Tombstone epitaph., 1891-02-08
ORIGIN OF AlehAekrA
sAe Letten >A B and o Survive An Changes-lntcrestir, Historical Items.

budIp dHSle, HttH slUeS OI dDOuI eQuS4 length The sounds of the crying ;re those assigned to the first letter of almost avery alphabet. The arrow headed or wedge shaped characters iu use among the old Babylonians and Persians till the time ef the great Aiexander's Asiatic con9uests were copied from the human mouth. By means of different combinations these wedges or As were made to represent sonsonant as well as vowel sounds. But she entire alphabet is made up of these %elges. It required many generations pioSabi! to advance from A and B. Now. look at child's face, sideways when the tips are shut. ahd you .ee a natural B. Tut these two letters together and we nave ab, which by being doubled gives abba, the old eastern worl for father. A flight modification gives am, then amma. the old eastern form of mama or mamma .n the west, just as abba was changed into papa and pope or holy father. The arrow heads had served to record the history, the literature. the religion of mighty empires-the cid Assyrian. Median, and Persian. They were traced mostly On bricks. Paper had not yet been % uluCn a3 dreamed or.
 From, A and B (Alpha and Beta) 2 comprehensive scheme Of phonetic char acters must be worked out before the leaf or rind of papyrus can be used for writing on. The lip letters Nj ard P. voftened into F and V. which last was vocalixed as U, are notifications merely of B. We may safely say the same of the dental D, softened intoT. which gave rise % s. A series of characters ~as gradually worked out, and the time cams when Cadmus, the man from the East, brought an alphabet of fixteen letter. From Phoenicia into Greece. Cadmus looked at as an individual man. dwindln. to a myth-a shadow. He expresses ip legendary form the outcome A$ long train of almost forgotten facts. These sixteen letters were expanded by the Greeks to twenty-four. Light wooden tablets covered with wax for writing on were adopted. But the pen was still of Soid iron. like pencil, sharp at one end, with fiat circular head at the other for plotting out. when desired, what had been written with the point. These tablets were fastened together at the hack by wires, so that they opened and shut like our books. For important documents the edges of the tables were pierced with holes through which triple thread was passed and then sealed. IL is to this custom that allusion is made in the Apocalypsc-''c,ose sealed with seven seals" This Apocalyptic book was "writ ten within and on the back" The an- cients used to write on the front side only-even after they had given up wooden tablets in favor of papyrus and parchment. The back was generally stained saffron CT yellow.
 The old. Italians, too. of prehistoric sge got an alphabet from the cast. The letters were extended and modified uuti they became very different tn form from those or Greece. But it is remarkable that A, B, and O survive all changes. They arc copies of the mouth when emit. .ing the sounds assigned them. Modern typography has no doubt greatly i'm proved the rude, early scrawl, such as nay still be seen on old gravestoncs. The old Ph9niciar and old Hebrew Aieph has not the same position as our modern A. They are almost horizontal. with nearly perpendicular line drawn across the angle formed by the sides of the letter. The later Roman alphabet was spread by Io olan conquest. Our AnglO-SaXon fore fathers at length adopted it. They man. agei to get up sort of literature. But the ago of pocket dictionaries, handy volumes, the daily or even weekly ncws papers was still a long asy off. Art anf discovery have still long aL ;rcn.iccshir before w6can inundate our postoihc1 rIth valentines CT photograph instanta aeously on paper the tail cf sonie mi ,,ht, ss<.ak--S.cSxico Stationery Res.~w. Whose Bear ls This.
 Christian Hess, a woo1chUr7cr, Whilc on the way to his work on tine Blue mountain, came upon tho body of a bear lying near the edsc of the woods Tn Filler creek, tho head snt fore paws resting on the bank. Fasi in ono of the bears claws wa, piece of corduroy nearly Q foot long a.H, three inches wide, which had evident ly been torn from Q hunting coat There were two brass buttons on 1t Hess procured the assistance of fcl low woWichoppcr, and they dragged the bears carcass out Of tho water. There was bullet hole in its left side and several ugly cuts on its head. The bear had not been long dead, as t!r blood where it lay was quite fresh. No ono living in this vicinity is knowr to have worn coat such as the frag ment found ill: the bears claw was tori, irom' There are no evidences of any struggle anywhere around the si", where the bear was found. but the si lent testimony of the piece of coat ant the bears wounds leave no doubt tl,:I the bear and some unknown hunter had big fight in tho woods. What became of the hunter and who he val is as yet mystery. Houckville Pa Cor. New York Sun.
 Sarcasm is dangerous weapon, but like other dangerous weapons, it i! very useful on occasion. A Maine street car was lacring along at the rate of a mile ar hOuf, and the conduc tor was sparring with himself to keel from freezing. At the same time ht consistently left the door open. to tho great annoyance os the shivering pas sengers.
 Finally pretty young lady beck I l. I l. ! l..