Morning journal and courier., 1881-07-06

is said to be worth one or two millions.
 There are several Senators who have no other income than their salaries They can- not draw more money than is actually due them, but are entitled to their salary whether they come near Washington during the ses- sion of Congress or stay away. If they do not call for their money, it is sent to them on the 1st of July each year. The majority of Senators are railroad directors, presidents of railroad companies presidents of banks bank directors, etc. Pendleton and Sherman both have large railroad interests, as also has Henry G. Davis, of West Virginia, who has large mining interests, besides a large copl- mercial business in Baltimore Plumb and Ingalls,, of Kansas, ,are both interested in rail road enterprises in the Southwest. With but few exceptions, all of them are interested in some way with some corporation or other The $5,OO0 salary paid Senators is, there fore, to them minor consideration. There is not one of them that would not be willing to serve as United States Senator without the salary and question whether there is one of them that would serve if the salary was the only consideration at stake.
 Instinct as a Guide in Dietetfcs.
 From the Boston Journal of Chemistry.1
 Instinct" as Falstaff says, lis & great natter" and it is curious and instructive to note how in the absence of scientific knowI- edge, it has guided the human race in the se- lection and preparation of their food as well as such knowledge could have guided them, and in some cases even better. It has some- times been right when science for the time was wrong, and the latter has eventually had to acknowledge the mistake it had made. It is not many years since the discovery was an nounced that the bran of wheat has a high nutritive value, and forthwith we were ad- monished by dietetic reformers that fine wheaton bread was not an economical food for the workingman. But that unscientifc 1Nar 1o1 ,aI 4o A1o e. white loaf to the coarse brown one, and de- clined to be a convert to the new theory. His scientific brother naturally ascribed this to the force of habit or prejudice and was very severe upon the obstinate Wastefulnesr of the poor in throwing away an important part of their scanty fare. But, as we now know, the instinct that led the workingman to stick to the bread which the experience of many generations had taught him to prefer was right in its choice. The brown bread did, indeed, contain more nutriment than the white, but in the process of digestion the body got more nutriment from the latter than the former. The action of the bran particles on the alimentary canal caused the coarse bread to pass through 1t too rap idly, and the loss in this way WAS greater than the gain in the other. Improved pro- cesses now furnish a fine flour in which the old waste of nutritious material is large ly prevented; bat even under the old meth ods of milling, the notion that "white bread is the poor mans food" was correct. It was brown bread that was the luxury, suited to the dyspeptic rich man, but too dear for the hea thy and hard-working poor. Science was too nasty in it's first inferences, and has since learned that the digestibility of food and it's aptitude for assimilation must be con- sidered, and not merely it's chemical compo- sition.
 Equally based upon sound principles is the rlri ao,,bc for Soi entifc men have demonstrated that vegetable food contains essentially the same nutritive matter, while it is good deal cheaper. They have explained that the fbrine of flesh has very close analogy to the gluten of wheat, and is fitted to serve the same purpose in nour- ishing the body, and so with animal fats and vegetable oils, and the other leading consti- tuents of the two kinds of diet; but neverthe- less the poor man persists in spending much of his hard earnings for meat as he can possibly afford If he cannot have the coveted food every day, he will have it when he can, if only once a week. Recent German investigations prove that this preference for flesh has somewhat the same economical arguments in it's favor as that for fine bread in comparison with the coarse. It has long been known that, as Q general rule flesh is easier of digestion, and is therefore more perfectly assimiIated than bread and other vegetable food. We must consider not merely how much nutriment each puts into the body, but how much of it remains there and how much is rejected as waste Good authorities have stated that, if equal nutri- tive quantities of each were eaten, the loss from the vegetable is twice as much as from the animal food; but it would seem from these recent experiments and analyses that the waste of nutriment is often much greater in the case of vegetables.
 AVfstt to the Dead Sea.
 Theodore Cuyler in the New York Evangelist.l
 Our afternoon march over the bleak, tree- less and brown mountains of the wilderness was inexpressibly tiresome until we came in sight of the Dead Sea. It lay 1000 feet be- low us-a mirror of silver, set among the vio- let mountains of Moab. More precipitous descents over rocks and sand brought us, by sundown, to the two towers of the most unique monastery on the globe. The famous convent of Mar Saba is worth journey to Palestine. For thirteen centuries that won- derful structure has hung against the walls of the deep awful gorge of the Kidron It is colossal swallows nest of stone built to the height of 300 feet against the precipice, and inhabited by sixty monks of the Greek church-genuine Manicheans, and followers of St. Saba and St. John of Damascus, No woman's foot has ever entered the convent's walls Instead of woman's society they make love to the birds, who come and feed off the monks hands. Every evening they toss meat down to the wild jackals in the gorge below. At sunset I climbed over the extraordinary building-was shown into the rather handsome church, and into the chapel or cave of St. Nicholas, which contains the ghastly skulls of the monks who were slaughtered by Chosroes and his Persian sol diers-and gazed down into the awful ravine beneath the convent walls. Some monks in black gowns were perched as watchmen on the lofty towers others wandered over the
 
 What an attempt to live in an exhausted re- ceiver!
 The monks gave us hospitable welcome, sold us canes and woodwork, and furnished us lodgings on the divans of two large stone parlors. One of the religious duties of the brotherhood is to keep vigils, and through the night bells were ringing and changing to call them in to their devotions. The vermin in the lodging rooms have learned to keep up their vigils also; and as the result our party with one exception-had a sleepless night. have such Q talent for sleeping, and like Pat ''pay attention to it' so closely, that was able to defy even the feas and mosquitoes of Mar Saba. By daylight the next morning we heard the great iron door of the convent clang behind us like the gate of Bunyan's "Doubting Castle, t" and for five hours we made toilsome descent of the desolAte cliffs to the shore of tho Dead sea. That much 1naligned sen has q weird and wonderful beauty. Wo took bath in It's eool, clehf waters, and detected no difference from a bath at Coney Island except that the water has such density that we Aoated on it Ike pine shingles. No fish from the salt ocean can live In it but 1t Is very attractive to the eye on a hot monday. A seorching ride we had aesoss the barren plain to the sacred Jordan-whieh disappointed mo sadly, At the places where the israelites crossed ana our Lord was baptized 1t is about i2o feet wide; it flows rapidly and in turbid cur rent of light stone color. In size and ap' pearance it is the perfect counterpart of the Mnskingum a few miles above Zanesyilie. It's useless waters ought to be turned of to irrigate the barren valley, which might be changed into q garden. For beauty the Jor- dan will not compare with Elijah's Brook Cherith, whose bright, sparkling stream went flowing past our lodging place at Jericho. We lodged over night in Greek convent (yery small), and rode next day to see the ruins of the town made famous by Joshua, Elijah, Zaccheus, and the restoration of Bar. timeus to sight. Squalid Arabs haunt the aa- oxa1 nrnnt