The Athens post. [volume] (Athens, Tenn.) 1848-1917, 1856-11-07
THE DEVILS FIRE.

one 10 save him the trouble OF getting up
early on frosty mornings, and of going out
after the paper--blacking his shoes, and sun.
dry dlsagreeable things. The child had been
born and brought up in the poor.house, and
he was, emphatically, poor in every sense of
the word. His joints were large, and his
muscles small; his fnce was thin, his eyes
hollow, his shoulders narrow, and there was
very little Of him, any way, except the feeling,
of which his master was entirely destitute
This man had neither wife nor child, of course
or, he might have laid in bed to his hearts
content, and had somebody to swear ut, md
possibly beat-but as it was, he exercised all
his venom on the back and the limbs Of this
poor, unoffending child.
Il he lost dollar in trade, there was poor
Jenny all ready to be kicked, and though
he was hardly M large as an ordinary f"ot-
ball, vet he was scarcely ms insensibe If the
fire did not burn, owing to wet wood, this
noble, generous man would pull his hair, and
pinch and strike the child till his body aud
his facc were full of bruises. Poor, spirlcss
boy! God help the lambs without fold or
shepherd He usedto go skulkng about the
house with face us pale us n shroud, the
tears always ready 20 falkland the hopeless,
helpless, yearning look he cast towards
well.dressed child-or rs he stood gazing
with his heart in his eyes wherever the scent
Of food came up, was pitiGu 10 see.
One day the broker lost five hundred dol.
lars. Alas! poor Jemmy--it stormed that
night, and his grievous cries mingled with
the signing blast that raved through the
streets. If anybody heard the shrieks of the
hapless pauper.boy, it was SO wild storm he
faIcied it the wind; and in that cheeress
home, while the rain was driving and the
blinds slammed to md fro, and the very
houses rocked, poor, desolate Jenny died in
his bed!
1t was we'll, the broker said, with sneer
when he found him cold in the morning.
And he gnzed at the bruised forehead, the
swollen lip, the tangled hair, the distorted
features, the body all drawn up, and the eyes
open, white and CHASTITY, staring at him. The
broker turned with shudder, saying "nobody
to help me make the fire now, unless the
devil does" And he kinded the sticks, and
the fire roared into q sudden blaze and snap
ped and crackled-when, horror! great
burning cinder flew into his eye Oh, heaven!
the anguish, the agony, the pair that burnt
his very brain. Blinded and crazed, he saw
not that the flame had caught the carpet and
his cotton dressing.gown. The house stood
alone, the door was iocked-the key in a
pocket, the pocket he knew not where. He
yelled and shrieked, but the yelling wind
Knocked him MS it had done his victims agony
He sought the door, but in his agony fell
over the cold body of the pauper-boy. The
smoke thickened, the flames grew hot, means
nor curses, nor wild ascending prayers availed
him now. God have mercy upon him!-the
fire winds about and above, und ticks him like
n serpent before il destroys.
In the next mornings paper there was only
paragraph about n fire and IN accident, and
two persons burned to death. Where the
soul Of that broker went am unable to tell
but nm certain that poor, broken.hearted
little Jenny went right up to the angels.
PHYSICAL ASPECT OF MAN.-An examina
ton of twenty thousand infants at the Mater
mite, in Paris, gives for the weight of the. new
born ct lbs; the same mean value obtains 70
the city of Brussels. For about week afte
birth, this work undergoes an actual dimnu
ton, owing to the tissue destruction whicl
issues through the establishment Of respira
ton, and which for time exceeds the gail
from nutrition. For the same nge, the NAL,
difference gradually diminishes, and at l:
years their weight is sensibly the same.-
Three years later, at the period of puberty. tn
weight is one half of what it is finally to be
when full development is revealed.
The maximum weight eventually attained
is a little more than twenty times that n
birth, this holding good for both sexes; bu
since the new born female weighs less thai
the standard, and the new born male more, tn
weight of the adult male is 1877 lbs, and o
the adult female l2l lbs. The mean weigh
of man, irrespective Of his period of life, i
above LOT lbs, and of a woman nearly "a lbs
The mean weight OF n human being wthou
reference either to age or sex, is about 80 lbs
NJ. Quetelet, who furnished The abov
statistics rs the result of his researches, state
that communities seem to be under the inhu
ence Of Interchangeable law MS much us tn
individual. "ln communities man commit
the same number of murders each year, an
does it with the same weapons. We Nigh
eEumerate, beforehand, how many individual
wall imbrue their hands in the blood Of the
kind, how many will forge, how many poison
very nearly rs we enumerate, beforehand, ho'
many births and deaths will take place."
WoMAs's Active, it is we'll known, wa
sixteen years old when she was awakened 4
the side Of her husband. Sixteen years oil
say ancient writers, and so boldly, that the
must have seen Ewes register written on tn
lilies of Paradise. Now women-who hav
nine times out Of ten, more curious rabbnici
learning than the mean envy of our sex wi
allow to them-women. inheriting the priv