The Newtown bee., 1879-10-15
TIMELY TOPICS.

| The Cheyenne (Wyoming Territory
Leade, says that the question of dividing
Dakota into two or three territories il
being agitated with a degree of vim and
persistency that promises success. Sew
eral plans of division are suggested.
Dakota at present contains an area as
large as three times that of the State of
Iowa, and no region of country is filling
up or developing more rapidly.
Three romantic Kentucky girls re-
Gently hit upon better device for secur-
| ing husbands than by advertising. They
| lived on the banks of the Ohio river,
| and agreed each to set bottle afioat
containing paper on which was written
her name and promise 10 marry whom
soever should find the bottles. One of
the girls has married recently the man
who found her bottle far down the river,
the second is engaged to the one who
found hers at Natchez, Miss, and the
third is in correspondence with the
finder of hers, who also lives 1T a great
distance from the point where the bot
les were launched.
Speaking of the tradition that Captain
Kidd buried treasure at the mouth OF
Cape Fear river, the Wilmington On. CO
Star says that even now the work goes
on, and travellers over the country roads
in that direction often see mysterious
excavations by the roadside and Mt
night catch glimpses OF weird-looking
groups furtiyely plying the pick and
spade blythe light of torch in quest of
the hidden treasure. The mysterious
seekers for these stores of the freebooters
are generally colored people, whose Gu
pidity and superstitious fa1cies are
worked upon by so-callel diviners of
their own color. No one has ever heard
of their being rewarded for their toll and
trouble, and in all probability no one
ever will.
Students do not seem to be havemuch
better in China than they do (someiimes)
in the land of the free. At Nanking
lately the prefect had the audacity 10
issue a proclamation, the purport OF
which was that the Mantchoo students
were constantly misbehaving them
selves The consequence of this was
that at the next recitation there was a
regular shindy between the Mantchoo
candidates and some of their rivals.
Brickbats flew freely about, and one IN
fortunate youth had his front teeth
knocked out. Then there was regular
hail-sterm of bricks; fractured heads
became numerous, and the police inter
posed to stop the exercises. 1t appears
that young men will be young men the
world over, but the necessary connec-
ton between intellectual cultivation and
bad behavior has thus far been practi-
cally rather than philosophically demon
strsted.
The French papers, speaking of the
harvest which has been gathered in
France, say that on the whole the appre-
tensions caused by an interninable
winter, spring that only existed in the
almanacs, and the incessant rains of the
months OF June and July, have not been
wholly realized. The harvest has been
hardly as bad as was expected. 1t falls,
however, considerably below the aver
age, but may. it is thought. equal the
production of last year. This, accord
inc to the Minister of Agriculture, was
95, ,270, ,69s hectolitres of wheat-in other
words, about $50, 000, 900 bushels. The
vintage Will probably be very bad. Be
tween 1875 and 1878 it is computed that
France lost in some places half and IL.
others one-third of her vines. Great
exertions have been made to import
new vines from healthy places. Cyprus.
Spain, and even the United States have
been visited by French agents for the
purpose.
In an article on the Russian advance
eastward, the Cologne Gazette estimates
that II. 900 Russians are every year BAN
ished to or sentenced to penal servitude
in Siberia. Peasants from the central
and western provinces, who from vari-
Gus causes find life in their own homes
unbearable, quit the latt n to migrate to
the Dorado beyond the Volga, where
they have been taught by the traditions
of their foreiathers that they will find
free land and free life. Arrived az
their destination, however, these emil
grants only find themselves exposed to
bitter disappointment. There is land
enough to support thousands upon thou
sands of families, but it has been for the
most part bought up-often at merely
nominal prices-by officials and specu-
lators, and the emigrant, on arrival. con-
sequently finds himself compelled to buy
or Fay high rent for the ground he
would cultivate. The result is that
everywhere beginning has been made,
but little more has been done. Villages
are to be found in the middle of forests,
and here and there, in otherwise waste
and desolate districts, settlement has
been made and a chapel has been built
by a party of dissepters. Beyond this
little progress has been made. sE1
Edible and Poisonous Mushrooms.