The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1875-11-12
TOPICS OF THE TIMES.

Professor Fritz finds that the seasons
when hail is the most frequent are those
when spots on the sun are most numerous.
| On the other hand, in years when the spots
are at their minimum, hail is rare or absent.
| .Alss, when the aurora is very frequent DUR
ing the winter, frequent hail storms occur
in the following summer.
Mr.. Leverrier has thrown damper upon
the costly astronomical expeditions to OBJ
serve the transit of Venus by asserting in a
recent discussion at the French Academy
that such observations are utterly valueless
for the determination of the suns parallax,
| optical disturbances oecasioned by the at
mosphere of Venus making it itimpossible to
| fix the exact timesof contact. go
The dispatch from Lima, Peru, giving
the result Of the Peruvian elections illus
trates the growth of telegraphic facilities.
That dispatch was the first ever sent from
that city, and it went long distance to
reach this country. 1t crossed the Andes,
passed under the Atlantic from Brazil to
Portugal and returned to this continent by
way Of London and Newfoundland.
A correspondent of the Cincinnati En-
Quirer announces that he'll "give a big
sum of money to see the man smart
- %n H. r. A
and go to butchers and buy between
them eighty pounds of meat which the
butcher values at ten cents pound, and
for which he therefore wants 49, Now, A
takes fifty pounds of meat and B thirty,
and upon examination they agree that AS
meat is worth one-half cent pound more
than BIS. Query: How much did each
pay the butcher?"
There are some frauds of which the life
seems to be eternal. Once more we find
travelling through the newspaper what pur-
ports to be a letter written by Publius Len
tulus to the Roman Senate, giving an ac-
count of the personal appearance of the
oafiouts hio lCbtOI 10 LuC NUfh VI OIG
John Huarte. Frenchman or Spaniard of
the sixteenth century; and the cheat has
been over aud over again exposed Troy
Times.
The model debtor has just turned up in
Minneapolis in the person of General w
d. Washburn. About year ago the Gen
eral made an assignment for the benefit of
his creditors. and according to the estab-
lished custom his assets should have paid
somewhere from ten 70 forty GENTS on the
dollar By some utterly unaccouutable |
honesty somewhere, however, his debts |
have been paid in full, and his asslgnees
have restored to him assets amounting to !
about $4,000 The General will proba-
bly, find no difficulty in getting such credit
AS he may want hereafter,
The granite monument ordered by Con-
gress at cost of $4,000. to be erected to
tile memory OF II, 700 unknown dead at |
Salisbury, N. c., has been finished, and
will be set in short time. 1t is an obelisk,
about forty feet high, including the base.
A wreath surmounts the top, and on the
face, inclosed in circle denoting immor-
5ality, are the words s'Pro Patria." Be-
meath, in raised characters upon draped
pail, ale the figures 11,700, denoting the
1umber of unknown soldiers buried there.
The work of erecting the marble head
.tnnac nvIaraJ h1y( |
If the known Federal dead in the natl
goes on rapidly, and will be en-
irely finished within a year. twenty-five
cemeteries have been already provided
The number of such graves is about 150,-
100, and the unknown about as many more.
The plays of Shakespeare, and especially
Hamlet" have been looked at from many
'eculiar points Of view-philosophica his
orical, archaeological, and SO forth-but we
o not recollect that anybody has treated
hem as allegories. This, however, has at
sngth been done. A recent English writer,
nder the pseudonym of "Mercade,' re-
uces g Hamlet" to an allegory, which
the struggle of Truth and Error in
ne world as seen through the medium OF :
rctestaat principle. The author asserts
nat Shakespeare had his own opinion in re-
ard to the great controversies SO character
tic of the times in which he lived, and he
roceeds to argue that Shakespeare could
OF possibly have abstained from leaving
osterity grand symbolical interpretation l
the destiny Of man, from his own point
view, and that the abstract principles of :
berty, tradition, indifference, and SO on, f..
re severally personified by Fortinbras, =
olonius, Rosencranz, and others. Hamlet !,
imself is Progress: the King is Authority
i'd Oppression; ophelia is Church Ilfu-
ice, and she and her father together repre-
mt Church and State as they were before I
70 Reformation. All through the play /
amlet, or Progress, triumps over the myr- !
idons of oppression. Graphic. '
ILE