Chapter IV: Detective Keene Makes an Impression (1)

Richard Thorpe’s immediate cordiality toward Keene, when informed of his relations with the attorney, did not escape the notice of the burly constable, whose conduct presently indicated that he not only regarded Thorpe very favorably, but was also inclined to extend this sentiment even to the latter’s friends. He winked affably to Keene, as Thorpe hastened from the room, then turned to growl in the face of the innocent physician:

“Send to town for a detective, eh? Carr, you infernal sawbones, don’t you think I’m equal to getting at the bottom o’ this affair?”

“Why, yes, Mr. Bragg,” stammered the startled physician; “but I made the suggestion only----”

“It was a cursed innuendo, no matter what ’twas made for!” protested the doughty constable. “Looking arter crime and criminals is my bread and butter, Doctor Carr, the which I’ll not let you nor any other bonesetter whip from ’tween my teeth. Now, you look arter your end o’ this case, and don’t trouble mine, or the trouble’ll not end there. Send to town for a detective! The blamed old meddler!”

“Some folks don’t know a clever man when they see one,” said Keene, in tones disparaging the perturbed little physician, who had beaten a hasty retreat from the room, and from the ire of the bustling, black-bearded constable.

“Too true for a joke, Mr. Keene!” cried Bragg, with an emphatic headshake. “Some men are blind, and some are jealous; but I never saw a sawbones who wa’n’t a blamed fool.”

“It’s owing to their business,” assented Keene, with an object.

“So ’tis, sir! For cleverness, give me a lawyer, or a detective, or a politician, or even a gospel sharp! But a sawbones----” and the disgruntled Bragg spat his disgust into the fireplace; “a sawbones ain’t nothing! Nothing at all!”

“Not even worthy of contempt, eh?” smiled Keene. “You are the constable, I believe Mr. Thorpe said.”

“Aye, sir, I am!” Mr. Bragg readily allowed. “Mr. Thorpe put it dead right, as he always does.”

“He appears to be a nice, gentlemanly fellow,” observed Keene, in a friendly way.

“More’n that, sir, he is!” declared the garrulous constable, with emphasis. “A cleaner, nicer man than Dick Thorpe never stood in leather. He hasn’t a foe in these ’ere parts. Even that old man, stiff and stark there, was his friend--and whoever could win old Jacob Moore’s favor, sir, could win any man’s! I know, ’cause I know ’em all, root and branch. You’re a lawyer, ain’t you?”

“Yes, Constable Bragg,” affably nodded Keene, careful to give this pretentious officer all the distinction possible. “Our Mr. French has always been Moore’s legal adviser, and we shall now execute his estate--and possibly his assassins.”

“Cleverly put--very!” chuckled Mr. Bragg, clapping the detective on the shoulder. “And, seeing’s your interest runs with mine, I’ll not mind helping you, when I can.”

“Then you’ll not object to my looking over the evidence with you, merely as an assistant?”

“Sure not!”

“I’ll keep mum, understand! Of course, I don’t expect to see all you’ll see, for detective work is not in my line; but what little I get may help Mr. French in conducting the case. And, say!”

“Well, sir?”

Keene slipped his hand through the constable’s brawny arm and drew him closer, to add confidentially:

“If you can make a hit in ferreting out the truth here, there’d be a big opening elsewhere for a man of your measure.”

“D’ye think so?” was the eager inquiry.

“I know so! Furthermore, since you’re inclined to do me a turn, I’d like to reciprocate some day. Our law firm, you know, stands ace high with Chief Watts, of the Boston inspectors; and if it comes right, we can make a strong pull for you at headquarters.”

“And you’ll do it?”

“With pleasure!”

“Put it there!” said Mr. Bragg, thrusting out his huge hand. “As for this case, what I get, you get. But that’s between us, mind you!”

“My word upon it, I’ll do nothing to get in your way.”

“That’s good enough for me, sir!”

Thus Sheridan made an impression, and paved the way to securing information from the one man who, his own detective instinct told him, would know more of the superficial features of this tragedy than all the rest of the community combined.

“Was this Moore’s desk?” he now carelessly asked, turning to a piece of furniture near one of the windows.

“Yes, sir, ’twas.”

“It is much disturbed. Was he in the habit of keeping money in it?”

“I reckon not. But some one went through it last night, that’s plain. Most likely a search for papers.”

“Possibly a will.”

“My idea exactly. Say, you’re tolerably clever yourself! Well, I’ll gamble I can name who did it.”

“I hope so. If you can, it will be one feather in your cap.”

“I’ll have many in it afore this case is ended. Come down this way, and I’ll show you something more. But this is between us, mind you!”

“If you doubt me, keep it to yourself.”

“Oh, no; I’ll trust you! I can read a man’s face, and don’t you forget it.”

At the heels of the burly constable, who was that common type of man whose eagerness to serve himself makes him the cat’s-paw of his superiors, Sheridan Keene followed through the dim hall and down a back stairway, and entered a basement laundry. From the single window a part of one pane was missing, making the room easy of access from without; and upon the plank floor, extending from the window toward the entry door, were several marks of muddy boots.

“D’ye see that, and them?” triumphantly demanded Mr. Bragg, pointing first to the window and then the floor. “It came cold late last night, and the ground was soft in the early evening. The sawbones says Moore was killed before midnight. The party who entered that window, and stole out here and upstairs, was the party who searched the desk and most likely did the rest of the job. It was done in the evening.”

“By Jove! I believe you’ve struck the trail, constable!” said Keene admiringly.

“I know I’ve struck it!” declared Mr. Bragg, with a twitch of his bushy beard. “Now come outside here!”

He led the way through the entry and out of a narrow back door, and thence around to one side of the house. The soil of a flower bed under the windows of Moore’s chamber was then frozen hard. But in several places among the dead plants and vines were the clearly defined footprints of a man’s heavy boots; deeper here and there, as if he had at times stood on tiptoe to reach the height of the window and peer into the room.

“What d’ye say to that?” demanded Mr. Bragg.

“I’ll say nothing till you see fit to do so!” said Keene significantly.

“Good for you!” nodded the constable approvingly. “Now, let’s return by the front door.”

“Wait a moment, constable,” said Sheridan Keene. “I’d like a little more light on this affair, if you don’t mind. Who discovered the crime?”

Mr. Bragg demurred for a moment, but visions of an appointment under Chief Watts led him to respond to the request. He had lost sight of the provisions under which the promise of influence had been made.

“The housekeeper, Mrs. Haynie,” he replied.

“At what hour; do you know?”

“Nigh half past eight.”

“Did she give the alarm?”

“She ran to one of the neighbors, a piece up the road, here, scared half out of her wits. One of ’em came down here at once, and one went to tell Thorpe at the turnpike tavern, half a mile away. Dick mounted his horse and struck around to my house to notify me, in which he showed his good sense; and we came up here together. Then he sent the telegram to Mr. French, and word to Mabel Jeffrey.”

“Then Mr. Thorpe was not at home here last night?”

“No, he wasn’t,” said Mr. Bragg glibly. “He was at the road house all night. Leastwise, he was with Mabel part of the evening, waiting to see her husband. He’s been trying, you see, to fix up things between them and the old man. But Bob Jeffrey didn’t show up till midnight. Dick had dropped into the road house for a drink, and joined in a game of cards.”

“Has this been a habit of Thorpe?”

“Playing cards there? Oh, yes, regular thing. Genial fellow, Dick--and everybody likes him. It came cold soon after midnight, and his mare, being under cover, he didn’t like to expose her. She’d been sick for a week back, and that was her first time out. So he stayed at the tavern until morning.”

“I see,” nodded Keene. “Then Mrs. Haynie and the stableman were here alone all night?”

“That’s about the size of it. Darbage was at the tavern, and he stayed there until daybreak, when he came up here and slept in the stable, for fear the old man would hear him enter the house. He was some slued, I reckon; but, Lord save us! Moore was past hearing long afore that. Joe Darbage might just as well have tumbled into his own bed.”

“Do you know who last saw Mr. Moore alive, constable?” inquired Keene, who had received, with a series of little nods, the information thus far imparted.

“Mrs. Haynie was the last who saw him.”

“Do you know at what time?”

“About nine o’clock last night.”

“Was he up?”

“No, he was in bed. She went in to look to his fire, and to see if he was all right.”

“That was after Thorpe and the stableman went to the road house, was it?”

“Long after! Thorpe left here about seven o’clock, and Joe went a little later. Lord, sir, nobody will ever think of suspecting either of them! But there’s a sartin man who don’t stand so well here, and some things p’ints strong agin’ him,” Mr. Bragg added, in lower tones. “Now, this is all atween us, mind you.”

“You can depend upon me, constable,” said Keene assuringly. “This information will not go farther than to Mr. French. It will be of great help to him in the case, and we’ll not forget it. What man do you mean?”

“Young Bob Jeffrey,” whispered Mr. Bragg, with mysterious significance.

“You mean Mabel’s husband?”

“Sure thing! Since their marriage he has been dead nuts agin’ the old man, and talks pretty rough agin’ him. More’n that, sir, he’s been drinking more’n is good for him, and using his tongue too freely. I reckon he’ll have a hard time telling where he was till midnight last night.”

“What sort of a man is this Jeffrey?”

“Well, sir, he’s a hot-headed---- Say, there’s the coroner, now! I’ll have to quit you right here, sir, for I’ve a word for him alone.”

“Many thanks for this, however, Constable Bragg,” said Keene, extending his hand.

“That’s all right, lawyer!” exclaimed Mr. Bragg, with a growl of friendly appreciation. “But all this is atween us, mind you.”

“I will not forget it.”

“And I reckon I can let you into something more a little later. Leave it to me.”

And the burly constable wiped the frozen moisture from his bushy black mustache and beard, and hustled around the corner of the house.

TO BE CONTINUED.

THE GREAT SALT BEND.

Passengers on the train of the Ohio River division of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad are always interested in the towns of Hartford, New Haven, and Mason City, on the West Virginia side, and Syracuse and Pomeroy on the Ohio side of the river because of the unusual industry that is carried on.

A strange odor comes through the open windows of the coach during the warm summer days as the train passes along through the yards on the outskirts of the town. For more than one hundred and fifty years this bend on the Ohio River, known to steamboat men as “Salt Bend,” or “Great Salt Bend,” has been the center of a large salt industry.

The river bench, or highland, along the river, is dotted with numerous queer-looking buildings surmounted with what looks like a huge wooden chimney. At the bottom of each chimney, or tower, says the _Manufacturers Record_, there is a salt well. The wells in a number of instances are pumped with gas engines, and gas engines are also used in some cases to pump water out of the mines.

The several salt works are near the wells and generally at the mouth of a coal mine which runs into the hills just back of the towns on both sides of the river.

The ability to secure a cheap fuel from coal mines so near has preserved the industry against foreign and domestic competition.

The tall piles of fagots or hoop poles used in making hoops for barrels are everywhere in evidence, and one wonders why they do not use iron hoops on the barrels, until they notice the havoc the salt water plays with metal of any kind. The pipes used to convey the liquid are in some cases made of hollow logs of poplar and other woods.

The art of barrel making, or coopering, as it is called, is practiced here in all the old-time splendor, and if the scene were transplanted to any European country and located along some of the tourist lanes of travel it would be a mecca for the sight-seers. The queer old processes, the old-fashioned tools and methods, the smoke rising from the smudge fire in the barrels would attract scores of travelers to the scene of the Old World.

The strata containing the salt solution lies about twelve hundred feet under the surface, and the water rises to within six hundred feet of the surface, after the well is drilled in. The well as generally drilled is termed a six-inch well, and is cased with iron casing to about eight hundred feet below the surface, where the surface water is packed off with a packer such as is used in oil wells.

The salt water is pumped from the well into a cistern, which is generally elevated on the side of a hill near the plant, and is carried in copper and wooden pipes by gravity to the salt surface. Where wood log pipes are used the sight is a very unusual one, as they are laid on top of the ground, and run in every direction from plant to wells.

The salt furnace is one of the most interesting sights around the works, and consists of a series of iron pans, about forty in number, each pan being about three feet wide and ten feet long. These pans rest on a stone wall over a fire pit, and are covered over with a wooden-box chamber about one hundred and twenty feet long and three and a half feet high. This covering is called a steam chest, and, like the lid on a kettle, helps raise the temperature of a solution to a higher point than could be obtained in an open vessel.

After the proper boiling has been given to a quantity of the salt solution, it is drawn off into a wood vat, called a mud settler, and, although the solution seemed perfectly clear while entering the heating pans over the furnace, a considerable residue is found at the bottom of the mud settler. This residue contains a large proportion of oxide of iron.

From the mud settler the hot solution passes to two vats called drawn settlers, where the solution is still further clarified and treated. The solution then passes to the first graining vat, which is a long wooden box lined with tile, where the salt begins to form in flakes on the surface, and falls to the bottom of the vat, where it is picked up by power scrapers or shovels.

The best salt is formed in this first grainer, although different grades of salt are extracted from the solution in five other grainers, and they are used for the feeding of cattle and the making of brine solutions.

SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION.

There is undoubted evidence that hay and cotton, when damp, will occasionally take fire without any external source of ignition. Cotton impregnated with oil, when collected in large quantities, is especially liable to take fire spontaneously. Numerous cases are recorded where an accumulation of cotton waste, used in wiping oily machinery, lamps, et cetera, has more than once caused fires and led to unfounded charges of incendiarism. Whether or not such organic substances as damp grain or seeds ever undergo spontaneous combustion is a question that has never been satisfactorily proven, although three French scientists--Chevallier, Ollivier, and Devergie--are authority for the supposition that the burning of a barn investigated by them was caused by the spontaneous combustion of damp oats stored in it. There have been many instances of the spontaneous ignition of coal containing iron pyrites when moistened with water. This is particularly noticeable in coal mined in Yorkshire and some varieties found in South Wales. Phosphorus in a dry state is probably the most quickly ignited substance known. It has been seen to take fire, when touched, in a room in which the temperature was under seventy degrees Fahrenheit. Doctor Taylor, a writer on the principles and practice of medical jurisprudence, is authority for the statement that ordinary phosphorus (blue head) matches have taken fire spontaneously, as a result of exposure to the sun’s rays for the purpose of drying.

PLANT BURGLARS--READ RIGHT THROUGH BEFORE SUSPECTING YOUR TULIP BED.

Big animals kill and eat smaller ones, and they in their turn feed on others smaller still, down to the very lowest and tiniest creatures known. This every one knows. What is not so easily realized is that a similar savage struggle for existence is always going on in the vegetable as well as the animal world. Certain plants feed on others, robbing them of their sap and juices, and eventually killing their prey as surely as does the lion when he buries his sharp teeth in an antelope’s neck.

This organized robbery is most plain to the eye in a tropical forest; but even here in our islands no one can go for a country walk without seeing plenty of instances. The mistletoe, for instance. A great dull-green bunch grows flourishing profusely on the bare limb of some half-starved apple tree. If you cut them off the apple bough, you will find the roots of the parasite have sunk deep into its substance, and are drinking up the juices which the roots of the apple tree have secreted far down in the earth below.

It is curious to note how the mistletoe has fitted itself for this thieving existence. Its berries are full of a gluey sap. This, when they fall, makes them stick in the crannies of the bark of such rough-coated trees as the apple, the poplar, and, more rarely, the oak, and there each grows and begins anew to starve and strangle its host. In the ground a mistletoe seed cannot live, and soon rots away.

The “dodders,” “greater” and “common,” may be easily identified by any one with a little botanical knowledge. The former lives on thistles; the latter sucks the juices of heath and thyme.

Broom rape is another tiny burglar, fixing itself on the roots of broom and furze, and so gaining a living. The family of broom rape comprises no less than five different varieties, all of which are incorrigible sneak thieves, and have now descended so low they can exist in no other way. One lives and grows upon the roots of clover, another fastens on ivy roots and fattens on food intended for the tendrils far above.

Ivy itself is classed by many as a burglarious plant. Indeed, its loving embraces, if not checked, are apt to strangle the tree it grows on. But, on the other hand, it is not fair to put it in the same category with the plants already mentioned, for ivy only asks from a tree support, not food, and the harm it does is due to its tight embraces depriving its upholder of air and light.

But it is to hot countries you must go to see plant crime flourishing unchecked, particularly the forests of Central America. An especially cruel sinner is one well known to us by name, the India-rubber tree. Its favorite plan seems to be to start growing on the very crown of some forest giant, such as a wild fig or a Guianese ceiba tree. There it pushes out its great, evergreen, leathery leaves, and digs its roots down into the fast-rotting substance of its host’s trunk. Soon its long, creeping rootlets descend along the outside bark of the supporting tree, and finally reach the ground. Soon nothing is left between them but a rotting shell. The murder is accomplished, and the garroter has usurped the place of its victim.

That queer air plant known as Spanish moss kills many a fine forest tree with its solemn, gray tendrils. Like ivy, it robs its host of light and air and ends by slowly smothering its victim.

Occasionally plants not burglars by nature are forced to assume that rôle. A young mountain ash may not infrequently be seen springing from the crown of an ancient oak or other tree. The seed has been dropped there by a bird and taken root.

Ferns, too, often grow in great profusion on the long, horizontal boughs of oaks over rivers and ponds. Their weight, and the moss they encourage among their roots, end by rotting their support.

More rarely a tree may actually be watched stealing its own juices. Willows, when old, are apt to become hollow, and they rot till nothing but a shell of bark is left. If this is cut, delicate rootlets will descend from the upper portion of the cut and suck nourishment from the decaying remains of the tree itself.

TERRIBLE FATES POSSIBLE.

Astronomers tell us that the day must come when this earth will, like the moon, wheel through the heavens a dead and barren ball of matter--airless, waterless, lifeless. But long, long before that time man will be extinct, will have disappeared so utterly that not so much as the bleached skeleton of a human being will be visible on all the millions of square miles of the surface of this planet.

Unless by some huge and universal cataclysm the whole race is swept at once into eternity, it is but reasonable to suppose that man, like any other race of animals, will disappear slowly, and that eventually there will be but a single human being left--some old, old man, grayheaded and bearded, and left to wander alone in a solitude that may be imagined, but not described.

How will he die, this last relic of the teeming millions that once transformed the face of the globe and ruled undisputed masters of every other living thing? There are many fates that may befall him. He may go mad with the horror of loneliness, and himself end his own miserable existence. He may be eaten by the vast reptiles or giant insects which will then probably infest the solitudes.

But his fate may be far weirder and more dreadful. Scientists say that as we burn the coal and timber we are still so richly supplied with, we let loose into the atmosphere an ever-increasing volume of carbonic acid gas. Much of this is taken up by plants, but not all. It must increase and eventually poison the breathable air, filling the valleys and mounting slowly to the hilltops, where the last remnants of animal life are striving for existence. The last man will climb higher and higher, but eventually the suffocating invisible flood will reach and drown him.

Again, it is said that the earth, as it gets older, is cracking like dry mud. These cracks will increase until at last they will let the waters of the oceans and rivers sink into the fiery center of the globe. Then will occur an explosion so terrible as may startle the inhabitants of neighboring worlds. The last man in this case will probably be some arctic explorer or Eskimo, whom the vast plains of ice around him will save from instant death and leave to grill a few moments till the ice continents are swallowed by red-hot gases and steam.

Supposing these earth cracks develop more slowly, they may suck away the water without devastating explosions. Then the last man’s fate will be the worst describable. He will die of thirst. The scene of his death will probably be the great valley in the bed of the Atlantic Ocean, off the Brazilian coast, halfway between Rio Janeiro and the Cape, where now six miles of green water lie between the steamer’s keel and the abysmal slime beneath. There, hopelessly digging in the everdrying mud, he must perish, and leave his bones to parch on a waterless planet.

The antarctic polar ice cap has been growing thicker and heavier for uncounted ages. The distance from the south pole to the edge of this ice cap is 1,400 miles. The ice rises steadily from the edge to the center. At that center it cannot be less than twelve miles in thickness--twice as thick as Mount Everest is high. Southern latitudes are growing warmer, and this ice cap is known to be cracking. Suppose it splits. Imagine the gigantic mass of water and ice that will come sweeping up north over the oceans and continents of the earth! Where, then, will the last man breathe his final gasp? High up in the snows of some great range he will perish miserably of cold and starvation, looking down on a huge shallow sea, beneath whose tossing waters will lie the whole of the races of the world.

Or, last, and perhaps dreariest fate of all, the human race may outlive other mammals and last until the sun, as some day it must, grows dull and cold, and vegetation dies from the chilled earth. The miserable remnant of earth’s people must then slowly die out after ages of an existence to which that of the Eskimo of to-day is a paradise.

HOW CANTILEVER BRIDGES ARE CONSTRUCTED.

A cantilever bridge consists of two inverted trussed beams, each balanced on a pier, one part extending over the river and the other to the shore, where it is firmly anchored in solid, heavy masonry. The ends extending over the river toward each other from the opposite piers are joined by a short truss in such a manner as to permit expansion and contraction consequent on changes of temperature, and yet be proof against vertical or lateral pressure. Such a bridge, it is said, sustains scarcely any strain in the center of the span. Each half of the entire bridge is self-balanced on its pier; and when a long, heavy train is on it, the part of the train on one side of the pier is balanced as on a “teeter” by the part on the other side of the pier--in front or behind. The bridge across the Niagara River was the first of the cantilever kind ever constructed, and the one over the Hudson River was erected upon substantially the same principle, the cantilever being utilized as nearly as possible. In building the bridge it was important to obstruct the Hudson as little as possible, much opposition having been raised against it by those interested in the navigation of the river. Therefore a combination of anchorage trusses and cantilever spans was adopted. The river is crossed in five spans, with four piers in the channel. On each of the two piers nearest the shore, four sets of steel rollers carry the ends of the anchorage trusses and of the cantilevers of the east and west spans. The bridge is made of steel. The cantilever principle is again introduced in the famous Forth Bridge. At a distance of six hundred and eighty feet from the ends of either approach viaduct are the north and south cantilever piers, with their great arms stretching out to and joining with the girder approaches. In the opposite direction the cantilever arms extend for six hundred and eighty feet toward Inchgarvie, and come within three hundred and fifty feet each of meeting the arms of the cantilever built on that island. This cantilever pier is founded in the bottom of the shallow water close to the west of the islet. The gaps of three hundred and fifty feet between the extremities of the cantilever arms and of the ends of their neighbors to the north and south are filled in by connecting or central girders of the hogback lattice pattern. The total length of each of the north and south cantilevers is one thousand five hundred and five feet, while that of the central one, owing to its having a longer foundation base, is one thousand six hundred and twenty feet. The two main spans measure each one thousand seven hundred and ten feet, with a clear headway above high water, for five hundred feet in the center of the span, of one hundred and fifty feet, while the half cantilever spans to the approach viaducts north and south are each of six hundred and eighty feet. The measurement from the extremity of one approach viaduct to the extremity of the other gives the distance taken up by the three double cantilevers and their connecting girders as five thousand three hundred and twenty feet, or just over a mile.

TRADE IN TRIFLES.

It takes about a billion and a half of eggs every year to supply the demand in Great Britain and Ireland, besides all the eggs that are produced there. Forty per cent of the eggs consumed in the United Kingdom are brought from twenty different foreign lands, including several of the British colonies.

Germany comes next to Great Britain as the largest consumer of eggs in Europe. Her imports are a little over a billion and a half a year, and she is obliged to pay £3,000,000 a year for the eggs she buys from other countries.

Japan is now using a great many eggs, though few are produced in the country. As they are very much cheaper in China, the eggs Japan uses are almost all imported from that country.

Russia is the largest exporter of eggs. The number sent from that country in 1896 was 1,475,000,000, of which 289,000,000 were shipped to the United Kingdom.

The manufacture of matches in Germany has become so important an industry that the factories are now using every year about 5,500,000 cubic feet of aspen wood, of which about three-fifths is imported from Russia.

Bavaria alone has twenty-six lead-pencil factories, which employ from 9,000 to 10,000 workmen, and produce on an average 4,320,000 lead pencils and crayons every week. It is a curious fact that the use of German lead pencils in all the public offices and schools of France is forbidden by law.

THE NEWS OF ALL NATIONS.

A Great Cotton Year in England.

Statistics issued from Manchester, England, by the International Cotton Federation, show that during the year ended August 31, 13,957,000 bales of American cotton were used, compared with 11,559,000 bales in the previous year.

The spinners spun more cotton than in any year since the great boom of 1907.

Of Egyptian cotton 701,985 bales were used, considerably more than in either of the two preceding years.

Famous Animal Trainer Dies.

Frank C. Bostock, the well-known animal trainer and menagerie proprietor, died recently in London. Bostock was perhaps the best-known keeper and trainer of wild animals and exhibitor in Europe and America. As proprietor of an animal show at Dreamland he furnished New York with many a thrill. Mr. Bostock was born in England fifty years ago, and was for many years a circus man on a small scale. He brought his animals to this country many years ago and here began his successful career. It was he who first introduced to the public the boxing kangaroo.

The old Huber Museum in Fourteenth Street was the scene of his first success, and it was here that he exhibited Rama Sami, the wild man, who, besides being a wild man, was an English cobbler. It was really the adventures of Wallace, the “man-eating lion,” that heralded the name of Bostock from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Wallace, a lion of reputed gentle disposition, was turned loose in a stable in a side street in company with a broken-down horse.

By skillful handling the old lion’s roars were sounded at frequent intervals and so grew the story that “the untamed” Wallace was loose raising Cain and defying capture. The public soon knew that the horse had been killed. It is a matter of dispute to this day whether Wallace or a keeper killed the animal. The story of the affair appeared in the newspapers, and for several days accounts of the latest doings of Wallace were in as much demand as the news of the world. Then Wallace was “captured,” and became a drawing card at the museum. So grew, too, the fame of Bostock.

Bostock was an animal trainer of courage. He had more than one narrow escape from death. On April 12, 1901, while exhibiting in Indianapolis, he was attacked by Rajah, a Bengal tiger, and was so badly injured that it was feared he would not recover. In 1905 he was attacked by a lion while exhibiting in Paris and had another close call. Bostock was best known of late years because of his show at Coney Island.

An Airship Like a Hotel.

The German navy’s first Zeppelin airship made a trial flight recently over Lake Constance at Friedrichshafen.

The airship, with its 510 horse-power engines, is said to be capable of keeping in the air for two days and a half without a landing. Her equipment, in addition to wireless telegraphy, a searchlight, and machine guns, includes a kitchen, sleeping bunks for the officers, and hammocks for the crew.

After her trials the airship will take up her permanent station near Hamburg.

Columbia Sophomores’ Curious Idea of Sport.

Two hundred heroic figures, the sophomores of Columbia, swept into the One Hundred and Sixteenth Street station of the Broadway subway, in New York, recently, so full of college spirit that they didn’t stop to pay their fares. They took possession of the first two cars of the first uptown express and removed all the lights from the ceiling. It was lots of fun after that to throw bulbs out at each passing station and see the various patrons of the road skip nervously to one side with the resultant crashes.

All this was a spiritual preparation for the annual sophomore smoker at Columbia Oval, on Gun Hill Road. They reached the appointed place by shifting at One Hundred and Eighty-first Street to Jerome Avenue. Some took a surface car on the avenue and did as much damage to it as they conveniently could on the way uptown. Others walked and contented themselves by stealing all the red lanterns marking paving danger points on the thoroughfares. These an unappreciative and insolent policeman, who probably wouldn’t known an Alma Mater from a blackjack, forced the amazed and indignant collegians to return.

The sophomores had brought with them for the smoker some twenty docile freshmen, whom they shampooed with molasses and old eggs and subjected to other convulsingly amusing indignities. But, after all, the evening was spoiled. Tradition says that about 9:30 the freshman class should rush the smoker and do its best to rescue the captive classmates. This is tremendously fine sport, but the sophisticated members of 1916 just yawned and stayed down at the university.

Buys Island for Bird Refuge.

Federal ornithologists and biologists have expressed great satisfaction over the announcement that Mrs. Russell Sage had bought Marsh Island, in Louisiana, for a bird refuge.

The island is the winter refuge of the blue goose, one of the rarest water fowl in the world. The setting apart of Marsh Island under conditions that will prevent the killing of this bird while it is wintering in the South, is considered by Doctor T. S. Palmer, of the bureau of biological survey of the department of agriculture, who is intimately identified with the management of the existing Federal reservations for the protection of wild fowl, as being of great value to natural science.

Doctor Palmer has not been informed as to the plans of Mrs. Sage respecting control of the Marsh Island reservation. She may turn it over to the Federal government or to the State of Louisiana, or place it under the control of the National Audubon Society for the protection of robins and other migratory birds. If the island is a monument of scientific interest, it may be accepted by the Federal government under the terms of the national monuments act, passed during the term of Colonel Roosevelt as president, and, on his recommendation. Otherwise it would require a special act of Congress to accept the island from Mrs. Sage.

There is now pending on the calendar of the United States Senate a bill introduced by Senator Perkins, of California, providing for the establishment of Federal bird reserves. The enactments of this bill would vest the secretary of agriculture with authority to accept Marsh Island from Mrs. Sage, should she elect to turn it over to the Federal government.

$10,000 Straus Memorial for Harvard.

A gift of $10,000 as a memorial to Mr. and Mrs. Isador Straus, who were lost in the _Titanic_ disaster, is announced at Harvard University. The income of the fund is to be used for lectures on commercial practice in the graduate school of business administration.

Brave Man Faces Death from Rabies.

Notified that he was suffering from rabies in an advanced stage and that his death was a matter of hours, John Muter, of Haledon, N. J., spent the time until his death calmly in settling his worldly affairs and preparing for the end.

When he returned to his home after having been told that science could do nothing for him, he summoned his wife and four children, together with the Reverend Warren P. Coon, pastor of the Methodist Church, in Haledon, which Mr. Muter, a wealthy man, had founded years ago.

“My journey here is ended,” he said calmly. “I can live but a few hours. I have no fear of death and I am ready.”

At his request the entire family knelt while Mr. Coon prayed. It was almost daylight before the minister left the stricken group.

Mr. Muter then dictated his will dividing his large estate among the members of his family and went to his bed. That night he became violent and later sank into a stupor, from which he never rallied.

Mr. Muter, who was almost 69 years of age, was bitten by a stray dog while sitting on the porch at his home last June. He had the wound cauterized and thought no more of it.

Social Institute for Young Men and Women.

The two sisters of the late John Arbuckle have announced their intention to build a social institute for young men and women in connection with the Plymouth Church as a memorial to Henry Ward Beecher and as a gift to the church and the people of Brooklyn. The women are Mrs. Catherine A. Jamison and Miss Christine Arbuckle, equal heirs to the coffee merchant’s estate of $30,000,000. The gift is in furtherance of wishes expressed by Mr. Arbuckle before his death, but not mentioned in his will. The memorial will cost about $100,000.

Mr. Arbuckle is said to have conceived the idea after hearing a sermon by Reverend Doctor Newell Dwight Hillis, pastor of Plymouth Church, on the social needs of the hundreds of young men and women who live in boarding houses. Mr. Arbuckle, in declining a short time before his death to give the Young Women’s Christian Association $400,000, said he did not believe in keeping young men and women apart.

Indian Tribes Claim Chicago Lake Front.

Lawyers representing the Pottowatomie, Chippewa, and Ottawa Indian tribes have filed suit in the United States district court for recovery of the Chicago lake front from the Chicago River to Forty-seventh Street on the South Side, or cash damages of $50,000,000.

The Illinois Central Railroad Company, the Michigan Central Railroad Company, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Co., and the board of South Park commissioners were named as defendants.

The names of 2,785 Indians residing in Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin are given in the petition of the plaintiffs, who base their claims to the land on old treaties with the Federal government.

This Big College Man a Needle Expert.

Andrew J. Onderdonk, junior, a third-year student in the Harvard law school, a giant in stature, and the possessor of a voice that puts to shame a tugboat’s siren, arrived in New York recently from Europe with a trunk filled with lace handkerchiefs, which he had made himself.

Instead of playing shuffleboard, deck quoits, and other boisterous shipboard games, “Fancywork Andy,” as the girl passengers called him, kept busy with his needle from the time the steamer left Antwerp until it reached Quarantine.

So expert has Fancywork Andy become with the needle and thread that the girls on board said he made a stitch for every revolution of the liner’s propellers. Nothing could persuade him to leave his needlework, and the only way his fellow passengers could get him to knock off work for a few minutes was to steal his thread.

“I have hundreds of handkerchiefs I made while abroad,” said Fancywork Andy. “They make such pretty presents for girl friends. I do all kinds of fancywork, although I prefer filet work best. I don’t see why any man should be ashamed of embroidering. It is just as artistic as painting a water color.”

Hazers Expelled from New York University.

Drastic steps to stamp out hazing at the University of North Carolina were taken as the result of the faculty investigation of the death of William Rand, the Smithfield freshman who recently was killed while being hazed by sophomores.

Four students accused of forcing Rand to dance on a barrel, when he fell and cut his throat on a broken bottle, were expelled. Two other students who witnessed the hazing also were expelled for aiding and abetting the principals.

Ten members of the student body who were known to have engaged in hazing either during the present year or last year, were suspended from the institution for one year.

New York Taxes Increase.

When the city tax books were opened in New York to the public it was shown that real and personal property assessable for 1913 totals in value slightly more than $7,640,000,000, a net increase of nearly $200,000,000 over figures for the present year.

Andrew Carnegie, with an assessment of $10,000,000, leads the personal list. The estate of John D. Rockefeller, John Jacob Astor, and Joseph Pulitzer are assessed at $5,000,000 each, Cornelius Vanderbilt $8,000,000, Mrs. Russell Sage $2,510,000, and Isidor Straus $2,000,000.

Real estate owned by J. P. Morgan is assessed at $1,875,000, Charles M. Schwab $1,700,000, Mary Payne Whitney $1,225,000. The Grand Central Station is assessed at $15,000,000, the Equitable Life Building at $11,000,000; the Metropolitan Life Building at $12,415,000, and the Mutual Life at $10,000,000.

Youngest Postmistress.

Miss Elinor Stark Campbell, who took charge of the post office recently at North Reading, Mass., in its new quarters in the Flint Memorial Building, is probably the youngest woman in the country holding a commission as postmistress, being but 23 years of age. Miss Campbell, who was born at Reading, is the daughter of Henry W. Campbell. She received her education in the public schools and the high school at Lowell from which she graduated in 1905, afterward taking a course at a commercial school in Lawrence.

Since graduating from school, she has been connected with the local public library. She succeeds the late Sumner French, who had held the office fop 26 years, until his death last June. She is a lineal descendant of General John Stark.

Few Left-hand Pitchers in Minor League.

After several weeks spent in observing the work of young players in the minor leagues throughout the country, Arthur Irwin, the veteran scout, of the New York Americans, has come to the conclusion that the left-handed pitcher is dying out.

“I’ve combed the bushes this year as never before,” said Irwin, on his return to New York, “and never did I see such a scarcity of southpaws. They are not to be had.

“My experience is the same as the experience of other scouts with whom I have talked. I cannot account for it, except on the theory that left-handed persons are getting rare in all walks of life.

“In my travels this season I saw very few left-handed pitchers--fewer than I ever saw in all my years in baseball. I’ll venture the prediction that next season there will be fewer new southpaws in the big leagues than in any season in twenty-five years.”

Italy Wants Porter Charlton for Lake Como Crime.

The long wait of Porter Charlton behind the bars of a New Jersey prison for the final word as to whether he must return to Italy to answer for the murder of his wife at Lake Como, two years ago, is drawing to an end. The supreme court will take up Charlton’s case.

Charlton’s appeal is the most-noted murder case before the court. Diplomatic officials of Italy and the United States have become involved in the matter. The decision of the court will be looked to as a guide in diplomatic intercourse.

The twenty-three-year-old prisoner, through his father, Judge Paul Charlton, of Porto Rico, will challenge the right of the American government to surrender him to the Italian authorities. This right is claimed on account of the peculiar circumstances under which Charlton was arrested.

Immediately after Mrs. Charlton’s body was found in a trunk in Lake Como the search for her husband began. He was arrested at the request of the wife’s brother, Captain H. H. Scott, of the United States army, as he stepped from a steamer at Hoboken, N. J. He had committed no crime in America, but confessed to having murdered his wife who, he said, had refused to obey his order to be quiet one night on their wedding trip.

Under the treaty between the United States and Italy, Italy has repeatedly declined to grant requests of the United States that Italians who committed crimes in this country and escaped to Italy be returned. Italy has responded that she would punish them.

When the Italian government requested the United States to surrender Charlton, Secretary Knox granted the request. To prevent his removal, Charlton’s father brought habeas-corpus proceedings before the New Jersey courts, claiming there was no authority for his arrest, and challenged the right of the American government to turn his son over to the Italian officers. The New Jersey courts held against Charlton, who appealed to the supreme court of the United States.

Heir to $50,000,000 Born.

The birth of a son to Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt at Betchworth, Surrey, England, was recently announced.

The Vanderbilt infant will rank with the richest children in the world, and in all likelihood will become as famous as the celebrated McLean baby, of Washington. It will be heir to not less than $50,000,000, and probably more.

Mrs. Vanderbilt made herself a favorite not only in the first social circles in this country, but in England as well. While as Margaret Emerson she was one of the most popular of Baltimore girls. She was first married to Doctor Smith Hollings McKim, of Baltimore. Her wedding to Mr. Vanderbilt occurred last December, after she had been divorced from Doctor McKim the preceding summer. She is noted for her beauty, and is not thirty years old.

Parcels-post Stamps Are Novel in Design.

Arrangements have been made by Postmaster General Hitchcock for engraving and manufacture of a series of 12 stamps, unique in size and novel in design, for exclusive use in forwarding packages by the new parcels post. Under the law enacted recently by Congress, ordinary stamps cannot be used for this purpose.

The special parcels-post stamps will be larger than the ordinary stamps and will be so distinctive in color and design as to avert confusion with other stamps.

The new issue will be in three series of designs. The first will illustrate modern methods of transporting mail, one stamp showing the mail car on a railway train; another an ocean mail steamship; a third an automobile used in the postal service, and a fourth the dispatch of mail by aeroplane.

The second series will show at work in their several environments the four classes of postal employees--post-office clerks, railway mail clerks, city letter carriers, and rural delivery carriers. The third series will represent four industrial scenes, showing the principal sources of the products that probably will be transported extensively by parcels post.

The stamps will be ready for distribution December 1, that the 60,000 post offices may be supplied with them before the law becomes effective January 1.

Had 96 Shot Wounds in His Body.

With 96 shot wounds in his body, received when a companion mistook his foot for a squirrel, William Rodenstein, 18 years old, of New Comerstown, Ohio, is expected to live. With Jacob Beiter, Rodenstein had gone hunting and stretched out at the foot of a tree. His companion wandered off and on returning saw something moving near the tree and shot.

Charges from both barrels entered Rodenstein’s side. Beiter carried the injured boy a mile to a farmhouse.

Relics of Spanish Armada Found.

Recently a remarkable collection of relics has been recovered in the course of the hunt for the Spanish treasures, supposed to be at the bottom of the sea at Tobermory. From the Armada wreck the treasure hunters have secured among other things large quantities of African oak, cannon balls of stone and iron, broken pottery and wine flagons, encrusted cutlasses, daggers, swords and muskets, lead, copper, and pieces of eight. Metal plate, showing the same embossments as specimens found last May, have been discovered in comparative abundance. Among the more peculiar finds were several feet of copper-wire cable, a graduated brass bar, supposed to be a tangent used for sighting purposes on a big gun, a hollow shell containing a remarkably light and soft metal, three exquisitely shaped teeth firmly fixed in a man’s jawbone, and the almost complete skeleton of a boy of about 14 years of age.

Language of Lower Animals.

Professor R. J. Anderson, of University College, Galway, who dealt with the so-called speech in lower animals at the meeting of the zoological section at the British Association, at Dundee, says the “early training of dogs, horses, and other animals go far to obliterate any tendency to marked development of original lines of thought.” It is to be doubted, he says, whether any great advance could be made in the development of a “dog language.”

Shoots Self During Nightmare.

Sudden fear caused by a nightmare came near proving fatal to Michael Matthews, 22 years of age, at Madison, Wis., when he shot himself in the temple with a revolver.

When taken to a hospital Matthews related the story of a dream in which he was captured by a gang of ruffians who were making preparation to torture him.

Quickly taking a revolver he pulled the trigger and emerged from his dream. The revolver had been under his pillow.

Korean Plotters Get Heavy Sentences.

Heavy sentences were imposed on many of the 123 Korean prisoners charged with conspiring against the life of Governor General Count Terauchi, of Korea.

Baron Yun Chi Ho, formerly a cabinet minister, and several others of the more prominent among the accused, were sent to prison for ten years, while various terms of punishment were inflicted on all the other prisoners, except nine, who were released.

The introduction into the Korean conspiracy trial of the names of several American missionaries, prominent among them Bishop Merriman C. Harris, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, attracted worldwide attention to the case. The trial began on June 28, and some of the prisoners, nearly all of whom were Christian converts, made confessions implicating the missionaries, which they afterward withdrew, as they declared they had made them under torture.

The Japanese government and the Korean officials disavowed at all times suspicion of any complicity on the part of the missionaries in the plot. They also declared they had viewed the missionaries’ labors in Korea with favor.

Oppose Capital Punishment in Austria.

Opposition to capital punishment is gaining ground steadily throughout Austria. The advocates of absolution of the death penalty include several of the most powerful writers and speakers in the empire, and they are making the most of the fact that, while the congress of jurists voted 470 to 424 in favor of the retention of “legal murder” (as they are pleased to express it) this was really a moral victory for their cause. It most unquestionably was. Before the vote in congress it was not thought that more than a third of the jurists would support the resolution assailing the wisdom and legality of death sentences. Concerted action is to be taken to force the imperial government to adopt the issue and submit it to Parliament as an administration measure.

Statistics Show 31,517 Books Published in Russia in 1911.