allow the condition indicated in the dead man's will to be carried out. The rery unpleasant consequence for the nephsws of the deceased is that.it being expressly stated they cannot touch the for iune left, unless their late uncle's instructions be complied with, they are jji an »wk ward dllumma.—Loudon Standard. pirate. The flag of the death's head is hoisted in all engagements. "You will observe that the stories told are all about money seekers, not about money finders. Had the pirate recovered his money, there the affair would have dropped. It seemed to me that some accident—say the loss of a memorandum indicating its locality—had deprived him of the means of recovering it, and that this accident had become known to his followers, who otherwise might never have heard that treasure had been concealed at all, and who, busying themselves in viin because unguided attempts to regain it, had given first birth and then universal currency to the rc]KDrts which are now so com mon. Have you ever heard of anvimportant treasure being unearthed along the coast?" "But, liaving established a single word, we are enabled to establish a vastly important point—tliat is to say, several commencements and terminations of other words. Let us refer, for example, to the last instance but one, in which the combination ;48 occurs—not far from the end of the cipher. We know that the ; immediately ensuing is the commencement of a word, and of the six characters succeeding this 'the' we are cognizant of no less than five. Let us set these characters down thus, by the letters we know them to represent, leaving a space for the. unknown— yon"-  "I told you it looked streaked when "I have said that the scrap was parchment and not paper. Parc hment is du- I made lDold to ask tlie solemn young man why he did it. Very delilDerately he "Oh, yes!" he howled, throwing the brush on the floor. "You told me it looked streaked, did you? Who cares what you told me, madam?" he vociferated, kicking the can of varnish violently with his foot, and—but there are sacred conferences and eventful moments in the lives of all young married personp with which the cold, jeering outsider need not concern himself. rable—almost imperishable. Matters of little moment are rarely consigned to answered parchment, since for the mere ordinary "The "good glass,' I knew, could have reference to nothing but a telescope, for the word 'glass' is rarely employed in any other sense by seamen. Now here, 1 at once saw, was a telescojw to lDe used, and a definite point .of view, admitting no variation, from which to use it. Nor did 1 hesitate to believe that the phrases, "41 degrees and 13 minutes' and 'northeast and by north,' were intended as directions for the leveling of the glass. Greatly excited by these discoveries, 1 hurried home, procured a telescope and returned to the rock. "To save the cigarette." "But does it pay for the bother and is the cigarette fit to smoke again i*" purposes of drawing or writing it is not : nearly se well adapted as pajDer. This . reflection suggested some meaning—some . relevancy—in the death's head. I did not fail to observe also the form of the parch- "Oh, yes: I think so. You see, I can take the cigarette out very easily," and he pulled the phial from his pocket and proved his assertion. "Now t here is half of a ciga rette. 1 might just as well smoke that as half of anot her one. At least twice a day, and usually three or four times, I havo about half smoked my cigarette when the train comes. So 1 invented this method of Having l he other half of t he cigarette liy it 1 save almut a thousand cigarettes t year. That is equal to five dollars, and ii seems to rue 1 might as well save that livt doilarsevery year as throw it away." Detinei Although one of its corners had Weeks afterward, when Billiger Me Swat had become comparatively calm, his wife showed him tho bill brought in by the painter who repaired the damage to the kitchen and repainted the floor. "Friends then petitioned him to let the ooy lecture. He swelled tip with parlonable pride and encouraged the young man, and so he started out. He was all wrapped up in the Indian, and so he prepared a lecture on 'The Red Man. Past ind Present.' He put all the poetry into it that a boy who had never seen an I11- lian would. He practiced on his piece ill the time, and finally he got an engagement. It was in a nearby town I am often asked, "Are the audiences as different as the people, and where dc yon find the most enthusiastic and ap preciative audiences?" I must say thai no general rule ?an 1De given so far as points of the compass are concerned. The west is hardly more enthusiastic than the east, though a young audience, a college audience or an audience oi teacliers'or newspaper men is the audience for enthusiasm. been by some accident destroyed, it - could be seen that the original form was oblong. It was just such a slip indeed as might have been chosen for a memorandum—for « record of something to be long remembetjHd and carefully preserved."t eeth "Hero we are enabled at once to discard the 'th,' as forming no portion of the word commencing with the first t, since by experiment of the entire alphabet for a letter adapted to the vacancy we perceive that no word can be formed of which this th can be a part. We are thus narrowed into Never." It called for $19.00.—Chicago Tribune. "But that Kidd's accumulations were immense is well known. I took it for granted, therefore, that the earth still held them, and you will scarcely be surprised when I tell you tliat I felt a hope nearly amounting to certainty that the parchment so strangely found involved a lost record of the place of deposit." Come* to Ihr Sain«* Tiling. "But," I interpose)?., "you say that the skull was not upon the parchment when you made the drawing or the beetle. How, then, do you trace any connection between the boat and the skull, since this latter, according to your own admission, The strange part of it is that a person so constructed mentally as this solemn young fellow was is still poor.—New York Herald. Ill  t ee, where they were trying to buy a library. Theyonly needed $s()0 more, and so they liad decided to have a course of lectures luring the winter. The committee intended to have one lecture on "The Arctic Region and How to Avoid Going There' by an "flld arctic explorer whc nad taken 50 picked men up to where !ie could hear the north end of the earth's Axis squeak, had eaten the leather ends jff bis suspenders, taken the latitude and Longitude, picked some of his tenderest men again and returned. It was also the scheme to have a lecture on 'Political Economy and How to Tut Money in the National Pocket' by a man who lived on lis sister-in-law and who was clothed by his son-in-law. The committee had alsC decided to employ an able theologian tC lecture on 'Inside Facts Regarding Di vine Retribution' by a man who hat" given his whole life to a study of kindreC subjects. Then a well known humorist was to follow with a lecture on 'Scaffolc Orators and Orations, Past arid Present. Portland. Me., is said to be the quietest and Chicago the most enthusiastic. This is true in some respects, but if you can get time to watch the faces of the New England audience without forgetting your peace you will discover the same degree of appreciation and enthusiasm, though manifested perhaps in a different way, in the one case as in the and going through the alphabet, if necessary , as before, we get to the word 'tree' as the sole possible reading. We thus gain another letter, r, represented by (, with the words 'the tree' in juxtaposition. Tlie Wilier Courses of Mar*. Mr. .J. M. Schaeherle, of tlie Lick observatory, has introduced a new element into the discussion about the "canals" of Mars. It has generally lieen assumed that the rhirker areas on that planet are water sur fates, and the lighter regions continentand islands. As liie canals are dark in color it was naturally inferred that they must lie channels tilled with water. must have been designed I God only knows Jl bow or by whom) at some period subsequent to your sketching the scarubu-us?' But how did you proceed?' "I held the vellum again to the fire after increasing the heat, but nothing appeared. I now thought it possible that the coating of dirt might have something to do with the failure, so I carefully rinsed the parchment by pouring warm water Over it, and having done this I placed it in a tin pan, with the skull downward, and put the jwn upon a furnace of lighted charcoal. In a few minutes, the pan having become thoroughly heated, I removed the slip, and to my inexpressible joy found it spotted it several places with what apjteared to be figures arranged in lines. Again I placed it in the pan and suffered it to remain another minute. Upon taking it off the whole was just as you see it now." "Looking beyond these words for s short distance, we again see the combination ;48, and employ it by way of termination to what immediately precedes. We have thus this arrangement: "What sort of tt girl is she?" "Oh. slie is a miss with a mission." "Ah!" "Ami her mission is seeking a mail with a mansion."—Brooklyn Life. other Lecturers are better treated on the whole now than 20 years ago, and the eggs used by those who criticise the performance are of a higher order of excellence., it seems to me. ' the tree ;4(J?34 the. or, substituting the natural letters, where known, it reads thus: Mr. Schaeberle, as h result. iDf his studies of Wars wit h t lie great telescope, suggest." the possibility that the astronomers may have been mistaken about the meaning of the colors on .Mars, ami that the tiark areas may really be the lands of that planet, and the light areas the seas. Jack—I f ay. Gus, that ting of yours looks like a fool. A Needed Accomplishment "Now, if in place of the unknown characters we leave blank spaces or substitute dots, we read thus: the tree thr$?8h the Gus—Why, ho has just as much sense as I have. Jack—That's what I said.—Trnth. Mrs. Mantilla suggested that whistling should be taught in every young ladies' seminary—yea, iu every girls' school. No one can be quicker to recognize and appreciate such a reform than I can. Nc one bails with greater glee or more optimistic salvos of applause this stride in the direction of improvement. One of hi.-, reasons for this conclusion is that at times some of the bright areas ap pear more than usually brilliant, as though the reflecting surface were iu a state ol agitation. The contrasts, he thinks, arf like those witnessed in light reflected from a calm and from an agitated water surface lint if Mr. Sc'haebcrle is right, then the Ioilcil Again. "Why so:-" asked her husband. the tree thr...h the A single glance sufficed to betray th« errand CDf the two men with stubby tDeards and masks who effected an entrance through the cellar window. They were burglars. "Because when a married woman wants r new bonnet, a cloak or a little monej she almost always has to whistle for it,*' replied Mrs. Mantilla.—Exchange. when the word 'through' makes itself evident at once. But this discovery gives us three now letters—o, u and g— represented by J ? and II. ''I let myself down to the ledge and found that it was impossible to retain a seat upon it except in one particular position. This fact confirmed my preconceived idea. I proceeded to use the glass. Of course the '41 degrees and 13 minutes' "I let myself doicn to the ledge." I had intended to give a few little personal experiences in the way of anecdotes of a comic character, but space forbids; lies ides I donbt the good taste of writing flippantly of sncli a serious matter as lecturing, especially humorou? lecturing. 1 had also thought of devoting a page to lecture managers with whom I have met, but the subject is too prolific, and besides 1 am afraid that sonic lecture manager might reply with an essay on "Lecturers With Whom He Has Met." Someother time 1 will write of these things, so that it will be an easy matter for the reader to learn how to lecture successfully by a few evenings' studv at home. "Looking now, narrowly, through the cipher for combinations of known characters, we find, not very far from the lieginping, this arrangement: While their 1 tearing was not obtrusive there was that about them which betokened a lack of culture and refine- At ft sitting of the labor commission Mr. Brabrook, chief registrar of Friendly societies, said the returns of those societies In the main represented the aggregate savings of the working class. So far as he had returns those savings amounted to over £218,- 000,000.—London Tit-Bits. Savings of Mngiisli Working People. Here Legrawl. having reheated the parchment, submitted it to mv inspection. The following characters were rudely traced in a reu tint betw«*Dn the death's head and the goat: in- not canal*, not Water courses, but phenomena connected with the land He suggests lli.ft. they may lie the ridges of mountain chains wlii«:b are almost w holly immersed in water. The double imal.s "Last of all, Napoleon Pangborii, mj young friend, was to lecture on 'ThC Redskin and His Wrongs.' The price o: the whole course ticket was only $3, anc the public was on the q— veeve, as yov might say, to hear the closing lecture. could allude to nothing but elevation above the visible horizon. since the horizontal direction was clearly indicated by the words'northeast and by north.' This latter direction I at once established by means of a jKDcket compass. Then, pointing the glass as nearly at an angle of 41 degrees of elevation as I could do it by guess, 1 moved it cautiously up or down until my attention was nrrested by a circular rift or opening in the foliage of a large tree that overtopped its fellows in the distance. In the center of this rift I perceived a white spot, but could not at first distinguish what it was. Adjusting the focus of tbe telescope, I again looked and now made it out to bo a human skull. inent which, plainly, is the conclusion of the 'degree,' and gives us another letter, d, represented by t. or egret tlirn wonlil represent pantile) mountain ranges such as we have upou Despite their considcratenefls in removing their shoes u]Don entering the house it was obvious that their moral instincts had been blunted. )C#*:4«26)•!:•»**s* iA ft ;1JC: t# D•"D* \ :4C'K ;s )•♦(: 185 );ft carta "I showed him the Iniirct." "Ah. hereupon turns the whole mystery, although the secret at this point I had comparatively little • difficulty in :*}( :49.D6*2(5*—4 )*• X* :4C HHWi):) 6f8)41 $;l(t9;480«l ;8 :8{ 1 ;48f 8Ti ;4)485t.:D:.,8H06*81 (}« An Important Question. "Four letters beyond the word degree' we perceive the combination When trained observers, possessing th* advantages Hii.-ing from the use of tlie Hist! One of Jacksonville's bright little fiveyear-old girls win given a nickel to put lu the collection IkDx a few Sundays since, and tossing it uu in liei hand turned to her grandmother and asked if she should put It iu "heads or tuils."— Exchange. "Napoleon had not been idle. He hat uot eaten anything but oatmeal for days and his lips were bloodless and parched When his family spoke to him. he repliec briefly and then muttered portions oi his lecture to himself. 48 :(88 ;4({?34 ;4* )4+: 1 ti I:: 188;} ;C48;88. best telescojies, differ so widely in opinion concerning the markings on Mars, the confident statement* about the conditions of that planet and the doings of its inhabitants. which have been widely printed, begin to appear ridiculous. Vet that should ;e any one to lose interest in sucb The burglar with the dark lantern fljHike convincingly, as one old in the business. solving. My stei* were .sure and could But," said I, returning him the sHp "Translating the known characters and representing the unknown by dots, as before, we read thus: afford but a single result. I reasoned, for • example, thus: When I drew the scara- there was no skull apparent upon ra»JDarchment. When I had completed i the "Rawing, I gave it to you and olD- k nerved yon narrowly until you returned Kit. You therefore did not design the fLkull, and nooneelse was present to do it. fjggriien it was not done by human agency. nevertheless it was done. "At this stage of my reflections I endeavored to rememlDer, and did remem| \xr with entire distinctness, every iuciitut which occurred about the period in The weather .was chilly (oh, (K| ftod bftpnv accident J) aud a fue was "I am as much in the dark as ever. Were all the jewels of Golconda awaiting me upon my solution of this enigma. 1 am quite sure that I should lDe unable to They were standing in the drawing roC«m now an arrangement immediately suggestive of the word -thirteen,' and again furnishing us with two new characters, i and n. represented by 6 and *. th rtee They were enthralled with the low, sweet sound of a woman's voice. '■Oh, vou can't"  Economy In Whiskers. "At last the day and the hour came He inserted his arm in his breast, as he had seen pictures of Demosthenes doing and began in a low voice. A coarse mar with jK-ourse ticket yelled 'Louder!' and Napoleon began over again. He went on pensively to«peak of the Indians ic their purity and simplicity as they were found by Columbus, the wealthier ones perhaps clothed in the pelt of a chip munk, while the poorer ones were thinly clad in atmospheric phenomena, and sc on. Then another man, a wagon makei from Lower Jasper, who was holding a earn them." not C bt udies Youth's Companion. "What do you suppose olil Seronge wears, his whiskers longr for'.'"' "To wave the cost of cutting 'em?" "No, to wive the cost of buying neck- Chicago News-Record. "And yet," said Legrand, "the solution is by no means so difficult as yon might Ix; led to imagine from the first hasty inspection of the characters. These characters, as any due might readily guess, form a cipher—that is to say, they convey a meaning—but, then, from what is known of Kidd, I could not suppose him capable of constructing any of the more abstruse cryptographs. I made up my mind at once that this was of a It was a gentle. flowing tone, like the muruiur of a purling brook. gticss where 1 put the money, Te. he, he"  A Boycott "Referring now to the beginning of the cryptograph, we find the combina- Lady of the House— Little 1Doy, I want you to do an errand for me. Go over to Mr. MargCrine's across the way and tell luiu to send me four pounds of sugar, t/vo pounds of butter and a veaat cake. * Little Boy—Can't do it. inarm. I'm a shoeblack, 1 am, and our society has voted to boycott Margerine 'cause he wears russet shoes.—Boston Transcript. ties." A |Dpr»«|jitrCl. dearest The Duchess of Teck has contributed no less tb*n'J.iiOO articles of clothing for the poor to tlie London Needlework guild during the year. When some one remarked upou her untiring enerny tlie royal lady said, with her cheerful stniie, "Yes* the people ought to be fond of us, for we do work hard for theia."—N«W tion 53«f "Upon this discovery I was so sanguine us to consider the enigma solved, for the phrase 'main branch, seventh limb, east fide' could refer only to the position of the skull upon the tree, while 'shoot from the left eve of the death's head' admitted Her laughter was of the rippling sort . "it's in my stocking, and I tied sixteen knots over it." A Sa«l Fare. Whnt a sad face that 'Translating, as lnrfore, we obtain Mr. Bilkiris— woman has! good, There was a sudden rush of feet, and two burglars with sad eyes and dejected glance might have been seen hurrying from the place.—Detroit Tribune. Mrs. Bilkins—Yes, poor thing! She has either loved and lost or loved and got him.—New York Weekly. which assures us that the first letter is A, atid th-vt the first two words are 'A good.' York Sun