189G. 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KKEPER. 



26J> 



A Judttii Benjaiuiu HanOlcercliiex. 



A r;u-e iiud iiitore.stiiigsouveuir of the 

 civil war is uow in tho possession of R. 

 S. Merrill, a luudscupc artist. It is uoth- 

 ing more tluiu a red bandanna handker- 

 chief, but it iias an interesting history. 

 Judah P. Benjamin was a Louisianiau 

 and a stanch supporter tif the lost cause. 

 The Confederate govcu'umeut sent him 

 to England on an important mission. 

 While in that country lie had manufac- 

 tured one dozen red bandanna handker- 

 chiefs, and these upon his return ho dis- 

 tributed personally, as a memento, to 

 12 Confederate officers. These handker- 

 chiefs were of the linest india silk, one 

 yard square. The body is of red, and 

 worked iu black on its surface appeared 

 portraits of Davis, Beauregard, Lee, 

 Jackson, Morgan, Slidell and .Johnston, 

 encircled with wi'eaths of southern lau- 

 rel and a border of ferns and cotton 

 plants on a white ground. No two 

 wreaths are similar, and the workman- 

 ship is artistic. 



Mr. Merrill 32 years ago was a pri- 

 vate iu Company K, First Wisconsin 

 cavalry, and daring Wilson's raid in 

 April, 18G5, he picked up this handker- 

 chief iu the courthouse at Montgomery, 

 Ala. It was incased in a silken bag of 

 gray and had evidently been lost by 

 some Confederate general iu the hasty 

 retreat that day. The handkerchief has 

 been recently framed and adorns the 

 parlor of Mr. Men-ill's home. — Minne 

 apolis Journal. 



Court Etiquette. 



In Baron Rothschild's book of anec- 

 dotes he tells some curious tales of the 

 extremely stringent rules of etiquette 

 which prevailed at the French court iu 

 the reign of Louis XVI. Marie An- 

 toinette christened the Comtesse de 

 Noailles "Mme. Etiquette." Once, 

 when she fell from a donkey in her pri- 

 vate grounds, she jumped to her feet 

 and cried out, laughing, "Go and fetch 

 Mme. de Koailles ; she will tell us what 

 is prescribed for a queen of France when 

 she falls off a donkey. " One cold win- 

 ter night, when the queen was undress- 

 ing, the maid was handing her the 

 chemise de unit when the lady in wait- 

 ing came in, to whom, as being of su- 

 perior rank, the garment had to be given 

 over. She could not touch it, however, 

 until she had removed her gloves, and 



before that operation had been perform- 

 ed the Duchesse d'Orleans, a princess 

 of the blood, turned up, and after her 

 the Comtesse de Provence, who was of 

 higher rank still, so that the chemise 

 had to b(5 handed from one to the other 

 while the queen stood waiting and shiv- 

 ering. At last, unable to contain herself 

 any longer, she exclaimed: "It is odi- 

 ous I What a nuisance!" 



"It's a Liee!" 



In The Atlantic Mrs. Lathrop, in 

 "Some Memories of Hawthorne," her 

 father, tells an anecdote which she heard 

 when a child from a Mr. Bennock, a 

 frequent visitor of the family during the 

 Liverpool consulate of her father. 



A Scotchman, at an inn, was walking 

 disconsolately about the parlor while 

 dinner was being prepared. A distin- 

 guished traveler — Dickens, perhaps — 

 was dashing off a letter at the center 

 table, describing the weather and some 

 of the odd fellows he had observed in 

 his travels. 



"And, "he wrote, "there is in the 

 room at the present moment a long, 

 lank, redheaded, empty brained nin- 

 compoop, who looks as if he had not 

 eaten a Square meal for a month and is 

 stamping about for his dinner. Now he 

 approaches me as I sit writing, and I 

 hear his step pause behind my chair. 

 The fool is actually looking over my 

 shoulder and reading these words" — 



A torrent of Scotch burst forth right 

 here: "It's a lee, sir — it'saleel I never 

 read a worrd that yer wrortl" 



A AVise Fish. 



In Java they have a species of fish 

 that carries a very useful gun with him 

 wherever he goes. This queer fish is 

 called the jaculator and his weapon is a 

 combination air and water gun, which 

 nature has provided him with. The jacu- 

 lator has the power of puckering the 

 mouth into a small, round tube and 

 squirting water through it. He is sncii 

 an expert gunner that when he observes 

 a beetle or a fly on a twig above the 

 water he invariably knocks the in- 

 sect from his perch, even though the 

 distance be five or six feet. There are 

 seven other varieties of these water gun 

 fishes, which are known as "sportsmen" 

 and "gunners" on account of their 

 queer habits. — St. Louis Republic. 



