The tri-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1866-1868, 1866-08-14
For the Standard.

For the Standard
MEssRs. EDITORS Having just returned
from a cool bath in the atmosphere of New
York and New England, you may be inter
ested to hear a little of my experience and
observations. Things are not perfect there.
The want of good house servants and the
high wages of unskilled labor were widely
bewailed In a house where 1 was stopping
there was a vacancy in the kitchen and an
Irish woman came to negotiate for the place.
''Do We do your own work Mondays ~
said Bridget mo" "Then I don't hire
out in this place p and off marched the
proud foreigner. In vain had my friend
given assurance at the Intelligence Office
that if his family were considered too nu-
merous he would be willing to kill off one or
two. He didn't conciliate enough. The
poorest servant girl asks ut least two dollars
a week.
You have doubtless heard of the Rev. Jo-
mas King, who has lived in Syria and Greece
as missionary for more than forty years.
1 met him and his Greek wife on their re-
turn from Amherst College commencement,
and our conversation turned incidentally on
the preserving of figs, in which Mrs. King
became quite experienced during her resi-
dence in Smyrna, the greatest fig market of
the world The fruit is dried in the sun on
mats In one or two hot days it is sufficient
ly cured, and then the packer dipping his
fingers into bowl of sea-water works over
the fig moment just dampening the skin,
and lays it down in layers in the drum with
the occasional addition of bitter aromatic
leaf between the layers. The sugar which is
found with the imported fig is the simple
juice of the fruit which dries around it
Nothing more than what we have described
is ever done with the exported fruit. For
home consumption the fig is sometimes
pierced and strung on a slender piece of cane
or palm leaf about eighteen inches long, the
ends Of which are tied together and the fes
toon hung up to dry. Sometimes, too, the
fig is cut open. piece of an English walnut
put between the halves and the whole dried
in an oven. 1t then tastes more like candy
and keeps good long while. The Eastern
fruit grows rather larger than our North Car
DINA fig, but that is probably due to cult
walton. If there be u difference in variety
the Bureau of Agriculture ght do good
work by importing some slips from the East
But it was something else that took up my
pen to write about.
The Atlantic cable has at last proved a
success. saw in New York, piece of the
large cable manufactured for the shore-end
to be used for the first thirty miles at each
extremity. 1t is as large as mans arm and
contains eight half-inch wires. The cable
laid in the deep sea is not one fourth of the
size, but like the shore-end, has seven copper
wires in the center twisted together and en-
closed in several lay ers of waterproof COM
position. This forms the core, so-called. a
piece of which is now on exhibition in this
city in the Field and Fireside Bookstore
Around the core the rope part is woven and
the outside literally smeared with tar The
advantage of having seven small wires in
the iDStpo1 nf 1or &c hat; = o
inner part should be subjected to strain so as
to break the copper wires, they would not be
likely all to part at one place. and so even if
they should slide over each other some dis
lance, the connection would be kept up. A
History of the Cable, prepared by Rev. Henry
NJ. Field, brother of the cable-man, is ex-
pected from the press this week. But this is
not what was going to tell You about.
A physician residing in Syria lately secured
a number of ancient coins, the ownership OF
which in the United States would be desir-
able. At my request he entrusted them to
me for sale, and although every one knows
how impoverished this section is, the first
offer of them will be made here in Raleigh
so that any person interested in Historical
Studies may have the chance of obtaining
these souvenirs of the past. One is a tetra-
drachm of silver struck in Syria about
a hundred years before Christ. The head of
the King Antiochus VIII, appears in high re-
lief, while on the reverse is his title T" Money!
of King Antiochus Epiphanes (or the Illus
trious) 211." The date is in Greek letters,
and is to be reckoned from 312 B. c., the
year from which the people of Syria, even
now some Of them still reckon time The
coin is worth by weight about 20 cents in
silver. 1t is of the size generally called in
the New Testament " a piece of silver" This
identical coin was in existence in the time of
our Saviour, and may have been paid out by
him or by one of his apostles, or may have
been one OF the thirty pieces given to Judas
for his treachery. 1t he bought for $40
at the Bookstore of VIM. B. Smith & Co.
At the same place will be offered some coins
Of the Roman Emperor Probus, twenty of
them for five dollars. All have the head of
the Emperor with his titles on one side, but !
On the reverse they have different devices |
md Inscriptions, no two being exactly alike. |
Now, you think that you see what my OBJ |
ect was in this letter, to advertise these |
coins in such way as to save the printers |
dill. Great mistake! But 1 have not time
now to tell what l was going to write about,
except a word or two OF the remarks that / |
heard ON what we may call Southern topics.
There was very little said of President
Johnson, in my hearing, either by those who
lisliked him, or by his friends. Little in
crest was shown in Southern matters COM
pared with Western or European. The first
question of almost all those who knew where
hailed from, was, Well, how are they
reating the blacks down there 2" and gen.
,ral satisfaction and some surprise were ex-
pressed at the progress which the facts of
he past season had enabled me to report
There seemed to be a prevailing desire that
he lately rebel States should be restored
o their practical relations to the govern
nent" and general vexation at somebody
or hindering it. Sometimes it was directed
It the President sometimes at Congress,
md sometimes at the leading men here
The passage of the Howard amendment was
generally spoken of as certain, and the only
person that objected to it, was one who
plainly misunderstood its terms.
F. P. B.