' 
Caw. 
“Every Man is presumed to know the Law; 
Nine-tenths of all Litigation arises from Ig¬ 
norance of Law.” 
EXPRESS PACKAGES. 
T. S. M., Rochester, N. Y. — I live a little 
over a mile from a railroad station. The road 
to my place is good. A package was sent to 
me through an express company; should the 
company have sent it to me; or could they le¬ 
gally keep it in the office until I sent for it? 
Ans.— An express company is a public car¬ 
rier, and the law with regard to public car¬ 
riers says that when the carriage is by land, 
in the absence of any established usage or any 
special contract to the contrary, the goods 
must be carried to the residence of the con¬ 
signee, wherever that may be. (2 Kent Com , 
vox. Angel on Carriers, 295.) “I consider it 
well settled that the carrier is under obliga¬ 
tion to deliver the goods to the consignee per¬ 
sonally, either at his residence or place of busi¬ 
ness.” (Cowen, J., in Gibson v. Culver, 17 
Wend., 305.) Sometimes the local express 
agent seeks to get rid of trouble by sending 
word or mailing postal cards to the consignees 
of express packages asking them to send or 
call for packages consigned to their address; 
but such cases ought to be reported to the 
company, and if the goods have been dam¬ 
aged owing to the agent’s neglect of his duty 
the company is liable therefor. 
ROAD TAX ORDERS 
H. M. Burlington, N. J.—My husband de¬ 
vised all his real estate to me to hold and use 
during my life, with the rents and profits re¬ 
sulting thereof to me for life. I pay the taxes, 
as he did during his life. Hitherto all the 
overseers of the roads have addressed their 
“road tax order” to me in my name, as I 
claim it is my right if I pay it I should be 
credited with it. The last overseer has di¬ 
rected it to the “Estate.” Can I make him 
draw it or direct it (the order) to the proper 
name and person, and until he does lawfully 
protest against and refuse the payment of it? 
I contend that the proceeding is the same as a 
creditor sending a bill to a “property,” in¬ 
stead of to the person holding and owning the 
property. Am I right? If the overseer holds 
out, what legal remedy have I? I thmk it is 
petty spite which has led him to do as he has 
done. 
Ans —The property is held for the tax, and 
to refuse to pay would be to expose it to the 
penalty of such omission. The overseer is 
mulish in refusing to direct the bills to the 
lady who is bound for the payment. But as 
she has not the absolute fee in her own name, 
we know of no method of compelling him to 
be courteous, if he persists in his refusal. 
DAMAGES FROM TRESPASSING ANIMALS. 
M. S. T., Cleveland, Ohio .—Owing to the 
neglect of my neighbor to keep his part of 
our partition fence in good repair, his cattle 
and hogs broke into my land and did consider¬ 
able injury; what redress have I? 
Ans.—I f any animal trespasses on the land 
of any person, bounded by a partition fence, 
in consequence of the failure or neglect of the 
other party to keep up and maintain in good 
repair his part of such partition fence, the 
person so failing shall be liable to the party 
injured for all damages sustained thereby, 
which shall be assessed under oath by three 
disinterested men, residents of the county, 
appointed by a justice of the peace of che 
township in which the premises are situated; 
and if the damages are not paid after demand, 
the amount may be recovered in an action be¬ 
fore any court having jurisdiction thereof, 
and in all suits commenced under this law, 
such assessment, reduced to writing and sub¬ 
scribed by the persons making the same, shall 
be received as prima facie evidence of the 
amount of damages sustained by the party 
aggrieved, and the animals so trespassing 
shall not be exempt from execution in a judg¬ 
ment for damages occasioned by such tres¬ 
pass. 
INSUFFICIENT FENCES. 
S. B., Thomastoivn, Mich .—My neighbor 
and myself agreed to the division of our boun¬ 
dary fence. I built a good, lawful fence— 
seven to eight rails high—on my part, and I 
keep it in good order. My neighbor built a 
fence of three boards, with only three nails to 
the board; that is, one nail to each of the three 
posts supporting the 16-foot board, the bot¬ 
tom board being 2X to three feet from the 
ground. His sheep and calves run under the 
fence; how can I make him build a proper 
fence? 
Ans.—P rosecute the man for any damage 
done to your property by his stock which tres¬ 
passed on your land on account of the illegal 
character of his fence, and appeal to the trus¬ 
tees of your township to compell him to build 
a legal fence. 
T. M., Elizabeth, N. J .—If a married wo¬ 
man dies without making a will in this State, 
what becomes of her real and personal pro¬ 
perty, she leaving a husband, parents, broth¬ 
ers and sisters? 
Ans. —The personal estate goes to the hus¬ 
band, who is entitled to administer upon the 
same without an accounting. In any lands, 
tenements or hereditaments situated within 
the State of New Jersey, of which she died 
seized in her own right in fee simple, her 
husband has a tenancy by courtesy during his 
life, provided she had by him during their 
married life-time a child born alive and cap¬ 
able of inheriting her estate. This estate 
vests in the husband immediately after the 
death of his wife, and without further pro¬ 
ceedings, and upon the husband’s death, or, 
if they had no such child, upon the wife’s 
death, said real estate descends to her brothers 
and sisters of the whole blood, as tenants in 
common, in equal parts. Real estate in other 
States would descend according to the laws of 
the State where it is situated. 
T. McL., Elmira, N. Y .—What course must 
I pursue in order to obtain the possession of a 
certain amount of money deposited in a sav¬ 
ings bank by my father (now deceased). He 
made no will, except verbally to bequeath to 
me all his effects, money, etc. I have two re¬ 
sponsible witnesses to the fact. My mother is 
still alive; do not the money, etc., revert to her 
and does not she supersede all of us? I have 
brothers and sisters. 
Ans. —The verbal bequest has no legal value 
in this State. Letters of Administration must 
be taken out in order to draw the money from 
the bank. Then the widow will take one- 
third of that and of all the personal property, 
after the debts, if any, are paid; and the re¬ 
mainder will be divided between all the child¬ 
ren, our correspondent sharing equally with 
his brothers and sisters. 
I t is over four months since the Eye-Opener 
put a warning here against a party who 
was going about among New Hampshire far¬ 
mers, nominally in the honest interest of our 
feathered friends, but really in the fraudulent 
interest of his own pocket. Now, there is so 
much swindling aU over the country, in big 
and little places, by big and little people, that 
the E.-O. never mentions any swindle here 
that is merely local. To give room to the 
mere mention of such swindles every week 
would more than cram the space that can be 
spared for this department, even if printed in 
“market type” without “leads.” To deserve 
a place here, however small, the swindle 
must be of such a nature that the public gen¬ 
erally are liable to be duped by it, or by sub¬ 
stantially similar swindles in other places, so 
that a warning against one amounts to a 
warning against all of the same stripe. The 
Rural has “loads” of subscribers in wide¬ 
awake Seneca County, N. Y., but it is very 
plain that there are there still several quite 
respectable people who either do not subscribe 
for it, or who forget or do not read the Eye- 
Opener’s warnings. Perhaps, after all, the 
swindle was successful with them, because it 
was a woman, instead of a man, who “worked” 
it. She had dark-blue eyes, a fair complex¬ 
ion, an attractive face expressive of modesty, 
and she dressed in mourning, and was named 
—but what does that matter, as the name was 
assumed merely for the occasion? She said 
she was an agent of the Society for the Pre¬ 
vention of Killing Song Birds (the Audubon 
Society) of this State, and wanted pledges 
from influential people, that they would do all 
in their power to prevent the killing of birds. 
She obtained several pledges from the Seneca 
Falls people, and then drove 1o East Varick. 
There Elder Colton not only signed a pledge, 
but gave her $10 for the Society’s treasury. 
Deacon Skinner, of Lodi, also signed a pledge 
for his fair petitioner, and so did Hezekiah 
Bishop, Justice of the Peace in West Varick; 
and Daniel Simpson and Peter Henson, of 
Tyre, also gladly followed the example of the 
other “influential people.” Then a telegram 
called the handsome canvasser to the bedside 
of a dying brother at Albany. Some days 
later there were several very mad men in Sen¬ 
eca County. The pretty canvasser’s bird 
pledges turned up as promissory notes. Al¬ 
bert Hull, of Sheldrake, banker, had bought 
$940 of them, with the names of Elder Colton 
and Hezekiah Bishop at the bottom of them. 
They were sold by a very “respectable” mid¬ 
dle-aged man, who said he got them in pay¬ 
ment for farm machinery. They were cun¬ 
ningly constructed from the bird pledges af¬ 
ter the fashion which the E.-O. has several 
times shown. Between $1,500 and $1,600 
worth were sold in Seneca County, and it is 
now learned that the same woman “worked 
the game” in Genessee and Livingston Coun¬ 
ties, two months ago, to the amount of $2,700. 
To Several Inquirers.— The Eye-Opener 
has several inquiries with regard to new pa¬ 
pers, chiefly agricultural, lately started in dif¬ 
ferent parts of the country. The Rural 
New-Yorker is very anxious not to do any¬ 
body the least injustice. It takes consider¬ 
able time to investigate the standing of any 
new concern. The regular mercantile agen¬ 
cies, as a rule, know nothing about such af¬ 
fairs, unless they happen to be of considerable 
importance in the strictly mercantile line. By 
speaking a trifle hastily, therefore, we mav be 
doing an injustice to an honorable enterprise,if 
we denounce it Every paper in the world 
had a beginning, and most of them a very 
small, venturesome and struggling one. For 
one honest enterprise of the sort that succeeds, 
probably five fail; but although their patrons 
may lose a small amount by them, the men 
who started them are by far the heaviest losers. 
The Eye-Opener would not therefore say a 
word that might go against the success of such 
honorable ventures. Quite a considerable 
number of papers, however, which start into 
existence during or a little before “the sub¬ 
scription season” every year, are sheer swin¬ 
dles It is hard to distinguish the “wolves” 
from the sheep in all cases, especially as these 
wolves deck themselves out with the nicest 
sort of fleeces, such, indeed, as sharp judges 
now and then detect as “doctored 1 ’ at agri¬ 
cultural shows. By keeping in mind the fol¬ 
lowing points, however, no poor little inno¬ 
cent will ever be deceived by greedy wolves 
of this sort: All new-comers that offer big 
premiums in cash or goods are “wolves.” All 
that offer something for nothing, or anything 
for something below its real worth are ditto. 
All that offer themselves or watches or other 
jewelry or money or any valuable considera¬ 
tion for verses in the Bible or other conun¬ 
drums of that sort belong to the carnivorous, in¬ 
stead of the gramnivorous family. In a word, 
a poor litttle innocent may allow a modest 
latitude for advertising self-glorification; but 
beyond that lies danger of fangs and claws. 
We have not yet been able satisfactorily to 
investigate the much advertised town of 
“Gulf View,” on the Gulf of Mexico, Mis¬ 
sissippi. There are several nice “watering” 
and “wintering” resorts on the Gulf coast 
between New Orleans and Mobile. This is 
just being started by a Northern man, and 
may be all right—and may not.* * The “pro¬ 
moter” talks very glibly of the influence of 
the “Gulf Stream” there, as if it came right 
up to the shore; but no part of the Stream 
comes within 200 miles of the place, and who 
ever thinks of the climatic influence of the 
Gulf Stream in the Gulf 1 There are several 
other things in the lengthy advertisement of 
this scheme which intimate that it is much 
of the same character as that old Florida 
fraud, the St. Andrews’ Bay Colony, and the 
Eye-Opener would strongly advise Rural 
readers not to invest a cent in it until they 
have examined the place on the spot, or got a 
trustworthy friend to do so. 
Concerns Censured —Under this caption 
the Eye-Opener will, from time to time, give 
the names of various concerns he has seen de¬ 
nounced in other papers, but which have not 
been investigated from the Rural Office. 
The Champion Manufacturing Company, of 
Quincy, Ill., which widely advertises a $12 
saw, sold to “agents” for $9, seems to be an 
untrustworthy concern, judging from some 
letters published in the Farm, Field and Stock- 
man, of Chicago, which had been advertising 
the firm, and found that its subscribers had 
reason to be dissatisfied with the treatment 
they received from it. It winds up the mat¬ 
ter by saying: “We throw the advertisement 
out of the Farm, preferring to lose the amount 
due us rather than subject our readers to the 
risk of sending for one of those ‘saws.’”_ 
The Leibig Pharmacist Company and Elite 
Manufacturing Company are denounced as ab¬ 
solute frauds by the Chicago Western Rural 
... .Don’t put much faith in the nostrums of 
the Chicago Medicine Company. Even Dr. El- 
dred’s Family Medicine may.really and truly, 
not do you a mite of good, unless you have a 
glowing or gloomy imagination. 
XDmnxm’s tDorh. 
CONDUCTED BY EMILY LOUISE TAPLIN. 
CHAT BY THE WAY. 
I T is an encouragement to medical women 
to learn that a woman, Dr. Eva Harding, 
has been appointed physician to the new Sol¬ 
diers’ Orphans’ Home at Atchison, Kansas. 
* * * 
We rarely travel by railway without seeing 
some unlucky children, and still more unlucky 
parents, to whom the journey is a most trying 
ffair. _We certainly cannot/expect children 
to keep still on a tedious joujney, but they 
are less likely to be a nuisance to others if 
they have some means of amusement. Of 
course, an elaborate equipment of toys is 
quite out of the question, but some simple 
means of amusement should be arranged for 
the little ones if they undertake a long jour¬ 
ney. Perhaps paper and colored pencils will 
furnish as much amusement as anything. 
The children can then scribble or draw as 
their fancy takes them, or they can manu¬ 
facture paper boats and other paper toys, to 
be decorated with the pencil. Bits of string, 
such as the average boy always carries, will 
answer for cats’ cradles and string puzzles, 
and such little amusements will keep the 
children in better humor and better behavior 
than when they are solely thrown on their 
own devices. 
* * * 
Nearly every one has a lot of cabinet or im¬ 
perial photograph^, which are apt to accumu¬ 
late until it is hard to find a place to bestow 
them. They can be made ornamental in a 
variety of ways; one of the prettiest photo¬ 
graph holders is a plush screen, for standing 
on the table, which is circumstantially de¬ 
scribed in the London Queen. The most use¬ 
ful size is about 20 inches high, with four pan¬ 
els, each holding three photographs. Each 
panel is between five and six inches wide. 
The plush required is a yard and a half: 22 
inches wide. Eight panels are required . four 
of thick cardboard, with the apertures for 
the pictures cut out. and four ot stout mill- 
board, for the backs. All should be curved 
at the top. Take the plush and cut four strips 
21 inches long and 6% inches wide. Lay one 
on the table, face downwards; lay the panel 
on it, allowing a margin of half an inch all 
round; cut out the apertures, allowing 
the same margin, and giving a snip at each 
corner, to allow of the edges turning neatly 
in. Then take a brush filled with liquid glue, 
carefully glue around the plush margins, and 
turn them in, pressing all to keep them down. 
The four front panels are all done like this, 
and must be put away to dry, pressed under 
some books. Then take the four back panels 
and lay them on a length of the plush , 25 
inches long and 21 inches wide, face down¬ 
wards, allowing a distance of one inch be¬ 
tween each. This is to allow of the whole 
screen folding up. An inch strip of plush 
must first be glued up each of these divisions, 
with its face uppermost. These will show be¬ 
tween the front panels when they are glued to 
the back ones, and make the whole front of 
plush. Take the plush, glue the margins and 
turn them over and forwards, pressing them 
down. Put this carefully away to dry. When 
dry, lay it plush downwards on the table, 
with the millboard uppermost; carefully lay 
the other four panels on and glue the front 
and back together at the edges, leaving an 
opening at the base of each panel for the 
lowest picture, and opening up the side for 
the others. These screens are lovely if made 
of white butcher’s linen, with painted designs 
around the pictures. 
THE DARK SIDE OF FARM LIFE. 
WHICH CONCERNS WOMEN. 
MARY WAGER-FISHER.—NO. II. 
f'P^HE old doctriue that seems tohaveperme- 
JL ated society to the very bottom, that wo¬ 
men are in some subtle way bound to be self- 
sacrificing, self-abnegating and self-effacing, 
I believe to be utterly diabolical—of the Evil 
One, and the evil it has wrought is manifold. 
It had its root undoubtedly in the physical 
superiority of man and his tendency to enslave 
women, and any system of habit, or of teach¬ 
ing, will in the course of centuries result in 
types more or less fixed, as seen in some of our 
native Indian women to-day, who will 
shoulder a log of wood rather than see their 
husbands degraded with such labor. Among 
civilized Christian women, the type has been 
modified and when on the farm, for instance, 
labor-saving machines are bought, in 999 cases 
out of 1,000, they go to the barn before they 
go to the house, and the woman in the great 
majority of instances will even prefer to do 
without conveniences for herself, in order 
