it was remarked, on very high authority, that the fields were white for the harvest. They have not been reaped yet, for now, as then, the laborers appear to be few.— J. T. P., in Cincinnati Commercial-Gazette.

THE PULPIT NOT ALL.-It is a delicate matter to criticise the pulpit-a preacher's life is no bed of roses-but, frankly, the minister, to become a real permanent influence, must live and work among his people, and not simply preach to them as a part of a weekly performance. Ministers who leave fragment memories never rely on the spoken word-it is the kindly deed, the cheerful presence, the smile of sympathy, the handclasp of affection, the treasured confidences, the goodness done in secret and never trumpeted forth, but sinking deeply, ah, how deeply, into the heart and life of the recipient; in short, it is the minister who administers in the synagogue of humanity, without thought of self--he and he alone can be called a divine. The rest are simply officials at so much a year. They wear broadcloth, but lack the broad soul.-The Jewish Messenger.

21.

NOTES. The triennial synod of the Moravians was brought to a close on July It appears from the report read that there were 56 ministers, 5,682 attendants, 5,256 communicants; and that the Sunday-schools had 599 teachers, with 4,135 scholars. The revision of the liturgy was concluded, and will be published shortly. One deacon and three presbyters were set apart by ordination. The synodical meetings were held at Fullneck, and the presiding bishop was the Rev. W. Taylor, of London. -Rev. C. H. A. Dall, for thirty years the only missionary of the American Unitarian Association, has died at his mission post in Calcutta, in the seventy-first year of his age. -Prof. Calvin E. Stowe, formerly of Andover Seminary, Dartmouth College, and of Lane Seminary, died of Bright's disease in Hartford, Conn., on Sabbath morning last, in his 87th year. Prof. Stowe's second wife was Miss Harriet Beecher, who was author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin."The Teachings of the Twelve Apostles" still continues to occupy the attention of scholars and divines.- -C. Taylor, D.D., Master of St. John's College, Cambridge, has published his two lectures, delivered last year in London, on the "Didache." He believes in its early date, as belonging to the first century, agreeing in this respect with many, including Lechler, Sabatier, and Schaff. -Mr. David Jones, a Welsh merchant, who died recently at Liverpool, has left a bequest of $10,000 to the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Connection, for the object of preparing missionaries for work in India.. -The United Methodist Free churches constitute one of the largest and most prosperous sections of Methodism in England. Generally they hold their annual conference at the same time as the Wesleyans. This year the annual conference was held in Sheffield, commencing July 20. Rev. T. Sherwood was elected president for the year. Encouraging reports were read, showing that the denomination was in a healthful and vigorous condition. Twelve new chapels had been erected during the year, and sixty-nine had been enlarged. The total amount expended upon chapels and schools amounted to about $140,000.- A new tabernacle in Auckland, capable of seating two thousand persons, has recently been dedicated for the church of which Thomas Spurgeon, son of the great Baptist preacher, is pastor.-In Tunis, Africa, there are from 150 to 200 Protestants, and a Protestant chapel is to be erected shortly. The Bey has made a gift of a beautiful lot of land, and the people have collected 5,000 francs; about 1,500 more are needed.- The Sunday School Times says that "in Alaska, the Rev. Dr. Sheldon Jackson, who, among his other duties, is the superintendent of the department of education in the territory, has provided "temperance" text-books for use in all the schools of Alaska, and teachers will be required to give regular instruction as to the effects of alcohol and of narcotics on the human system.- -Dr. Corbett, a returned missionary from China, says that "the heathen never go to their temples to worship without carrying an offering of some kind as a proof of their sincerity.". The Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian church has among the Indians eight boarding and nine day schools, with a total attendance of 685; 1,706 communicants in twenty organized churches. Two hundred and forty Indians were added to the churches in the year. -For six years after the missionaries entered Kioto, Japan, they could find no place in which to teach or preach except their own houses. Last year, at the tenth anniversary of Kioto Training School, the governor of the city, the governor of an adjoining province, and other officials sat upon the platform, interested spectators.- -The Wesleyans of Great Britain report a net decrease of 779 members during the past year. A discussion on the present state of Methodism in England brought out the fact that conversions were numerous, but the difficulty was that the church could not keep its members. The startling record was made that in the last year 27,135 persons "ceased to be members." The Wesleyans are facing the fact, and mean to change it if they can.- -From the tone of the Christian Register we judge that the Lakewood Summer School of the New Theology was a great success, and that Dr. Townsend, of Jamestown, "took the cake."Gen. J. A. Newton, who has been made Commissioner of Public Works in New York, in place of Rollin M. Squire, removed, is a convert to the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church at Boucherville, Canada, has a record of births, deaths, and marriages from May 20, 1688, to the present time. The first entry records the baptism of an Indian child by Father James Marquette, Jesuit.A petition has been sent to Rome requesting the Holy See to make Washington, D. C., an episcopal city, and Rt. Rev. J. Lancaster Spalding, of Peoria, its first bishop. The paper has been signed, so 'tis said, by Cardinal Gibbons and Archbishops Corrigan, Williams, and Feehan. Bishop Spalding has been selected with the evident intention of making him president of the new university.- -One of the speakers at the recent National Conference of Charities at St. Paul called the delegates worshipers in the "Church of the Divine Fragments," because the fragments of the universal religion seemed united in an assembly where Jew and Agnostic, Catholic and Protestant met on a common level of desire to aid humanity.Rabbi Levi, of Oberehnheim, Prussia, who celebrated his fiftieth anniversary as rabbi, has been decorated by the Emperor of Germany with the Order of the Crown, 4th class.The Municipality of Basle has granted to the Jewish congregation in that town the handsome Mueshaus," with the object of its being used as a place of worship during the ensuing high festivals. The present synagogue, owing to the increase of the Jewish population, is no longer able to accommodate all the worshipers.

The total con

The government has made over free of charge to the Jewish community in Rome the building formerly known as the Convent Barthelemy de l'Isle, in order that it may be converted into a hospital. The existing Jewish hospital is being demolished, owing to the destruction of the Ghetto. For the same reason the synagogue in the Piazza della Scuole is being razed to the ground, and a new and large synagogue is to be erected elsewhere, on the model of the synagogue in Florence, which is the finest in Italy.- -Germany has at the present day no small part in the missionary work of the world. There are twelve German societies laboring in India, China, Africa, the East Indies, Australia, and Palestine. They are represented by 517 missionaries at 342 stations, are employing 2,560 native agents, and have in charge 193,975 native Christians. Of these 72,000 are communicants, while 40,643 children are taught in their 790 schools. tributions of these societies last year were $1,276,800.- -Mr. Spurgeon has issued 1,800 sermons in regular succession, and is probably correct in stating that no one ever lived who could say the same.- -Bishop Herzog's annual report shows that the Old Catholic movement is still advancing in spite of ultramontanism. His active clergy are at present 57, and nine candidates are expected to be ordainedeight trained in the University of Berne, and one at Bonn, which will raise the number to sixty-six. Adherents have especially increased at Basil, Solottiura, Grenchen, and Luzerne. Frauenvereinen have been established in many places, and are found exceedingly efficient for fostering congregational life. The faithful continue zealous in monetary contributions to the cause, and there are no divisions among them.. The ladies of Yorkshire have raised $40,000 of the $50,000 which they promised through Mrs. Faukes, of Farnley Hall, to obtain the Wakefield Bishopric Fund.- -During the last two months Church Army Missions have been held in Norfolk, England, in a tent, with very large attendances, and a deep impression has been made.- -Since May, the Bishop of Rochester, Dr. Thorold, has confirmed, at fifty-two centers, no less than 8,630 candidates, and there are fourteen more due before the vacation.- -The appointment of Bishop Whipple, of Minnesota, upon the new Indian Commission is hailed everywhere as a gratify. ing indication that the Government is disposed to deal fairly with the Indians, so far as the policy prescribed by Congress will allow.- -Grace Baptist Church, Philadelphia, Rev. Dr. Conwell, pastor, though a very handsome one, and capable of seating one thousand, can not be enlarged, so the church has decided to build a new structure at the corner of Broad and Berks streets. They have purchased a lot for $30,000, and will put up an amphitheater style of edifice, costing about $100, -One congregation in Georgetown, Georgia, is rather particular about its music, judging from this official promulgation, published in a local paper: Be it resolved, That while we, as a church, love good music, and are willing to aid, encourage, and foster singing, we do most heartily disapprove the use of such whistling and laughing songs as were used in our church at the last session of the C. H. M. convention. Done by order of the church in conference assembled.

-'000

EDUCATION.

THE WORLD'S SCHOOL FARMS.-Agricultural adversity has its uses, one of these being to demonstrate the advantage of educated over ignorant farming. So much impressed have many governments been with this that during the last decade or two the most important countries in the world have seen established within their borders various state farms, where investigations into the most profitable kinds of agriculture could be carried on, and where pupils might be trained by greater knowledge to till the fields and raise cattle with more abundant success. The future of Canada depends so greatly on the remunerative cultivation of its unused lands that it is not surprising that the Dominion government should have been anxious to learn what steps had been taken elsewhere to raise the standard of agriculture. The replies to her inquiries have disclosed the fact that in the neighboring States 9,600,000 acres of land were specially set apart by Congress, in order to provide a fund for the endowment of agricultural colleges, the ground, erection, and repair of which were to be paid for by the separate States. From so much of the land as has already been sold a capital of £1,800,000 has been formed, from which an income will be derived for supporting the institutions. One of these is at work in California. It has, including the value of buildings, a total endowment fund of £335,675, an annual income of £7,845, a staff of teachers and practical instructors in agriculture, horticulture, botany, and entomology, and every convenience for trying a series of experiments on the products most suitable for the soils. California is an important vine-growing district, and accordingly a good deal of attention has been bestowed on as many as sixty different varieties of the vine im ported from Europe. That troublesome insect blight, the phylloxera, has also been the object of much solicitude, with a view to its extermination. Under the auspices of the college forest trees have been introduced, and, together with samples of grain and grasses from all parts of the world, have been distributed to intelligent agriculturists in the States for the purposes of observation and report. Another of these agricultural colleges is provided in Indiana, in connection with Purdue University, and a third in Iowa has a farm of seven hundred acres, divided into portions for ornamental planting, orchards, shrubbery, forestry plantations, and natural pasture. Over them all is set the Department of Agriculture at Washington, which spends in research more than £80,000 a year. In Canada and in Europe these institutions have their counterparts. Sometimes they are more purely training grounds for actual pupils, and sometimes merely centers of scientific experiment. At the Ontario Farming College there are six professors and ninety-one students, who work on the farm for one hour every morning, and every other afternoon. The Prussian Agricultural Academy at Poppelsdorf has about eightyfive students, who must be of the richer classes, and each of whom has a two years' course, with all the advantages of a learned staff, farm gardens, laboratories, conservatories, and museums. A Royal Institute for Fruit and Wine Culture exists at Geisenheim, on the Rhine, in the midst of the grape-growing country. It has fifty students, and orchards where experiments are tried with scores and hundreds

of varieties of apples, pears, and wall fruit. Belgium has nine experimental stations, and Russia owns an agricultural college at Petrovsk, where there are 800 students. We have our own similar colleges at Cirencester and Downton, and even Japan has established something of the same kind at Tokio. Some of the results of this agricultural impulse are already to be seen in forests that now cover once desolate regions in France and the barren steppes of Russia, and it can hardly be doubted that the effect of these farm schools will before long be visible in increased returns for farmers and greater prosperity for the various places where they are found.-The Christian World, London.

THE FRENCH ACADEMY.-The French Academy, the existence of which is threatened by the radical journals, was founded by Cardinal Richelieu. It was completely suppressed August 8, 1783, and re-opened in less than two years afterward. Since 1795 it has been incorporated with the institute and it forms a part of what is called the five academies. The other four are the Academy of Inscriptions and Literature, the Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Fine Arts, and the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences. It can not be separated from the institute, and it is, in a constitutional point of view, the equal of the other academies. Its chief object is the revision of the dictionary in the French language, and the drawing up of the historical dictionary of the same. It also disposes of a certain number of prizes, bequeathed by different persons for the encouragement of literature and virtue. The best known of these is the Montyon Prize, founded by the philanthropist of that name, and consisting of the annual sum of 22,563 francs for the French subject who, in the course of a year, will have done the most virtuous action; and a prize of 21,940 francs for the literary work most useful to morals published within less than two years. These prizes are ordinarily divided among several persons, especially the first. The Gobert Prize, which the academy also awards, is 11,249 francs, and is given to the author of the most eloquent work on the history of France.-The Catholic Columbian.

nate.

wood wouldn't "go down." We are a pie-eating people, but we don't discrimiWatch carefully a hungry crowd at a railway station waiting for the gong to strike "the tocsin of the soul," the dinner knell. What protection would the famished travelers have against wooden food well disguised by a salad dressing on top? None at all. They must eat it or go hungry. You can not stop to analyze your food in a railway restaurant; and then there are boarding-house mistresses who-but never mind. Enough has been said to show how great a danger threatens the public stomach, and how heavy a responsibility rests on the Patent Office. If the latter should grant the franchise asked for, it should see to it that the food made from ligneous material be strictly confined to dudes and other cattle.

Paper Water PipeS.-Gas and water service pipes made of paper have recently been exhibited in Vienna. These pipes are made in the following manner : Strips of paper, the width of which corresponds with the length of one pipe sec. tion, are drawn through melted asphalt, and then wound upon a mandrel. When the pipe thus formed has become cool, it is pulled off the mandrel, and the inside is covered with a kind of enamel, the composition of which is kept a secret. The outside is painted with asphalt varnish, and dusted over with sand. It is stated that such a pipe will resist some 2,000 pounds internal pressure, although the thickness of the material is only about half an inch. It is also claimed that the pipes are likely to be useful for various factory purposes, and for laying electric cables.-The Scientific American Supplement.

NOTES. Mr. M. D. Cook, who lives near Mansfield, O., claims to have invented the long-sought-for perpetual motion machine. It is an electrical contrivance, which "propels itself by its own current, and requires only one-tenth of its power to keep itself running, leaving the remaining nine-tenths as a motive power for any machinery to which it may be attached. Mr. Cook claims that his electric engine will never stop except by the wearing away of its own parts, and that it can be utilized for lighting and heating purposes at the same time that it is used for power." -Of 9,000 miles of disputed boundary the Afghan Commission has conceded 7,000 to Russia and 2,000 to the Ameer of Afghanistan.- -Professor Corguillé thus defines electricity in the Moniteur Industrielle: "Electricity may be considered as the whole range of phenomena which arise from the condensation, the rarefaction, or the movement of the ether either around or in the interior of masses of matter. But inasmuch as any movement of the ether necessarily implies both rarefaction and condensation, the above proposition in reality attributes the phenomena of electricity to one unique, primordial cause a variation of the normal force of elasticity of the ether at any point."The bones of a mastodon were dug up near Milan, Mich., a few days ago. The measures were as follows: One part of tusk, broken, 52 inches long, 14 inches circumference; femur, 40 inches; two bones of hind leg, 54 inches; short ribs, laid out from segment of vertebra 40 inches apart, 34 inches long; spine, of a dorsal vertebra, 12 inches long; a tooth 121⁄2 inches across top, 31⁄2 inches wide, 7 inches deep. Many parts of the skeleton were lacking.- -The amount of pressure per square foot with the wind blowing at 20, 30 40, 50, 60, 70 and 80 miles an hour is respectively 2, 41⁄2, 8, 121⁄2, 18, 25 and 321⁄2 pounds.- -Herr Adler von Küffner, of Vienna, has given the sum of 200,000 florins for the erection of an observatory in Vienna. Messrs. Jackman and Webster report in the Photographic News their results in photographing the retina of the human eye. A small camera was employed, placed behind an ophthalmoscope, and the albo-carbon gaslight was the means of illumination. In the photograph the normal cupping of the optic disk and the principal blood-vessels are readily discerned. It is evident that but a beginning has been made in this method of research; but, if continued, very valuable results may be obtained. The method of Brainerd and French in photographing the vocal cords and the interior of the larynx promises equally well, and is now employed by a number of laryngologists in making permanent records of abnormalities in these parts.A Hungarian inventor has asked permission to exhibit to the fire commissioners a chemical fire extinguisher of his own invention, which he guarantees will put out the worst fire in less than two minutes. He calls it the Pyroleter.The longest clock pendulum in the world is at Avignon, France. It is sixtyseven feet long, and requires four-and-a-half seconds to swing through an arc of nine-and-a-half feet.The longest tunnel in the world is that of St. Gothard, on the line of railroad between Lucerne and Milan. The summit of the tunnel is 900 feet below the surface at Andermatt, and 6,600 feet beneath the peak of Kastelhorn, of the St. Gothard group. The tunnel is 261⁄2 feet wide, and is 18 feet 10 inches from the floor to the crown of the arched roof. It is 91⁄2 miles long; 15% miles longer than the Mont Cenis tunnel.- -The longest span of wire in the world is used for a telegraph in India over the river Kistnah, between Besorah and Sectynagrum; it is more than 6,000 feet in length, and 1,200 feet high.

NOTES.-The Jewish Messenger says: "Russia has, of late, dealt so harshly with Jewish scholars at the public schools that it is refreshing to hear of two instances in which special consideration was shown by the heads of such establishments. At Riga, the school committee, on two occasions, transferred examinations, which should have been held on Saturdays, to week days, for the exclusive benefit of a single Jewish pupil. At Wilna, special facilities are given to three Jewish young ladies attending the gymnasium, whereby they are relieved from the necessity of desecrating the Sabbath and festivals."- -Prof. Adolf Frank has resigned his professorship of philosophy at the College de France, after having lectured there for fifty-four years. Professor Frank published, in the year 1844, a work about the Cabbala, which was translated into German by Dr. Jellinek.Sarah Winnemucca, the Indian princess, can speak five tongues-three Indian dialects, English and Spanish. She is now a school-teacher, and urges her people to educate their children.— -The Cologne Gazette says that the Minister of Public Instruction has decided that women shall not be admitted as students to any of the Prussian universities, or permitted to attend the lectures.- -The pupils of the Steinwerder Navigation School have built and presented to Prince Bismarck the model of a full-rigged ship, completely equipped. It has been placed in an artifi cial lake in Prince Bismarck's park at Friedrichsruhe.- -The annex to the Philadelphia Manual Training School has been completed, and will be thrown open to the pupils at the beginning of the next school year in September. It will be used for experimental practice in bronzing, soldering, and light metal work, and pupils will be thoroughly instructed in these branches.- -Bishop Spalding says: have found our people everywhere enthusiastic over the project of a National Catholic University. It was something the church had long needed, and now that the idea is in a fair way of being realized, Catholics in all parts of the country are contributing their mites. I have collected quite a large amount of money, indeed, but the figures cannot be made public till the next meeting of the board of trustees. There is no doubt that building operations will be begun before another year has passed." -Miss Lindley, Meadville, Pa., left $10,000 to Alleghany College, at that place, for needy students' benefit.- -Dr. J. C. Hartzell lectured at Chautauqua, August 10th, on "Storm Centers in our Southern Sky." The Assembly Herald spoke highly of the effort, and several distinguished educators from the South who were present congratulated the speaker on what they characterized as a manly and fair discussion of the educational and negro problems in the South.. -Dr. Cohn, one of the professors at the University of Heidelberg, has received an invitation from the government of Japan to accept a chair in the Faculty of Laws, at Tokio.The municipal officers of Paris ordered that books wherein the name of God is mentioned must be excluded from the public schools. This order was cancelled by the president of France.. -The Rabbinical Seminary, of Amsterdam, has 75 students, all born in Holland; 40 are natives of Amsterdam. The library of the seminary consists of 5,480 works, among them 2,533 of the Jewish literature.

SCIENTIFIC.

"I

LIGNEOUS FOOD.-An application has been made at Washington for a patent for a machine which manufactures cattle-food from wood. The cold chill which will go through the country when the above fact is generally known will bring the summer season to a premature close. To think that the near future may force upon us beefsteaks any tougher than those which so often defy mastication at present is to plunge into the depths of an awful melancholy. Then, again, this is such a wicked world! How do we know that this wooden food will be confined to cattle? The public taste, which has grown accustomed to bisulphate of mercury, arsenic, copper, sand, and boarding-house hash could be readily deceived if the patent cattle-food were put up in cans, handsomely labeled, and sold at an exorbitant price. There is nothing in the past to show that peach pie made of pine

STATISTICAL.

A MORAL IN STATISTICS.-It is a trite saying that figures will not lie. It might be added to the old truism that figures can "point a moral and adorn a tale." In the hands of a skillful statistician they grow eloquent and logical, and have a way of going directly to the point that can not be accomplished in any other manner. A rare instance of this is to be found in the paper recently read by Mr. Edward Atkinson before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, upon "The Relative Weakness and Strength of Nations." It was a paper of figures, tables, and comparative statistics, which illustrated his subject with all the clearness and accuracy that engravings give to a book or maps to a geography. More than this, his numerical illustrations suggest a very significant moral.

It may be of interest to socialistic agitators and to discontented workingmen to learn that not more than 10 per cent. of our annual product can be set aside for the increase of capital, while 90 per cent. is consumed in the process of production, and that, while 7 per cent. of our money is required for Government taxation, it

that Paris is preferable as women are admitted to every course and clinic in the schools. The first lady surgeon in Great Britain, Mrs. Mary Emily Dowson, was invested with letters testimonial of the Irish college of surgeons on June 5th, under the new charter of 1885.-Dr. Sarah M. Wilbur has been appointed resident physician to the State primany school at Monson, Mass.- -Drs. Russell and Miranda, of Springfield, Ohio, are making a series of interesting experiments by burning dogs alive, so as to examine the brain of the animals put to death in this way, with the hope of proving that the theory set up in the Xenia murder case is wrong, and to establish that the theory set up by the doctors is right.

RAILROADS.

A UNIQUE RAILROAD.-There is a little narrow-gauge railroad in central Illinois which is rather amusing. It runs through a rich farming country and is owned and managed by wealthy farmers. The conductors, engineers, and brakemen are farmers' sons who have grown weary of raising cattle and corn and who have taken to" railroading" as a relief. The various stations along the line of this little railroad are of no consequence whatever, except to their score or more of inhabitants and to the farmers of the neighborhood. A train starts from each end of the road every morning after breakfast, runs to the opposite end of the road by dinner time, returns again for tea, and ties up for the night. As there is no telegraph line connected with the road nobody at any of the stations knows when a train is coming until it arrives in sight. As the rails are laid on ties placed on the flat prairie, and as no grade exists from one end of the road to the other, the tall grass has an awkward habit of getting under the wheels and stopping the train. Not infrequently also the light rails spread apart and the cars run off the track, and go tumbling along on the virgin prairie. Whenever a little accident of this kind occurs the engineer, conductor, brakemen, and passengers jump to the ground and lift the cars into place again. The passengers ride in a car reserved for them in the rear of a long line of freight cars. Half of this car is partitioned off in order that it may also serve for carrying mail bags, express matter, and baggage. Not infrequently passengers walk into a village ahead of the train and announce that the cars will follow them in an hour or two, providing they can be kept on the track long enough. Sometimes a locomotive gets stalled on some one of the several gentle hills along the line. The trainmen thereupon quietly wait until the other engine appears. Then the two engines draw the train up the hill. Notwithstanding the oddities which exist in the management of this little railroad it hauls large quantities of freight, and is making money for its stockholders.— Chicago News.

NOTES.-The Northern railroad of France has found by experiment that nickel can be rolled upon soft steel plates in such a manner as to produce a material for headlight reflectors of equal brilliancy of reflection with those made of silvered copper. These reflectors are reported also not to rust, and owing to the greater strength of the material, to be less easily knocked out of shape. The cost is only 55 per cent. of the cost of silvered copper reflectors.- -It is estimated that the yearly loss to German rail works by the dissolution of the International Rail Convention and the conventions with England and Belgium will not be less than £500,000, of which about a third will fall to foreign contracts. Already the price of rails has fallen 1 5s. per ton in the international market, and nearly 1 in Germany.- -An iron bridge on the Pennsylvania railroad weighing 190 tons was recently moved bodily 32 feet in 48 minutes by half a dozen men, under the supervision of master carpenter Webb, of the Pittsburgh division, with the object of placing it on a stone arch. This is the third operation of the kind since May. There was no impediment to the passage of trains, the rails being elevated accordingly as the bridge was lifted and ballasted by the track men. Three 60-ton jacks were placed under each end. All the iron bridges on the Pittsburgh division, after being in use for twenty-five years, are to give place to stone. Heavy locomotives are to be put on the road.--English trade journals are finding encouragement for the steel trade in the more extended use of steel sleepers: For several years past, as is well known, these sleepers have been largely adopted in Belgium, Germany, France, and other continental countries, and lately large quantities have been sent from English steel-works to India. A strong yet light corrugated steel sleeper, with a special steel clip for fastening, for colliery purposes, has been patented. Half-penny fares on the London underground railroads are predicted for the near future. It appears that some of the suburban London tramways have tried the experiment of low fares and report satisfactory results. The Southwark and Deptford Company report that in the past half-year they carried 134,000 passengers at a half-penny each, and 2,323,000 at a penny each. The average fare overhead was only 1.01d.- -The Chicago Herald tells of a Pullman car conductor who shaves himself when moving fifty miles per hour in his car. The. Herald also says: "I know an engineer who regularly shaves himself on his engine. He is a young and handsome fellow-one who likes to look nice all the while--and when he gets out in the country where there is a clear track he lets go the throttle

and takes up his razor. -The National Car-Builder says: "There is just now quite a breezy activity in car-building. The activity has been on the increase since the beginning of the year, and the present state of things contrasts most favorably with the long period of depression which began in 1883. Both road and contract shops are, with few exceptions, full of work, and the orders already booked, when reinforced with the new ones that are pretty sure to come, will make business brisk until the close of the year and perhaps longer. The orders in hand include all sorts of cars for a large number of roads. Important additions are being made to the passenger equipments of several leading lines, including some heavy orders for sleeping and drawing-room cars to be delivered within the next four or five months. There is also an active inquiry for street cars, and the demand for locomotives is said to be twice as good as it was a year ago. Considering the drawbacks incident to the strikes and labor agitation, the present outlook for railroad business is quite as promising as the most sanguine could have predicted a few

months ago.

FINANCE AND COMMERCE.

THE BUSINESS SITUATION. With money active here, with all European markets disturbed by the Bulgarian difficulty, with the official rate in London put up one per cent., and with a chance that our securities might be returned from that center and gold shipments to America cease, it is not surprising that our stock market should have been dull during the past week and for a time prices a little lower. The truth is that these conditions have brought the speculation for the rise to a standstill, so that some weak holders have sold out, while efforts to depress values have been constant. Under such circumstances, the course of the market affords good evidence of inherent strength and confidence in the general situation.— The Financial and Commercial Chronicle.

ABYSSINIAN ECONOMIC PRODUCTIONS.—Among the vegetable articles of diet of the Abyssinians, the first place is taken by teff (Poa abyssinica), a herbaceous plant, whose grains are as small as a pin's head; the meal from this forms the bread in general use. A much inferior black bread used by the poor is made from

ter.

a kind of millet called tocusso (Eleusine tocusso), frequenting the low grounds. In addition, the roasted seed of the flax plant (Linum usitatissimum) is sometimes eaten, as it was by the ancient Romans and Greeks. Another admirable vegetable is the flower stalk of the local plantain, called ensete (Musa ensete), the fruit of which is dry and unfit for eating. The stem is cooked with milk and butIt is cut off just above the rootlets, and about two feet high. If old, the green outer coat is peeled off till the white interior shows. It is as tender as a wellcooked turnip, with a flavor like the best new bread somewhat underdone. It is fermented drink called bousa is made. The coffee grown in Abyssinia is princian excellent dish, nourishing, wholesome, and digestible. From meal cakes a pally sent to Djedna and Upper Egypt; though not of first-rate quality, it possesses

The

a special aroma, and is sold at the rate of $16 per cantaro of 113 rottoli (say 375. per cwt.) The women of Gurage make mats of the leaves of the ensete. ecca of the Abyssinians, a species of asclepiad, produces a tough fiber, used in making cordage and tissues on the Red sea littoral. The bark of Calotropis newly pulled from the stipa of the doum palm are woven into all kinds of matting gigantea affords excellent fiber, used for various purposes. The tender leaves

and basket ware.

The powdered seed of a large tree called berebera (Millettia ferruginea) is thrown into the water to stupify fish and facilitate their capture. The native dress consists of a large folding mantle and close-fitting drawers. The houses are rude comical structures, covered with thatch. Among the local products figuring in the exports are: Calves' hides, salted and sundried; beeswax, chiefly from Gedaref; ivory, tamarinds, ostrich feathers, gutta percha, from Kassala; gum arabic, mother-of-pearl, leopard skins, about 1,000 annually to India; musk, contained in bulls' horns, to the number of 200 to 300 a year; honey, and tobacco, chiefly from Sanaaid.—Scientific American.

NOTES. An Eastern capitalist has recently found that the white incrustations about the rivers and pools of Wyoming are in many cases soda, and not alkali. He finds also a kind of sand which is the best possible sand known in the manufacture of glass. Thus, Wyoming's most dreaded enemy is blessing her.The total lake shipments of iron ore from the mines of the different ranges for the current season, up to and including Wednesday, the 18th, are as follows; Marquette, 518,805 tons; Escanaba, 834,107 tons; St. Ignace, 39,431 tons; Ashland, 374,082 tons; Two Harbors, 169,733 tons. Grand total, 1,639,158 gross tons.- -Prof. Henry Wurtz, the eminent chemist, says: "I will venture to enounce as my own conviction, which, however visionary it may be deemed by many, I claim to be strictly founded on induction from known facts, that, throughout large sections of the United States (throughout the middle tier of counties in Western New York for example), every town, nay, every house in the land ought to be both warmed and lighted by gas drawn from the bountiful bosom of Mother Earth, without money and without price."- -A German zinc combination has been formed and will endeavor to enforce reduction in the production of zinc. The zinc industry has for a long time suffered from depression-though not like the iron and steel industries— but it is supposed that it will now receive a decided impetus.-The average life of a greenback is three years. When worn out, the Treasury Department redeems it and reduces it to pulp. The textile industries of Philadelphia employ about 70,000 people, and give support to nearly 300,000.In 1840 eighteen carts supplied New York city with ice, now several thousand go through the city daily. The Kennebec crop of ice alone employs 2,500 vessels of four hundred tons each. The ice used in the United States at present, in various ways, does not fall short of 1,000,000 tons per year.- -Cincinnati does something else than pack pork. It leads in the quality of crockery and table-ware, both plain and decorated, using about eighty kilns for that purpose; manufactures in iron and wood, especially safes, locks, and vaults, are important; and it now leads all other cities in the manufacture of light buggies and photons.- -The following will give some idea of the pork industry in the United States as compared with other countries. Every year this country slaughters about 28,000,000 head, and owns about 45,000,000 head. Russia comes next, and owns 10,000,000, to Germany's 9,000,000. The United States has about eighty hogs to every one hundred people, and Europe has fifteen to every one hundred.- -The present condition of the Glasgow shipping trade is the worst on record. Thirty-four steamers and twenty-three sailing vessels are ro'ting at their docks, having been idle some two years. This state of affairs is attributed to low freights and the general depression in business.—The Dutch Chambers have passed the bill increasing the duty on foreign raw sugars and raising the allowance on Dutch colonial waste sugars. -Mr. Atterbury, of Pittsburg, after visiting European glass-making communities, expressed a conviction that American manufacturers of glass have no need to go abroad to take lessons in their art, and that no nation can compete with this in any branch of the business except in the manufacture of window-glass, which Germany is enabled to send us only because of the extreme low wages paid in that country.In addition to the two