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AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
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44 A Happy New Year.” 
We believe that the good wishes which flow so freely 
from every one’s mouth at the beginning of the new year 
are earnest and sincere. Few persons desire that others 
shall be unhappy. We know that as these lines are pen¬ 
ned, the heart of the writer goes out lovingly toward the 
hundreds of thousands of young friends who will read 
them. Boys and girls in the forests of Maine, with 
cheeks rosy from the salutes of Jack Frost, or large heart¬ 
ed and bright as the prairie flowers in the great West, or 
sunny and glad among the savannahs of the South, or 
more precious than the shining sands of your own golden 
California—yes, those too, away up in Sitka, where the 
Russian Bear has just retired before the American Eagle, 
44 A Happy New Year ” to you all. We can hear 
the echo coming back, and it gives us great joy. We have 
had pleasant times together during the past. Tour let¬ 
ters filled with cheering words have encouraged our labors 
for your amusement and instruction, and stimulate us to 
make the coming year still more enjoyable. New puz¬ 
zles, fine engravings, good stories, and kind words, are 
in store for all who will belong to our circle. Our en¬ 
graving on the opposite page is intended to bring to 
mind the sorrowing as well as the joyous. Homeless ones 
wander in the streets of our cities—do what you can to 
relieve them. Many are disappointed of their holiday 
gifts,—try to console them, and as you enjoy the merry 
sleigh ride, think of those perishing upon the stormy 
ocean and pray for them. Would you be happy this year ? 
Learn this lesson by heart and by practice ; He enjoys 
himself most who does most to bt'ing enjoyment to others. 
Work of Starve. 
This is the law and the penalty from which there is no 
escape. Thousands are trying to evade it; some by 
making their fellow men work for them, others by de¬ 
pending on money inherited or accumulated in former 
years, but without avail. If idle, they starve in the 
midst of plenty. They may eat to the full, but eating 
without exercising is against the law of Nature, and very 
soon the stomach refuses to digest the food, the body is 
not nourished, and the man literally starves though he 
may feel no hunger. The hands, the brain, and the heart 
must work to live. If you dodge the labor of learning 
lessons, you at the same time miss the strength of in¬ 
tellect which mental work brings, and the mind will pine 
for want of nourishment. Thousands have starved their 
wits in this way, until they wonder how it is that others 
cany away all the prizes in life. Many starve their hearts 
by never exercising them with noble emotions. Selfish¬ 
ness eats into the nature like a canker, leaves the man 
hungry for affection, but love is the price for love, and he 
that will not work in this field must accept the penalty. 
It is an error to think that work was a penalty imposed 
on man for having violated God’s command. Man’s na¬ 
ture is such that activity is the law of his being. Every 
muscle and nerve calls for employment that it may re¬ 
main in health, and there can scarcely be a more terrible 
punishment than solitary confinement, where the eye, 
the ear, and the hands must remain idle. A slow, pain¬ 
ful death will surely result. So then, boys and girls, strive 
to love work and not to shun it. Though you may be as 
rich as Astor or Stewart in money, yet your own nature 
will suffer the pangs of poverty without active exercise. 
A ILoolk sit tlae Moon, 
Tho “ Man in the Moon,” if there is such a person, can 
not enjoy life very highly, if his nature is like that of the 
inhabitants of the Earth. The most careful examinations 
of astronomers and philosophers give evidence that there 
is neither air nor water in the moon. If these be want¬ 
ing, of course vegetation, such as we have, can not exist, 
and human beings would find no subsistence. Yet men 
®f science have not learned all of Nature’s secrets, and 
some future Herschel or Newton may be able to prove 
that every want of animated beings can be fully supplied 
by what is produced in the moon. One astronomer 
claims to have discovered traces of vegetation there. He 
declares that there are spots of a greenish tint which ap¬ 
pear and disappear at regular seasons, as though spring 
brought its growth and winter destroyed it. But the 
most careful explorers of that distant region, with the 
best telescopes, describe the surface of the moon to be a 
scene of the wildest desolation. Lord Rosso’s telescope 
gives a view such as would be seen-at a distance of from 
120 to 150 miles. Immense mountain ranges surround 
vast pits or caverns, which are strewn with huge blocks. 
The mountain peaks are from 6,000 to 22,000 ft., or one to 
four miles high. The appearance is as though volcanoes 
had convulsed the planet and left it desolate. Yet we 
' can speak only of one side of the moon, as she revolves 
around her axis in the same time she completes her revo¬ 
lution around the earth, and when she is between us and 
the sun, of course her dark, unknown side is toward us. 
What that contains can only be imagined. Here is a fine 
field on which some poet may exercise his fancy, and give 
us descriptions of fairer scenes than earth contains. 
A Great Work, 
Those of our young readers who have visited New 
York will remember the water called the “East River,” 
which separates the city of Brooklyn from the former, 
place. Ferry boats at ten different points convey passen¬ 
gers, teams, etc., back and forth. As a very large num¬ 
ber who live in Brooklyn have their places of business 
in New York, there is an immense tide of travel on these 
boats. For several hours, morning and evening, a dense¬ 
ly packed crowd is usually found on almost every boat. 
This is especially the case when from any cause a boat is 
detained from its regular trip. During fogs on the river, 
or while navigation was obstructed by ice, we have 
seen thousands of persons, and long lines of vehicles 
waiting their turn, and when a boat arrived, a fearful 
rush has been made to get places. The sinking of a boat 
at such a time would be a terrible catastrophe, as hun¬ 
dreds of lives must be lost. The citizens of Brooklyn, 
finding matters growing worse every year, last winter de¬ 
termined to build a bridge to connect the two cities, and 
the work has already been commenced. It is to be made 
of wire, nuge cables of many strands will be stretched 
from shore to shore, and fastened at either end to mas¬ 
sive towers of stone work. The towers are to be high 
enough to raise the bridge one hundred and thirty feet 
above tho water, so that the largest ships can sail under 
it. In order that teams and passengers may reach so high 
a point to cross on the bridge, it will be necessary to 
commence the roadway hundreds of feet back from the 
river on each side. It is expected that the City Hall Park 
will be the point of beginning on the New York side, 
and a place about equally distant from the stream on the 
Brooklyn side. It is intended to make the bridge wide 
enough for railroad tracks as well as other vehicles, so 
that passengers will be enabled to pass by the horse cars 
from point to point, in almost any part of the two cities. 
The bridge will require some three years for comple¬ 
tion, and its entire estimated cost is about $5,000,000. 
in I’org'isaj*-. 
Writing masters try in vain to make their pupils all 
exactly imitate the copy. Each one will make his own 
peculiar stroke, differing in slant and shade from the pat¬ 
tern, and also differing from the marks made by any one 
else, and thus a person’s handwriting is his own special 
property, which another cannot well borrow or steal. 
Nature is wiser than the schoolmasters. If their plan could 
prevail, and every boy’s hand could be trained to move in 
similar tracks, bank checks, notes, receipts, wills, and all 
other written representations of property would soon be 
worthless, for no one could then detect forgery. It is not 
very difficult to write somewhat like another, so as to de¬ 
ceive a careless observer, but there is one difficulty which 
forgers can never fully overcome. No man ever signs his 
name twice exactly alike. There will be a slight change 
of curve or slant or shade through almost endless varia¬ 
tions. So that if a forger makes an exact copy by tracing 
his letters on paper laid upon the copy, the perfect like¬ 
ness at once shows the fraud. If he attempts to put in 
slight variations, these, being original with himself, will 
follow his own peculiar style, and thus enable an expert 
to perceive the forgery, and sometimes to trace its 
author. A very important “ will ” case, involving mil¬ 
lions of dollars, recently brought out this fact in a re¬ 
markable manner. A signature to a codicil added'to the 
will was declared to be a forgery, because it exactly cor¬ 
responded with the first signature to the will. Professor 
Pierce, the eminent mathematician, testified that it 
could be mathematically demonstrated that the chances 
of a person’s so exactly repeating his own signature 
were in the almost inconceivable ratio of one to 
2,666,000,000,000,000,000,000, or next to an impossibility. 
“Wlaat tlie Cloelt §aid. 
A large, old-fashioned clock stood in the hall, not far 
from the room where James S. slept. He was often 
soothed to sleep by its steady tick, tick , and awakened in 
the morning by its clear ringing strokes. He had often 
wished to examine the inside of the case and find out 
“ what it would do,” if he pulled the strings he saw hang¬ 
ing there, when his father opened it to wind it up, but 
his parents had forbidden him to touch it. One day his 
father and mother were out, leaving him alone. “ Now 
is my time,” thought James, and he softly opened the 
door and gave one of the strings a twitch. R-r-r-ing 
went the alarm, frightening him half out of his senses. 
He hastily shut the door, but the alarm rung on, and just 
then his mother came in. “ What have you been doing 
to the clock ? ” said she. But James denied that he had 
touched it, and as he had never been known to tell a lie 
before, his mother believed him- At night he went to 
bed, as usual, but when saying his prayers, he thought of 
the clock, and its “ tick , tick," slow and solemn, troubled 
him. He got into bed and tried to go to sleep, but could 
not help listening to the clock. Soon its voice seemed to 
change, and instead of “ tick, tick," it said to James: 
“ You lied ”—“ you lied.” ne listened to it until he was 
really frightened, and could bear it no longer. He got 
up hastily, ran to his parents’ room, and confessed his 
sin. He was freely forgiven and returned to his bed in 
peace. Now the clock's voice seemed to change again, 
and soon he went to sleep hearing it say: “ Did right ” 
—“ did right,” and its voice never sounded pleasanter. 
Answers to IProlilesiss si«i«l Jl®Mizzles. 
The following are answers to the puzzles, etc., in the 
December number, page 455. No. 2S9, Labyrinth. —Keep 
the right road, and you will find wealth_No. 290, Il¬ 
lustrated Rebus. — Indescribable ecstacy belongs to all 
those who, in the end, overcome sin and the flesh, the 
world, and the devil. The following have sent in correct 
answers: Sandford Horton, S. T. Adams, B. C. Burt, W. 
S. & F. R. Ilyer, J. J. Stocklin, A. G. McComb, “E. F.” 
New FkzzIcs to lie Answered, 
No. 291. Illustrated Rebus. —An old piece of advice. 
No. 292. Illustrated Rebus. —An old and true proverb. 
No. 293. Puzzle Picture.— Misfortune of a benefactor. 
No. 294. No. 295. 
Illustrated, Rebuses. —Worth looking into by all. 
