328 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



Nor f ruber 



Bnglisli Drinlving Songs. 



The best of the English drinking songs 

 were written by the dramatists of the 

 Beveuteenth ccnliiry, men who trolled 

 ont their vigorous seutimeuts, linked 

 sweetly together in flowing verse, with- 

 out the suKillest thought or fear of 

 shockiijg anybody. Frankly indecorous, 

 they invite the whole wide world to 

 drink with them, to empty the brim- 

 ming tankard passed from hand to hand 

 and to rreJ home through the frosty 

 streets, where the watchman grins at 

 their unsteady steps, and quiet sleepers, 

 awakened from dull dreams, echo with 

 drowsy sj'mpathy the last swelling ca- 

 dence of their uproarious song. Where 

 there is no public sentiment to defy 

 even bacchanalian rioters and bacclia- 

 ualian verses cease to be defiant. What 

 admii-able good temper and sincerity m 

 Fletcher's generous importuuityl 



Drink today and drown all sorrow; 



You shall iierhaps not do it tomorrow. 



Best, wliilo you have it, use your Vireath; 



There is no drinking after death. 



Then let us swill, boys, for our health. 

 Who drinks well loves the commonwealth, 

 And he that will to bed go sober 

 Falls with the leaf, still in October. 



Upon this song successive changes 

 have been sung, until now its variations 

 are bewildering, and to it we owe the 

 ever popular and utterly indefensible 

 glee roared out for generations by many 

 a lusty tavern- chorus: 

 He who goes to bed and goes to bed sober 

 palls as the leaves do and dies in October, 

 put he who goes to bed and goes to bed mellow 

 Lives as he ought to do and dies an honest 

 fellow. 



— Agnes Eepplier in Atlantic. 



Solidified Petroleum. 



The claim some time ago set forth by 

 Paul d'Humy, a French naval oflflcer, 

 of having originated a process for the 

 successful solidilicatiou of petroleum 

 for commercial and industrial purposes 

 has been further explained by him. 

 From this account, summarized in The 

 Progressive Age, it appears that heavy 

 common oil has been converted by this 

 inventor into a solid block, as hard as 

 the hardest coal, burning slowly, giv- 

 ing off an intense heat and showing 

 not the slightest sign of melting, a ton 

 of such fuel representing as many as 30 

 tons of coal, and the space occupied by 

 ^e ton of it being about three cubic 



teec, as a:^;.jijst tlie large space required 

 for the coal. At a recent gathering of 

 experts, M. d'iiuuiy exhibited samples 

 of the article and experimented with 

 them. On the table were several cakes 

 of the solidified petroleum and of low 

 grade oils of various sizes, and shapes, 

 and in addition to the cakes there were 

 samples of the same fuel in dry powder 

 and paste, the petroleum powder and 

 paste mixed together and pressed form- 

 ing a homogeneous mass, with a great 

 specific gravity, hard almost as stone, 

 and, when burning, giving off a flame 

 300 times its own volume and a heat 

 well nigh as great as oxygen. Tests to 

 determine the production of smoke or 

 smell failed to indicate the emanation 

 of either of these. 



Time to Call a Halt. 



The vital statistics clerk felt rather 

 than heard his visitor enter the office. 

 He looked up from the desk and beheld 

 a cadaverous and woebegone individual, 

 in whose eyes was the feverish glitter 

 of one to whose lids sleep cometh not. 



"Poor commission three doors to the 

 right," said the official glibly. 



"I don't want the poor commission. 

 I want to see you," said the intruder, 

 with something very like defiance in 

 bis voice and yet with that undertone 

 of despair that aroused the sympathy of 

 the clerk. 



"And what can I do for you?" asked 

 the latter. 



"It isn't what you can do for me, but 

 what I can do for you," responded the 

 visitor. "I've been trying to do alto- 

 gether too much, and I've got to have a 

 rest. I don't belong to no union, and 

 I'm williu to work overtime when it's 

 necessary, but I'll be blamed if you 

 ain't trottiu me a heat that 'ud dis- 

 tance anybody but me. I've got to have 

 shorter hours and a day off once in 

 awhile, an if I don't get 'em, I'll quit, 

 see?" 



"But my dear sir, I never saw you 

 before. I never employed you. Who are 

 you, anyway?" 



"Me? Oh, I ain't anybody but Heart 

 Failure. That's who I be, an I mean 

 what I say. " — Detroit News. 



The Italian immigrants who start 

 from Genoa must travel 4,059 knots be- 

 fore reaching the Narrows at New York. 



