Agency of this city; or of Dr. A. Redsyn, 
Ilion, N. Y., nor do we recommend C. H. 
Hands, of Lawrence, Ind. In all cases where 
the medicines offered by these people are need¬ 
ed, it would be much safer, more economical 
and in every way wiser to consult a good local 
doctor; or, if this is objectionable, to visit a 
respectable practitioner in a neighboring town. 
..We don’t recommend the Crescent Art Co., or 
the Oriental M’f'g Co. of Boston,or J. F. Hill, of 
Augusta, Me, People by working for them often 
make a little money; hut there is by far too 
great a risk of dissatisfaction and just, grounds 
of complaint for us to recommend them.,.... 
We have never heard any complaints of Dr. W. 
H. Parker, of the Peabody Medical Institute 
of Boston, or of his manner of treatment. 
.. We cannot recommend the Popular Month¬ 
ly, Kansas City, Mo.The Sherwood 
Novelty harness gives satisfaction, so far as we 
have heard of it. Mr. J. S. Woodward recom¬ 
mends it from personal experience.We 
have nothing special to say against investment 
in Lakenwild lots near Bangor, Me. We 
wouldn’t settle there ourselves, except, per¬ 
haps, for a summer vacation; but there 
doesn’t seem to be anything fraudulent about 
the effort being made to secure purchasers of 
land there—and there’s no accounting for 
tastes_Samuel Z. Cooper is the name given 
by a fellow who is traveling round the coun¬ 
try selling a “corn, bunion and wart prepar¬ 
ation.” He is also soiling what he calls 
“Death on Rate.” He claims to he working 
for the Soldiers’ Home, Dayton. Ohio. That 
institution stigmatizes him as an impostor. 
He was formerly connected with it, but was 
discharged for good reasons over a year ago. 
... For the standing of the various mutual- 
benefit insurance associations in the different 
States, apply to the Insurance Superintendents 
at the capitals of the various States. It is al¬ 
together out of the question for us to “keep 
the run” of such institutions. 
IPbmmt s Wo til. 
CONDUCTED BY EMILY L. TAPLIN. 
THE SCARECIiOW. 
In yonder field he stands erect. 
No matter what the weather, 
And keeps a wnteh so circumspect 
On foes of every feather. 
So faithful Is he to the trust 
Committed to his keeping 
That all the birds suspect he must 
Dispense with any sleeping. 
Sometimes his hat tips down so low 
It seems a cause for censure. 
For then some old courageous crow 
Believes it sale to venture; 
But catching sight of either arm 
Outstretched In solemn warning, 
The crow decides to leave this farm 
Until another morning. 
Although his dress is iucomplete, 
It really does not matter; 
Perchance the truest heart may beat 
Beneath a patch or tatter. 
Aud It Is wrong to base our love 
On wealth and name and station, 
For he who will may rise above 
His dally occupation. 
We should not look with eyes of scorn, 
Aud find in hint no beauty 
Who stands aud guards our fields of corn, 
Aud does the whole world duty, 
But honor hbn for native worth, 
For rustic independence, 
And send a hearty greet lug forth 
For him and his descendants. 
—Harper's Young People. 
OF INTEREST TO WOMEN. 
Many a tired housewife will read with a 
sigh of personal application the epitaph seen 
on an old Surrey tombstone: 
Here lies a poor woman who always was tired, 
For she lived in a world where too much was required; 
"Don't weep forme, friends” (thus she said), "for I’m 
going 
To where there's no reading nor writing nor sewing; 
Do not weep for me, friends, for when life’s thread 
shall sever, 
I’m going to do nothing for ever and ever.” 
The manifold complexities of modern city 
houses have called into being a new trade, 
says Lippincott’s, that of the universal tin¬ 
ker. Now, with au extension of the same 
idea into the woman’s kingdom, a correspond¬ 
ent sighs for a neighborhood darner. Most of 
us would agree as to the convenience; but the 
correspondent was not, perhaps, aware that 
the system recommended is in practi -al opera¬ 
tion in Paris. In the family where our home 
was when there, punctually one day iu the 
week came la raeeainiuodeuse, and, having 
been established in a hack room and given a 
cup of coffee, set to work on the ruin three 
children ami an impatient mau had wrought. 
She had for her paius her meals aud twenty 
cents a day; and she had a clientele of nearly 
a dozen families, from whom she drew occa¬ 
sionally something beyond the daily franc. 
To some she pye hut half a day; hut mattery 
THE BUBAL WEW-YOBKEB. 
JULY §4 
were so systematized that she was rarely with¬ 
out work. Very convenient the American 
hoarder found her for the ripping and clean¬ 
ing of old gowns and the darning of hose, 
which, in her devotion to the monuments of 
Paris, she had no time to touch. 
Since the reign of bric-a-brac set in we 
have professional dusters in the cities. It 
should be comparatively simple to introduce 
also professional menders. Perhaps a difficul¬ 
ty would arise as to the amount of payment, 
since the women who mend for their familes 
do not roll in wealth, and even 50 cents a day 
might seem to them extravagance, And the 
sewing woman who drags her life out on the 
same sunt, hoarding herself would probably 
scorn less. But, once given her patrons, she 
ini£ht find her life both easier and more 
healthful; and the tired housemothers, seeing 
the economy and the relief, would wonder why 
they did not do it before. TJnder the present 
system the thrifty' women fret and tire them¬ 
selves over the endless task; the sentimentally 
pliilantbopic and the unthrifty give away, to 
the increase of poverty often; and the old 
elo’s men profit liy the improvidence of the 
bachelors and husbands. 
A little more co-operation everywhere would 
lighten women’s work. Here, for instance, in 
a town of 2,000 inhabitants, one woman for 
years made her pin-money by the weekly’ 
brewing of yeast for her neighbors. She has 
gone out of the business now, her husband ob¬ 
jecting: and the women are left lamenting the 
lost convenience. Yeast iu plenty’ at the 
grocery—patent yeast; hut they’ all prefer the 
home-made when they’ can get it. 8o, could 
they once get it. they would prefer the neigh¬ 
borhood mender. 
A WOMAN’S RIGHT. 
Not a political right, by any means. Sim¬ 
ply’ the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness iu the path clearly assigned her; 
throwing aside, perhaps, the swaddling hands 
of conventionality, but never forgetting that 
the virtues which made a good woman price¬ 
less above rubies in Solomon’s time are as val¬ 
uable now, Solomon’s virtuous woman is a 
type to be loved and honored now as then. 
She not only worked for her home and her 
household—she made her husband honored 
among men; seated at the gate with the elders. 
The wisest of men always shows intense appre¬ 
ciation of prudence and good sense in women 
— poor man! he probably had experience 
enough of the opposite in his too polygamous 
household. 
Considering how few of us, men or women, 
are called to things the world considers great 
it seems the only true life is to live according 
to our highest and best, in the seemingly 
trivial round of every -day life, “A little 
leaven leavenetb the whole lump;” how can 
we tell that these things are trivial' It may 
not seem that dish-washing,and sweeping, and 
dusting, and cooking is doing the greatest 
amount of good for the greatest number in our 
power, but who knows? If great things are 
expected of us, the opportunity will surely 
come. 
But we must not sink into mere anxious 
Marthas, cumbered with many cares—too 
anxious, like the Sister of Mary, to hear the 
Divine voice offering us wisdom and peace. 
The incentive to higher aud better aims lias 
al way’s come from women; sad, indeed, would 
it be if we lose our power of inspiration through 
loss of the higher voice within ourselves. 
Purity and simplicity of mind in ourselves 
must ever awake it in others. Have you not 
noticed how a person of single mind and pro¬ 
found truthfulness, however unassuming, 
always affects others, driving away deceptions, 
like the summer mist before a powerful sun? 
Some cynical writer speaks of the danger in¬ 
curred when a thinker is let loose upon the 
world. Danger? Yes, to the dark places 
among highways and hedges—to oppression 
and wickedness in high places. But there is 
danger to all these things when one simple 
woman takes it into her head that it is her 
duty to right whatever wrong lies in her 
power, A woman with one fixed idea, aud 
that a good one, is likely to become a power, 
whether she be buried alive iu an isolated 
farmhouse, or one of the toiling thousands in 
a great city. Nor will she ever know liow 
much her thought aud deed will influence this 
busy world. The modest woman who wrote 
from the fullness of her heart in the intervals 
of daily duties little thought she would create 
a liviug book to be the watchword of a great 
struggle—the evangel of that power which 
brought, freedom to our slaves. 
Do always the duty that lies nearest you— 
if you are faithful over small things you will 
surely be faithful over great. With truth aud 
purity, high aims aud faithful duty, our lives 
will leave their impress on heart and mind, 
until our little grain of mustard seed becomes 
u great mid gprendiaff tree, 
OUR BROTHERS. 
Let us begin at the beginning, at the first 
advent of the average hoy’ on the world’s 
stage. There he lies in his little crib, feebly 
squaring off with his tiny red fists at the 
world in general, and, at all times when we 
have heen able to study him giving decidedly 
audible testimony as to the vigor of his lungs. 
A few years pass by ami he becomes that, ob¬ 
ject. of terror to nervous people and old bache¬ 
lors, the small boy*. Probably at no time is 
he an object of greater anxiety to his affec¬ 
tionate relatives, not only from his cheerful 
disregard of personal risk, and general destruc¬ 
tiveness, but also from his appalling candor. 
These a wf ul qualities arc the general character¬ 
istics of hoys between six and fourteen—even 
the immortal Father of his Country was not 
exempt from them, as u certain litt le oft related 
moral fiction shows. At this interesting peri¬ 
od of his life, a fondness for fishing aivl cir¬ 
cuses, an intense appreciation of a life ou the 
ocean wave, aud an admiration of pirates and 
Indian fighters, forms the basis of his charac¬ 
ter. His appreciation of the fair sex is de¬ 
cidedly limited. Wo would not say he con¬ 
siders his own sisters aud other boys sisters 
too, decided nuisances, but he has that half- 
contemptuous toleration for the sex in gen¬ 
eral that in later years he ouly shows 
toward his own feminine relatives. But the 
most critical period of his life is a few years 
later, when he ceases to look upon a Picca¬ 
dilly collar as a relic of barbarism, becomes 
very particular as to his neckties, and, most 
momentous event of all, begins to raise a 
moustache. We lielieve that at this period 
he usually experiences a lofty adoration for 
some lovely being of the opposite sex, hut as 
we cannot speak from personal experience, 
we will let this point pass. Notwithstanding 
their iuauy r weaknesses, brothers are very 
handy at this period of their existence. They 
are usually available on escort duty, and can 
be made useful iu a variety of ways. 
We make an anxious pause before begin¬ 
ning this next branch of our discourse. We 
want to say something about the most promi¬ 
nent faults our brothers possess. Let us at 
least give just a few words of advice, which, 
of coarse, will uot be taken, ns it. is perfectly 
disinterested: aud disinterested advice, as we 
all know, is from someone who knows nothing 
whatever about the matter. Dou't praise up 
other girls to your sisters for the very quali¬ 
ties you believe your own sisters to be most 
deficient iu. Don’t talk to your sisters, be¬ 
cause they happen to be girls, as if they didu’t 
know as much as you do, and more too, per¬ 
haps. 
We need hardly allude to the ouly universal 
woman’s right allowed by man, that of “ladies 
first.” As one cynical philosopher observes 
(let us hope he hus no sisters.) “Who is it who 
has the first, seat in the cars, the boats, the 
theatres? who is it who must be Cared for, 
waited ou, aud dressed like Solomon in all his 
glory ? Why, the ladies. Who is it who pays 
for all this? Man, the brute!” 
Let us end with the toast—“Our Bi-other’s.” 
They halve our joys, double our sorrows, are 
the joy of one-half of our existence aud the 
torment of the other—they are a joy forever 
when rightly managed, and a suare and de¬ 
lusion when they want to he—a silken thread 
will lead them, when you couldn’t drive them 
with a chain cable—a well spring of delight in 
a house, who would’ut have them? 
GOLDEN GRAINS. 
It is as true now as in the days of Johnson 
that money and time are the heaviest burdens 
of life, and the anhappiest of all mortals are 
those who have more of either than they know 
how to use. 
What did Emerson mean when he said, “God 
himself does not speak prose, but commun¬ 
icates with us by hints, omens, inference and 
dark resemblances in objects lying all around 
us”........ .... 
God will do whatever He pleases; aud what 
pleases Him ought to please ns. It is above 
nature, it is contrary to nature to make full 
surrender of ourselves to His sovereign and ab¬ 
solute will. Grace alone can enable us to say 
from the heart, “Thy will be done.”. 
In one of the manifestos just issued iu Eug- 
land, we find this unique sentence: “The 
voice of the people is the voice of God, aud, 
therefore, the voice of freedom, justice, and 
right.”.. 
In an insurance exchange we find this beau¬ 
tiful sentence: “All the revelations of nature 
may be regarded as the oil which feeds the 
Hattie of thought, burning continually iu the 
secret shrine of man’s mind; and countless 
affinities, mental, earthly and spiritual, verify 
the sayiug of the Greek poet 
*0, earth, earth! 
How art thou iuterwovon with that nature that first 
came from tliee.' "... 
For. as so beautifully expressed by Pope, 
"All are parts of one stupendous whole,— 
Whose ffpuiro |s, ami Uod the soul,” 
The more we know of God, the more we 
shall desire to resemble Him in holiness. 
Whoever truly loves another, will desire to 
be like the person he loves, and to do what 
that person likes... 
The Tabernacle, London, Dr. Spurgeon’s, 
has a membership of 5,214. 
Franklin spoke doubtless from experience 
when he said, “A cheerful face is nearly as 
good for an invalid a-s healthy weather.”. 
Bishop Wilson truly says, “A root that 
produces uothiug is dead. Faith is the root 
of all good works. r .. 
VICTOR Hugo, speaking from au entirely 
different stand-point, says: “Let us fear the 
worst, but work with faith; the best will al¬ 
ways take care of itself.” . 
Bitter aud untruthful words, instead of in¬ 
juring the one at whom they are aimed, are 
very likely to rise up, perhaps after many 
years, in condemnation of him who gave them 
voice -.......... .. 
WHILE we canDot be too particular about 
the daily observance of family worship, yet it 
sometimes conflicts with the good wife’s culin¬ 
ary arrangement. One morning, when the 
husband’s prayer was longer drawn out than 
usual, a suspicious smell of over-done biscuits 
was wafted slowly but surely toward the wife’s 
olfactory organs. She wriggled and twisted, 
thinking of hot’ biscuits, aud at last, when the 
husband started off on a new tack, to which 
there seemed no end, she startled the good 
man by saying: “.Lord! John, cut it short; 
I’ve bread in the oven.”. 
There are a great many persons who never 
rise above the medium line of feeling. They 
are not excitable. They are not in anything 
enthusiastic. They appreciate the truth and 
they mean to obey it, and to conform their 
lives to the principles and commands of God; 
hut it is not their nature to overflow with 
mere feeling . 
CONDUCTED BY MBS. AONES E. M. CARMAN. 
HOUSE-KEEPING IN CALIFORNIA.—XI. 
MARY-WAGKR FISHER. 
A peculiarity of California houses—and 
the same is true of those in Washington aud 
Oregon—is the way in which the occupant’s 
name is put ou. It is no uncommon thing to 
see it painted in large letters (which you can 
read distinctly across the street) on the win¬ 
dow above the front door. To the new-comer 
it lias a disreputable look; but. one soon be¬ 
comes accustomed to it, and recognizes its con¬ 
venience. 
The beautiful way in which the grounds 
about, houses are kept is apt to make the ad¬ 
miring visitor feel that it must lie easier to 
have line grounds in California than else¬ 
where. But this is not altogether true. In 
Oakland, for example, there is hardly an ill- 
kept place in the city. The yards are not 
large, but so beautifully cared for, the grass 
being so even and green, and the flowers and 
shrubs in such perfect order, that everybody 
is necessitated, by the examples all around 
him, to keep his own domain in like manner. 
But in order to preserve this year-all-around 
beauty, eternal vigilance, water, pruning, 
tying plants to stakes, and the lawn mower 
are all needed, The grass plots between the 
sidewalks and the streets are mniuly kept in 
the same way. 
Although the sun is so essential to warmth 
and health, (bore seem to lie just as many 
women here ns elsewhere who shut the suu 
out with blinds aud shades, presumably to 
save the color in carpets aud the furniture. I 
never yet lived in u house where I had full 
sway into which I did not court all the sun¬ 
shine to be had. As to furniture, 1 think most 
people are “idiotic.” Take chairs and sofas, 
for example: either to be comfortable, should 
conform in shape to the outline of the hotly. 
The stuffed chair is convex in its seat, when it 
should be concave—exactly the opposite to 
what it should be—and still women go on 
generation after generat ion buying such mon¬ 
strosities. I am very partial to a luxurious 
seat, but I detest upholstered things. They 
absorb dust, and to me never seem eleau. 
Now-a days there seems to bo no excuse for 
upholstered goods, as there are so many pretty 
chairs of bamboo, wicker, and honest wood 
with backs and bottoms of yielding material 
that can be beautified with cushions and quilt¬ 
ed work. 
I utu reminded of this every time 1 dust the 
red stuffed chairs iu our cottage here—aud I 
flourish a whisk and dust cloth with mental 
irateness at the existence of such things. The 
one wicker chair in t he room forms almost a 
cause for family feud—ouly the fact of possess¬ 
ion is fully recognized as being niue-teuths of 
t)ie law, Of course, as Jong as i*>ople buy ill- 
