St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1892-12-17
OLA PODRlDA.

who made tour of the Orient and who,
bv the wav. is something of a magician
himself, tells the following wonderful
story of his experience with some of the
wizards of the far East: ''* One
of these was begun by the largest man IN
the group. who threw great coil Of rib
bons far toward the sky. AS it uncIlied
in midair. a small hawk seemed to be lib
Grated from it, He cirCled around few
times. seized the ends of the ribbons IN
his bcak, and then made off toward
small, white cloud which apparently
formed before our eyes. From this
cloud there now slid to the ground
snake, frog and a smiling native baby,
which one of the wizards 'Wivcs" caught
in her arms and held out for the
wondering crowd to inspect. Next, all
of the magicians save the larger "a per-
feet giant in staturc>, now left the place.
The giant then sat down upon the ground.
He then spread large coIored umbrella
in such a manner as to wholly conceal
himself from our party. Calling me to
his side he eXactcd promise from me to
remove the umbrella after the expiration
of exactly five minutes by the watch. |
did as he directed and was unspeakably
surprised to find that the giant had dis
appeared, though the earth where he had
been sitting was perfectly solid. Re-
turning to the hotel we found our mir
acle-working giant sitting sereneIy on
the porch. When handed him his UNI
brcla he opened it with a quick jerk,
disclosing my watch and chain hanging
in slip-noose from one of the ribs"
TEST FOR PERJUKY.--A method Of
ascertaining when witness is commit
ting perjury is greatly needed by prac-
titioners A hint toward the scientific
treatment of testimony 50 as to obtain a
knowledge Of its value is given in a re-
Gently published statement of a CONVEX
sation between three Kentucky judges.
They all agreed to the statement that a
person who yawns while on the witness
stand is committing perjury. Another
rule sometimes given is that a witness
who repeats the lawyers question before
answering it is Presumably lying. A
Judge recently rewarded wit
ness who had answered all
his counscls questions ghbly,
but repeated carefully every question of
the cross examination before answering
it: Don't repeat the questions, OF the
Jury may come to the conclusion that
you are making up your answers. l do
not say they would be justified in doing
SO, but YOU should remember that there
is such notion prevalent The hesita-
ton of a witness and any device to gain
time before answering are frequently as
signed as reasons for believing that
witness is not telling the truth. An over
glib witness is, however, also suspected,
and all rules thus far assigned have ex-
ceptions. The science of weighing human
testimony is still far from exact, aud the
lawyer who believes wItEess is commit
ting perjury can only pursue the old
methods of examination in the hope that
some slip of the witnesses memory may
betray him.
How TO FOLD AN UMBRELLA.-"No,
not that way! never knew one man in
a hundred to do it right said the clerk
in the umbrella store. His remarks were
directed at a customer who had proceed
ed to roll up a recently purchased UNI
brella to return it to is case. He had
done what 80 per cent of persons who
handle umbrellas do when they attempt
to gather the folds of clCth in a neat roll
around the stick. He had graspcd the
handle with his right hand and was
twisting the silk through with his left
hand. THAT will spoil the umbrella
when you have repeated the operation
half dozen times, the clerk continued,
"and then YOU will be coming here and
complaining that that Sc umbrella wasn't
worth fifty cents Now sec what you
were doing! You were making
pretty roll but did YOU notice that you
were twisting the ribs and braces in
spiral around that stick rs we'll as the
cloth? You may have noticed that your
umbrella sticks and catches when you
try to raise it, That's because you don't
know how to roll it. You twist the
joints of the ribs and braces all out Of
shape There, you see, you have twisted
the ends of those ribs all around in a
bunch on one side OF the handle. Now
let me show you how an umbrella should
be rolled" The clerk took the maltreated
article, shook out the folds of silk, and
worked the spiral out of the ribs, and
proceeded to demonstrate the proper
methods of umbrella rolling. Grasping
the handle in his right land, he encircled
the silk at the tip with his left, which he
slipped down about half way Of the
cloth, pressing the ribs and braces firmly
against the stick. The right hand was
then shifted to the tips of the ribs,
which were held firmly against the stick,
while the left hand adjusted the roll Of
cloth around them. BY this method the
ribs were kept straight along the stick
and not partly twisted around it, as the
c,stOmpr'S roll SIM