4/0 
THE RURAL WEW-YORKER. 
JULY 19 
fools and the wild hopes of gamblers. Such is 
the character of some European lotteries, 
which State officials conduct as honestly as 
such demoralizing and disreputable concerns 
can be conducted. No lottery in this country 
is managed by public otficials; they are all 
private ventures, and the I Louisiana Lottery is 
the “boss’” swindle among them. 
“ The Eureka and Eclipse Consolidated 
Metal Fence Post Company,” of New York, 
St. Louis. London, and several other places, 
is reported to be "‘of very questionable char¬ 
acter” by the Commercial Union of Janesville, 
Wis., and also denounced by the Midland 
Farmer of St. Louis. 
Ltteiunj. 
THE WORLD’S BATTLES. 
LESTER A. ROBERTS. 
Trk world is a veritable fighting ground. 
Gentlemen may cry “ Peace, |»eaee,'’ but there 
is no peace. There is no life tlmt does not 
prey on some other life. Living things so 
small as to lxi almost imperceptible to the naked 
eye, swallow by hundreds the microscopic 
animals about them, while the larger ones— 
and the whale open their mouths only to make 
a receiving vault for bushels of innocent 
little fishes, who had doubtless in times before 
played the same game with smaller members 
of the finny tribe. An acquaintance once 
went fishing for pickerel, using a small min¬ 
now for bait. The minnow was swallowed by 
a pickerel, that before it could be landed was 
in turn swallowed by a larger one, which fact 
was conclusively proved by the dissection 
that followed. Don't say this is merely a fish 
story. The man who told it is still living in 
New York, and will make bis affidavit to the 
truth of the statement if necessary, but as be 
is editor and proprietor of a newspaper, 
doubtless nothing further thau his bare state¬ 
ment is required. 
Leaving the fish, wo may look to the fowls, 
only to see the hawk feast upon the chickens, 
and the eagle fly away with the young lamb 
in its claws, to say nothing of larger game that 
have an appetite for young children, as is 
reported of the condors of South America. 
Perhaps the time will come when the lion and 
lamb will lie down together without the at¬ 
tendant fact, that the lamb will be inside the 
lion, but we suspect that day is in the distant 
future. 
Neither is vegetable life entirely free from 
lire destroying propensities, ns witness the 
various well known insectiforou* plants that 
decoy the unsuspecting flies to their embraces 
only tokill and feed upon them. 
And umn. proud man, who is given author¬ 
ity over the fowlR of the air and the beasts of 
the field, spares neither the one or the other, 
but asserts t hut authority by killing when and 
where he likes—and often wantonly, unneces¬ 
sarily, and injuriously—dealing death inmany 
cases to those who would serve him while 
living, by iu their turn killiug his enemies. 
It, would almost seem as if the myriads of 
the animal creation grew only to furnish food 
for others, because it is easy to compute how 
soon if they were not destroyed there would 
bo no room loft, for them either in the air 
above or on the earth beneath, or in the waters 
under the earth. Instance the codfish. Where 
one female is capable of producing five or six 
millions of eggs in a your, aud calculate if 
each of the fisli produced from these eggs and 
their progeny were to survive, how long it 
would bo before we could have a solid fish 
foundation on which to cross the Atlantic. 
The animals who do not devour each other 
and arc not carnivorous—as the horse, ox, 
deer, bison, rabbit, etc.—are not, without their 
fighting qualities and propensities. Whether 
or not they are inherent or acquired, there 
they are, and serve to check the two rapid 
increase of the race by the destruction of the 
weak and the survival of the fittest. With 
man this is also somewhat the case; but as 
witb other things, be seldom knows or strives 
to perceive the resuit of his actions. Our pro¬ 
genitors iu f lic early and in prehistoric times 
little thought of what, benefit their fighting 
was to be to ns, their descendants. All civi¬ 
lization grows out of war. In fact, had mau 
never exercised and cultivated his combative- 
ness, he would have remained in a state of 
barbarism or lower. The antagonism of one, 
obliges the exercise of caution and resistance 
in the face of the other; force is met not only 
by force but by strategy, and step by step the 
gradual growth of all the faculties brought in 
action by individual contest., gave them 
strength that was usefully applied in other 
direct ions, and he who was superior not only 
dominated the inferior of hts own race, but 
brought the whole world of nature under sub¬ 
jection aud made it subservient to his use. 
The lime may come when fighting among 
mankind at last will cease. When the people 
• shall beat their swords into ploughshares aud 
their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall 
not lift up sword against nation, neither shall 
they learn war any more. ’ That time was 
prophesied by Lai ah a good many years ago, 
and has lxen waited for ever since, and from 
present indications, it is not likely to come in 
our day and generation. 
for lUomnt. 
CONDUCTED BY MIS.'. RAY Cl.ARK. 
BIJTTERCUPH AND DAISIES. 
Tint Button: up* a nil Daisies 
Run riot In the Held* : 
Such pleasure to the children 
Their sunny presence yields! 
They come with wee hands laden. 
And lay th*m at our feet— 
They count them 'inouic their treasures— 
Ood bless their faces sweet! 
How well do we remember 
Our own bright childhood’s days! 
We thought not then of wulkinx 
In life’s more toilsome ways. 
We roamed amid the flowers, 
And culled the blossoms, too— 
And smelled the sweet, sweet clover. 
And ttazed up In the blue. 
Our sky was bright too, darlings. 
As that on which you gaze; 
And we, too, had the Daisies, 
To crown our childhood’* days. 
Yet close within their bosoms 
They kept one secret well ; 
Of what should be our future, 
The UuIkIun would not tell. 
Bo wrave your crowns, my children, 
For lioony heads to wear: 
Ood meant your sunny childhood 
To be all free from care. 
And Buttercups nnd Daisies, 
From out their hearts of gold— 
Of what shall be your life-work. 
Not much will they unfold. 
MRS. J. b. E. 
A LOOK AHEAD FOR “CHARITY.” 
women, that her sentiments about gardening 
correspond with mine exactly. I know she 
is onlj’ a woman, but “ what woman has done, 
woman can do.” 
I read a short time ago that a lady earned 
by day’s work enough to buy one-half acre of 
land, on which she set out with her own hands 
30 apple trees, 10 cherry trees, 11 pear trees, 
over 100 grai»e-vine.s, besides a variety of 
small fruits, and lost, nothing in refinement of 
feeling either. And another lady who, just 
after graduating, hired a few hands and un¬ 
dertook farming, and behold the results at the 
end of the year—eight banks of potatoes, 000 
bushels of corn, und realized from the 
sale of cotton, after all expenses were paid. 
Now that looks like business, does it not? 
As for myself, 1 began with ODious, and 
have got so far as to include melons, corn and 
celery as an experiment, on nil of which I use 
a great of deal manure, so much so, that my mo¬ 
ther said the other evening I put too much on. 
Please tell us in your talks w hether or not the 
ground can be too rich. I have quite an in¬ 
clination for gardening.and if I had thecapital 
would make market-gardening my life occu¬ 
pation. Instead of an umbrella I prefer the 
cool of tbo evening after the Day King has 
gone behind the hill;, and by perseverance 
and determination have succeeded in extermi¬ 
nating every weed from the vegetable as well 
as the flower garden, for one essential thing to 
be done is keeping ahead of the weeds, then 
the battle is half won 
I will now quietly slip out at the back door 
into the garden, but earnestly hope to see in 
the columns of this department, very soon, 
the promise of hints, and helps to gardeners, 
fulfilled by “V. T.” oracie hardener. 
IS IT ECONOMICAL? 
I THINK that many of our good farmer's 
iirls watch out from ’’Charity’s” shadow week 
by week, to see what the newest advice is to 
the dear girl. They regard her as their ’‘rep¬ 
resentative man,” aud are anxious to hear all 
the pros and cons on the subjects she brings 
forward. So when we say a word to Charity, 
we also address quite a large and interested 
audience besides. 
I hare not a doubt but among these hard¬ 
working, dissatisfied girls, we have some who 
will yet achieve a higher, broader destiny, 
than even that to which they aspire. A good 
deal can be done in the way or self-culture, 
even under very discouraging circumstances: 
and oue of the greatest helps in the world, is 
t he disposition to be oaiily pleased. I would 
rather see n girl witb this characteristic, than 
to have her play and sing like a prima donna 
without it. All along through bet life she 
must take herself with her. She may leave 
her old surroundings and friends, hut she can¬ 
not leave herself behind. And no one is ever 
happier than “ her capacity,’' and that is very 
much of our own making. All the world 
poured out at her feet, could not make a sour, 
fretful spirit happy. She* might, think that 
this nod that would make her entirely satis¬ 
fied, but it would tie a mistake. Familiarity 
would soon make the most elegant sutround- 
iugsuu old story, and at their best they would 
not satisfy the soul. Asa general rule, the 
more artificial the life, the less happiness. 
Tell “Charity” that in that pleasant little 
village home 1 predict for her in future years, 
she will look back smilingly on the so-called 
“hard times” of the present, and be most 
thankful for the efficiency and skill at house 
work which they developed: a skill which 
makes her lighter labors seem like play, and 
leaves her many hours of leisure for her book, 
or pen, or social enjoyments. Without thus 
early training she would have found even the 
lessened tasks most intolerable drudgery. I 
have known young ladies who thought the 
dish-washing only of a small family one of 
the labors of Hercules. “Many things which 
seem very bard while we are passing through 
them, are not at all hard iu the retrospect.” 
The old farm life in the back-ground of memo¬ 
ry will seem like classic ground some day. 
1 am confident that one of our most effeotive 
and beautiful New England story writers, 
passed her early years among the most uncul¬ 
tured, narrovv-mhided, and penurious of our 
old Yankee ancestry. She could never make 
such keen character sketches if she had not 
known the people through and through. Per¬ 
haps we shall laugh aud cry some day over 
“Charity’s’’ book or country scenes aud life, 
which are being photographed now upon the 
unwilling tablets of her miod. J. E- m’C. 
“WHAT WOMAN HAS DONE, WOMAN 
CAN DO.” 
Perhaps a word of experience will encour¬ 
age many of my sisters, who, like myself, have 
no man to call on for help in the garden, aud 
I would say to V. T. who, in the issue of June 
28, strikes out so bravely for the health of 
At a recent sale of the effects of a broken- 
up household. I was astonished to see the ac¬ 
cumulation of trash, that for 40 years had 
been gathering in the attics and lobbies of that 
house. There were broken chairs, bottomless 
baskets, broken-down bedsteads, old tinware, 
and a large closet full of garments worn by 
the ancestors of the family, whose original 
owners bad, full 50 years ago, returned to 
their mother dust; and these relics had been 
preserved as heir looms, to perpetuate their 
memory. They were exposed to the gaze of a 
thoughtless crowd, and struck otr, by the auc¬ 
tioneer’s hammer, to the highest bidder. Di¬ 
vested of the best claim to veneration or 
respectful memory, they were sold for the 
sum of 25 cents. The question arose, why 
such good-for-nothing articles of furniture 
should bo kept, to cumber a liou»e? When a 
chair or liedsteud is broken, and cuuuot be 
repuired, why Is it not burned and got out of 
the way, and not kept to gather dust, aud 
occupy room in a dwelling? If anything etui 
be mended and made useful, why of course it 
is best to save it ; but if it is past redemption, 
there is no use in keeping it longer. Old has 
ketsare neither useful nor ornamental, and 
the best use that euu be made of them is to 
kindle tires. Tin dishes, too, are or no account 
when they are rusted so that solder cauuot 
stop the leaks, and why they should be kept 
safe is a mystery. Cast-off garments only 
breed moths in a house and gather impurity 
in the air, aud are much better in the rag¬ 
man’s cart than hanging up in the way. Econ¬ 
omy is essential to prosperity, but there is 
such a thing as carrying it to excess, and this 
“gathering up fragments” that arc of no 
earthly use, is folly. Old worm-eateu boxes 
and barrels are far better burned than pre¬ 
served, for they can be turned to account in 
that way. I would not advise to waste any¬ 
thing that can be made useful in auvform; 
but this ever-increasing pile of rubbish iu a 
house, is not economical or desirable, s.h.r. 
CONCERNING GRAVES. 
MARY WAGER FISHER. 
A pretty custom prevails iu my neighbor¬ 
hood, of making ft newly-opeued grave less 
painful to the eyes by the uae of greens, ferns 
being largely used. The heap of earth thrown 
out from the grave is entirely covered with 
greens, so as to appear to be a mound of vege¬ 
tation. The grave is bordered thickly with 
ferns, and lined with them as far down as the 
sextou may choose to fasten them to the sides. 
Of course, these adornments are purely senti¬ 
mental, but they take from the apparent re¬ 
pulsiveness of the grave at a time when the 
hearts of friends are very sore, and hurt by 
every friction. Boughs of greens dropped on 
the coffin after it is lowered, soften the dread¬ 
ful thud of the earth as it is thrown in, aud 
after the mouud is heaped high, the ferns that 
covered the heap of earth are laid thickly over 
it, to which are added whatever of flowers 
have been sent. Many a suffering bereaved 
one might be soothed and comforted a little, 
maybe, should some friend quietly attend to 
modifying the repulsiveness of the grave, by 
these simple means. 
Domestic (Economy 
CONDUCTED BY EMILY MAPLE. 
PITHS. 
“Cooking butter” is a delusion and asnare. 
Don’t regale your visitors with the short¬ 
comings of your servants. 
For health’s sake, eat sparingly during the 
hot weather. 
Young ladies, don’t accept presents from 
gentlemen other than flowers, fruit, candies, 
or an inexpensive book. 
White dresses have never been so popular 
for young and old, as the preseut season. 
We are glad to know that the idiotic “bang” 
is going out of date. Was there ever a more 
senseless fashion thau cutting off a woman’s 
front hair! 
Plain, white hemstitched handkerchiefs are 
once more in demand. 
Gentlemen care more for a cup of coffee 
with a sandwich, or a cracker aud a bit of 
good cheese, than for a glass of lemonade, an 
ice crea m and a piece of angel’s cake. Girls, 
bear this in mind. 
LEAFLETS. 
CARRIE V. 
Many’s the time I've said to the Professor 
that I must write something for the Rural. 
He tries to dissuade me. for he little realizes 
the satisfaction it gives me to know that I 
have written something good enough for pub¬ 
lication; a something that may prove to be a 
help to soma onebarrassed with daily care: or 
a bit of an experience that will throw light on 
some perplexing question. It is but a little 
seed sown to tbo wind apparently, still some 
soil may be waiting to receive it; and, al¬ 
though these lines may not be fraught with as 
much wisdom as those coming from more gift¬ 
ed minds, I trust they are sufficiently Btrong 
to cause some discontented, unhappy soul to 
pause and consider the blessings as well as the 
woes that fall to his or her lot. 
Life is made up of odds and ends, with a 
good bit of a chance for each individual 
weaver to select his colors and material as he 
weaves his daily yard. The warp and filling 
may not be exactly of our own choosing every 
time, but It is the happy, skillful way in 
which wo weave the material at cummaud into 
oue wholesome fabric, that teste the ability of 
the weaver, a fabric that can be reviewed as 
a whole with just pride and approbation. And 
we have done well if the weary and heart sick 
glean new life from it because of the practical 
way in which we have met the numerous lit¬ 
tle difficulties of life. 
It is the woof of life—each one weaving for 
himself and helping his neighbor. Some 
threads go up, others go down, aud the shuttle 
passes in aud out. What will the complete 
web be? In a degree just what we would 
have it, and to a certxiuty just what we make 
it. Although uo two lives are alike, there may 
be trails and characteristics that are similar; 
aud surrounding every one there is au atmo¬ 
sphere, an influence, which is felt for good or 
for evil, else how is it when iu trouble one 
knows to whom to go for help; it in sorrow, 
where to find sympathy; or it it bo joy, from 
whom congratulations will come? This in¬ 
fluence is felt in what we say, in what we do, 
aud in what we write. 
Our words may carry warmth aud sunshine 
into every household; or they may cause tur¬ 
moil aud create strife; raise envy and beget 
war; or they may be laden with bitterness, 
and subtle aud unobtrusive they may creep 
stealthily about, and like “little foxes,” cun¬ 
ningly enter into and destroy the “tender 
vines” of many home viueyaids. When they 
are once lodged iu our hearts, we begin to be¬ 
moan our fate, to tiewail the ignorance of our 
neighbor, and make ourselves unhappy be¬ 
cause of certain woes, real or imaginary, of 
certain short-comings and of unhappy sur¬ 
roundings; and wo picture fancy sketches of 
what, we would enjoy if this or that, or some¬ 
thing else, were only different. Instead of 
being aroused to new energies by adverse cir¬ 
cumstances, we oftentimes allow ourselves to 
be easily discouraged and become morbidly 
sensitive, forgetting that an uneasy and un¬ 
settled mind is not an indication of ability, but 
rather of weakness. By being contented aud 
cheerful, one need uot be the lets active or 
lees ambitious; but awaken aud cultivate your 
better faculties, and care for and protect your¬ 
self so as to become strong aud able both iu 
body and mind. Then, and not until then, is 
one truly able to cope with life's vicissitudes 
and quietly scatter such blessings as hope, love 
and joy along his daily path. 
When one of us “went to work, to make the 
most of what she had,” then she cleared the 
boundary that lies between the common mind 
and the great one. When she “made up her 
mind to be good-natured and pleasant under 
all circumstances,” then it was that she began 
