1S!)() 



THE A MEli I CA N J J M H- 1< EKl'lJl . 



'J5!) 



would occasioually raise Cain and the 

 roof, but as most of his swarthy rchi- 

 tives were. rturprisiii}:;]y destitute of a 

 knowh^lgo of English his revolts were 

 ineffectual. 



They had parties every Sunday nifiht, 

 and to the strains of an accordion and 

 three or four guitars they would fuirlv 

 dance the li'it out of the floor and walls. 



In the old unlettered da.ys that which 

 had met with Longley's most unquali- 

 fied scorn wer(^ these very Sunday nit:;:! 

 dances. — Edith Wagner in Aryo^aut, 



Funerals lu Yorkshire. 



A funeral is still regarded as a very 

 high fe.stival in rural Yorkshire. A poor 

 woman was lately heard complaining of 

 the fare provided at one she had at- 

 tended. "A paltry concern," she said, 

 scornfully, "Nobbut cakes and such 

 like. Now I've hurled five, but I sided 

 'em all off with 'am!" And this: A 

 farmer was assisting his daughter in the 

 choice of a dress, and, seeing her fancy 

 incline to a blue one, said remoustrating- 

 ly, "Nay, lass, tak the black one, hap- 

 pen tha might have the luck to be axed 

 to a funeral, " and bis counsel prevailed. 



What He Could Do. 



James Payn tells a story of a certain 

 rflBcer of a transatlantic steamship who, 

 In the absence of any clerical passenger, 

 (vas asked, during a storm, to undertake 

 ^he duties of chaplain. He was anxious 

 to oblige, but felt that he was altogether 

 unequal to ecclesiastical operations — to 

 preaching or even reading. "I can, 

 however, ' ' he said, ' ' take up a collec- 

 tion. " ^ 



Electric Fencln|C< 



Lovers of fencing will be interested 

 in an invention which has just been 

 tried in Loudon, and which is said tc 

 do away altogether with the difficulty 

 constantly experienced by an umpire in 

 judging hits between two equally 

 matched competitors. This end, it is de- 

 clared, has been achieved by covering 

 the front of each jacket with fine copper 

 or brass wire gauze, and connecting this 

 with the adversary's foil and an electric 

 bell (of rhe Imrglar alarm pattern) and 

 battery in the same circuit. It follows 

 that when a hit is made the circuit is 

 closed, aud the bell rings and continues 

 to ring until stopped by the person in 

 charee. A .suecial arrangement in each 



foil )i \> .iJcstliat only a direct 



poi*).! )..H.U'is a ring. Two entirely 

 elc-ctric.liv distinct circuits are used, 

 each including a bell, foil and jacket; 

 flicks or blows or grazes produce^ no re- 

 sult. The bells being of different tones, 

 and, moreover, placed on opposite sides 

 of the room, there is no difficulty in de- 

 ciding who has scored a hit, or, in cases 

 of almost simultaneous hits, who deliv- 

 ered the point first. By a simple ar- 

 rangement the wires passing from the 

 batteries to the combatants' collars are 

 kept well out of the way, however sud- 

 den may be their movements of advance 

 or retreat. In the London trial six se- 

 lected amateurs competed for a pair of 

 foils, and five bouts were fought. The 

 experiments were completely successful. 

 A military expert, Captain Hutton, 

 who was present, said that the device 

 would be of great value at such compe- 

 titions as th*e royal military tournament. 



Juvenile Logic. 



Mother — Now, Willie, you've been 

 eating sweets till you've made yourself 

 ill. I shall have to send for the doctor. 



Willie — I say, if you are sending for 

 the doctor, may I have another sweet? 

 It won't make any difference, you 

 know." — Pcnrson's Weekly. 



Uses of Wild Rice. 



Few know more of the reed of our 

 river mud flats than that it furnishes 

 the food on which fattens for the epi- 

 cure the reedbird of autumn dinner 

 tables, the bobolink of other seasons. 

 But as wild rice, Zizania aquatica of 

 science, it has played no tnean part in 

 the service of man. It was the staple 

 food of the Indians tha,t_ formerly in- 

 habited northern Wisconsin and Min- 

 nesota, where the plant abounds on the 

 margin of lakes. Dr. Elliott Cone says 

 that it is still the chief i-ecourse of the 

 Objibway Indians on the reservations of 

 Minnesota. They not only gather it for 

 their own use, but for the purposes of 

 trade, A common name is Indian rice, 

 and the lakes along which the plants 

 abound are known as rice lakes. Whole 

 Indian villages will be tenantless in au- 

 tumn, the inhabitants having gone 

 "riciug, " as the harvesting is termed. 

 The Indians push their canoes into 

 masses of rice, bend the heads of rice 

 over a crotched stick and thrash the 

 grain into the bottom of the boat.- " - 



