davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The St. Johns herald., 1894-04-05
HER BEST.
Pathetic Instances of the Child's Instinct
 for Fun.

Pathetic Instances of the Child's Instinct
 for Fun.
 Mrs. Molesworth, who writes'a nov ing article in Woman Work, concern ing the necessity of obtaining fun, food and fresh air" for all classes of children, says that there are among Londons poor thousands of little ones who never had a toy.
 Yet still the child's instinct to make believe surmounts every practical ob- stacle, and there is true story of one little sufferer from chronic disease whose only plaything were the spots of damp on the wall beside her bed. She played they were real and alive; she gave them names and imaginary qualities.
 Another true story showed how far the little candle of wise and loving word may throw it's beams. A teacher at a Sunday school for London's poor was trying to impress upon her little pupils some idea of the real meaning of giving.
 ''Whatcver it may be-" she said, tour offering to God should be of our best, of what we prize most"
 In one baby heart her words found ready response. Next day a little creature conided her offering to the teacher; it was a carefully tied pack age, containing a few grains of rice. This was her most precious and per haps her only treasure.
The St. Johns herald., 1894-04-05
A TIPPLING CANINE.
The Lamentable End of Dog That Ac-
 auired Taste for Liquor.

The Lamentable End of a Dog That Ac-
 quired Taste for Liquor.
 The writer of Natural History Notes" in the Yorkshire Weekly Post, referring to the extract from MT. Phil Robinson's new book, in which the au- thor described how a hear was lured into drunken bout, mentions some remarkable instances of taste for al cohol among the lower animals. He says: q possessed a very fine deer hound. One day, while emptying some Scotch whisky out of jar into de- canter, I split 8 quantity on the floor. Juno, who had been sniffing about, immediately began tapping it up, and, to my great astonishment, seemed to heartily relish the blend As far as l knew that was the beginning of a sad and brief career. Juno became no torious drunkard. She frequented sev- eral public bars and was the subject of many wagers. She could drink any, thing in the liquor line-aHything but water and milk. have seen her stag gering home very early in the morning after 'booze.' The end came before she was three years old. A friendly V. s. and I held 'crowner quest on the carcass. Verdict-Died of infiamma- tion of the brain, the effect of alcohol" "
The St. Johns herald., 1894-04-05
Havana Tobacco.

In the Abajo valley is a small, low piece of country, about five miles from Havana, capableof producing tobacco enough to make thirty thousand cigars annually. Without question, the to- bacco is the finest grown. The result is the kings and noblemen of England, Russia, Germany, France and other Flu ropean countries gobble them Up. Every single cigar made of Vuelta Abajo tobacco is sold to them at prices ranging from twenty to one hundred and fifty dollars hundred. These cigars are bought and paid for long before the crop is ever harvested. Manufacturers, however, with that re- markable eoolness with which some men are endowed, proceed to call all qualities and kinds of Cuban cigars Havana and Vuelta Abajo, when half of them never saw a cigar of that growth,
The St. Johns herald., 1894-04-05
Eorks,I Half a Day.

The people of Manitou were enter tained the other day, says Q core 3pondent of the Denver Republican, 5y the spectacle of nan carrying Q stone around a triangular track, letting
 | drop and shouldering it again at every turn. The performer was man who has a reputation for disinclina- tion to labor, and the incident was the outcome of a vail he was making about the hard times and his inability to get work. A citizen told him he would not work if he got chance, and offered him fifty cents an hour as long IS he would carry the stone. To the surprise of all he accepted the offer md held out for five hours. A large crowd gathered to watch the perform lnce,
The St. Johns herald., 1894-04-05
AovERTis!Na IN MEXICO.
The Natives of That Country Are Far Be-
 hind Us in Their Ideas.


 hind Us in Their Ideas. We have been under the impression that the land of dark-eyed hidalgoes, with their wide sombreros and short jackets and gorgeous silver sashes, the land of beautiful women with graceful lace mantillas, swarthy skins and mid night eyes, was making rapid progress, but this opinion will have tc be amended. says Texas Siftings.
 It is true that the wealthier class have discarded the bright-hued serape and adopted the unpicturesque habili- ments of the gringo. It is also fact that in the City of Mexico the names of the streets have been changed from the political, or intensely religious, to nomenclature the most prosaic. For example: ''The Street of the Sad In dian' and ''Crown of Thorns street. are now respectively Fourth avenue and "Diaz street.
 These and other changes led us to infer that Mexico was rapidly becom- ing ''gringoized," but this delusion is knocked endwise by the following item:
 GA remarkable case is being tried in the courts here. A short time ago a small weekly newspaper by the name Of Fl Periq uito published in its col umns an adv ertisement of business house. Another frn in the business has sued the paper for damages, alleg- ing that they have suffered loss through the publication of the adver- tisennent of their rival. The case is attracting considerable attention, as ii is the first of it's kind in Mexico"
 In our own country the man who does not advertise is regarded as iii subject for the undertaken or the luna tic asylum.
 It is strange that the Mexican: should be so slow to recognize the ad vantages of advertising. There is nc class of industrious citizens who can not profit by advertising. For in stance, a burglar overlooked eighty ] dollars in bureau drawer, and the 10 cal papers so announced. He returned the next night and not only secured l but an almost new suit of clothes be | sides.
The St. Johns herald., 1894-04-05
AN oLD-FAsHIoNeD SCHOOL.
The Noisy Mansion of Learning In the
 Days of the Long Ago.

The Noisy Mansion of Learning In the
 Days of the Long Ago.
 The old system of education, as de- scribed in '"Pleasant Memories of a Busy Life," is one, doubtless, that many boys of the present day would like to see again in use. The author thought it's chief advantage was in giving the teacher fair field for in- fuencing his pupils with his own per sonality. He described his old teacher as ''learned but not pedantic, kind but not effusive, active but not fussy. Wherever there was suffering, wher- ever help was required, he was sure to find his way"
 In his school there was novery strict discipline, but on the contrary good deal of noise. It was "a noisy man. sion." But he was so pleasant himself, and made the work so pleasant, that pupils could not help learning. Being near him seemed to make them wiser and better. It was an instance of what Carlyle calls true education, ''souI coming in contact with soul"
 One of the greatest luXuries he en- | loved was to find some of his pupils able and willing to take up the higher branches. His leisure hours were de voted most heartily to them. He stayed after the usual school time to teach them Euclid and trigonometry. He led them out on the Saturdays along | the shore, through the quarries and ur the Binn, to teach them geology. He invited them to his house of winter evening to see the stars through his telescope.
 The only examination was the yearly one by the presbytery, and it was SC purely matter of form that it was not an ordeal. The examiners, genia brotherhood, sat beaming approval o1 everything, and went away with easy conscience and sound capacities to the dinner which pleasantly closed up the proceedings
The St. Johns herald., 1894-04-05
Early Prejudice Against Women Doctors.


 Medicine as profession for women IS less than fifty years old. Dr. Mary Zabrzewsl1a, of Boston, has recently published an Interesting account of the struggles of the pioneers in this particular field Harriet Hunt and Elizabeth Blackwell were stirred by the iaea that an important work might be done by well-instrueted medical women. The naturalization of this view resulted in complete social ostra- cism, impossible to be endured by any but the strongest and most courageous women. No woman doctor ever earned a living before 1860. No respectable family in any commonly respectable neighboorEood would let rooms to a woman physician. Even when friends gave her shcltera business card or sign was not allowed. The lack of prac- tical training was really the stum- bling block and the cause of all this prejudice.
The St. Johns herald., 1894-04-05
RANCH nATuoNALITIEs.
Dutchnen in the West Who Have Become
 Thoroughly Americanized.

Thoroughly Americanized.
 In 'sThe Wilderness Hunter" Theo- dore Roosevelt says iiiat as a rule no- body di plays much curiosity about other peoples aa;ccedents in the far west; but on one occasion Mir. Roose- welt returned to his ranch and found strange hunter staying there, and asked his foreman who was this new conner, who evidently appreciated good things and seemed inclined to make permanent stay, according to the GUS tom of the country.
 My foreman, who had large way of looking at questions of foreign eth nology and geography, responded with indifference:
 'sOh, he's kind of a Dutchman; but he hates the other Dutch mortal He's from an island Germany took from France in the last war"
 This seemed puzzling; but 1t turned out that the island" in question was Alsace.
 Native Americans predominate among the dwellers on the borders of the wilderness. and in the wild coun- try over which the great herds of the cattlemen roam; and they take the lead in every way. The sons of the Germans. Irish and other European newcomers are usually quick to claim to be straight United States and to tisavow all kinship with the fellow countrymen of their fathers.
 Once, while with hunter bearing a German name, we came by chance on a German hunting-party from one o1 the eastern cities One of them re marked to my companion that he must be part German himself, to which he cheerfully answered:
 'sWell, my father was a Dutchman but my mother was white woman I'm pretty white myself" " whereat the Germans glowered at him gloOmily.
The St. Johns herald., 1894-04-05
MUSIC IN WALES.
Melody Is the Very Soul and Kernel of
 the Welsh Nature.

Every church and chapel in every Welsh village and town, according to the Westminster Review, has its choir, often numbering sixty, seventy or hundred voices, and every choir has its musical prodigies, leaders of parts, mayhap, who have never had a lesson in music in their lives, or some uncouth colliers or tip-girls, with voices which, had they been trained and developed, might have made of them Edward Lloyds or Antoinette Sterlings. Dis trict after district has its ''united choral union," which will take up the study of some work of the great mas ters and deliver it at an annual con- cert or Christmas festival; not in the pale. fickering, dispassionate style which is so characteristic of some Eng fish choirs, but with rugged fire and intensity.
 I have had the good fortune to hear the greatest oratorios rendered under the most brilliant conditions that tal- ent and culture could produce in this the most talented and cultured Of all metropoles, but I have never heard the majestic roll of the Hallelujah chorus or the matchless melodies of the ssEliiah'' rendered with such soul and verve and eloquence as by an obscure united choir,'' led by workingman in mining village among the hills of l Glamorganshire.
 Rough, if you will; ruggedly vehe- ment and impetuous, but rough with the roughness of unpublished genius, impetuous with the impetuosity of mountain torrents The force of it, the emotional fervor, the richness ot volume, the tone and timbre in it. these are things not to be forgotten The same qualities in lesser degree may be observed in the singing of any small chapel choir inside the boundar ies of Wales. You shall never heal such singing as you may hear on quiet Sunday evenings from some Welsh hillside sanctuary by choir of work ing lads and lasses, conducted by some rough-and-ready, unkempt, self taught musician.
 Music, then, we assert, is the yer. soul and kernel of the Welsh nature A musical ear is the national birth right. Every Welsh preacher wht migrates to an English church ind the greatest difficulty in abstainine from that weird. peculiar int onatiol of his sermon which is known as tn hwyl, and which is often strange ant objectionable to English ears.
 Another remark able and subtle fac which will be interesting to Englisl readers and at the same time signif cant of the sensitiveness of the Welsl musical ear, is that it is positive dis cord to many among the Welsh congre gations if the minister, in giving out the first verse of the hymn. does not s pitch the voice that it shall be in hal mony with the key in which the tun has preliminarily been played by tn instrumentalist.
The St. Johns herald., 1894-04-05
AFRICAN COlFFuRES,
Styles That Would Hardly Find Favor in
 This Country.

Styles That Would Hardly Find Favor in
 This Country.
 A recent visitor to Samoa tells of a famous village beauty in that remote region whose headdress is thus de scribed: Round her forehead was a band of small pieces of nautilus shell; above lowered a mass of human hair that had been bleached for months in a marsh, with scraps of looking-glass arranged in front, the whole sur mounted with trail of red humming- birds feathers"
 Dr. Drummond, in his book of Afri- can travel, makes mention of the chief tain's daughter, whose hair, heavily greased with ground-nut oil, was made up into small-sized balls, like black entrants, and then divided into pat circles, and parterres, designed with the skill of a land scape gardener. Both these arrange mcnts' would, in the eyes of civi lized artists and conEoisseurs, be probably regarded as sewage monstrosities, but it is to be doubted whether they are not utterly surpassed by the goldtinch and canary arrangement, by king fishers wing crowned with red shiver ing glass and sham jewels, both II tawdrv insolence and depravity o1 taste. What is called ''barbarous' ! found among savages may, after all be the very height of fashion in May fair, though the cheap finery of the Samoan or African belle is marked neither by cruelty to the victim nor by oroir, to tho artist
The St. Johns herald., 1894-04-05
COTTON AND TOBACCO.
OId-Time Prices of These Commodities in
 the South.

Old-Time Prices of These Commodities In
 the South.
 ''We have before us" says the Rich mond Journal of Commerce, ''sales of two bales of cotton and two hogsheads of tobacco sold at Norfolk, Va, June 9, 1881. by James Gordon, a lifetime commission merchant of that city. The weights of the bales of cotton were 312 and S3O pounds. Price, 6% cents-net sales, $6124. Weight of the two hogs heads of tobacco, 1875 and 1,476 pounds. Price, S2.5O and S3.25 per 100 pounds. Net sales of both, SGS.35. The accompanying letter says: I fear you will be disappointed in the sales of the tobacco. l confess it seems to me a low price, but I assure you nothing better can be done here
 We are not posted as to how long after this leaf tobacco was sold that Norfolk continued a tobacco market.
 "Wonder if treaty was ever entered into between Norfolk and Richmond, that the one should sell cotton and the other tobacco without business compe- tition. If we so conclude the treaty was like that of William Penn and the Indians, unwritten-for it has been faithfully kept to the present day.
 1.-The tobacco farmer of the hour may glean a ray of consolation as he contemplates the price of tobacco in 1881 and compares it with its value in 1893, and consoles himself with the knowledge that our fathers received less than present prices"
The St. Johns herald., 1894-04-05
A vivsEcToR IN AFRICA.
How a Scientific Gent Was Despoiled of
 Five Thousand Dollars

t1Se IncuS3nO
 One of the most curious expeditions ever planned by man was ttat once undertaken by Dr. J. G. Hunting. of Portland, says the Lewiston (Me.) Journal During all his life he had been a close student of the philosophy of digestion, and for the purpose Of his investigations he had that remarkable Canadian, Alexis St. Martin, in his care for twenty years. In order to clinch matters and provide facts for some of the doubting Thomases Dr. Bunting cast about for some one else upon whom he might continue to ex- pertinent.
 He could think of but one plan. and that was to go into Africa, buy two slaves, and operate upon their stom- achs. By opening the body near the fifth rib and perforating the stomach a condition coula be produced similar to that existing in the person of St. Martin. Therefore the doctor pur- chased his supplies and sailed across to Tunis in the north of Africa. There he hired a native chief with forty of his followers, paying them liberal retaining fee and promising them al turing largess when the trip should be ended. They set forth. The doctor carried one thousand pounds in his in side pocket, and the chief probably lay awake four nights thinking about the matter.
 At any rate, on the fifth night he sneaked into the doctors tent and de livered little address over the mug zles of two pistols. When he had con- cluded the doctor passed over his ducats and the chief passed over the border along with his renegade band. They helped themselves to such sup plies as suited their artless and unen. frightened tastes. The doctor came back without q retinue and with deal of experience that will never appear in a medical work.
The St. Johns herald., 1894-04-05
SENATORIAL COURTESY.
How the Italian Ambassador Got Even
 with the French Ambassadors.

How the Italian Ambassador Got Even
 with the French Ambassadors.
 Before the introduction of the tele. graph ambassadors at foreign courts used to be far more important person ages than they now are, and great rival grandeur existed among them. On one occasion, says Cassells Satur- day Journal, new Italian minister had arrived at the Spanish capital, and went en suite to pay his respects to the reigning sovereign. Arriving at one of the reception-rooms to the palace, he found it occupied by an i'm posing-loozing. man surrounded by a glittering throng. These he not un- naturally took to be the king and his courtiers, and with profound obeisance introduced himself
 The supposed king received him with gracious condescension till the doors opened and an even more magnificent train ushered in the real king and showed to the discounted Italian that he had been kneeling before hIs hated rival, the French ambassador, who took no pains to conceal his satisfac- tion at the fiattering mistake. But his triumph was not to last, for in the evening of the same day the king with the Italian as his partner, was playing cards against the French min ister and third ambassador, when ir the course of the game the Italian threw down card, exclaiming: "That is the king and it wins us the trick!'
 His partner looked at it and said ''No! You only played the knave."
 70, I beg your majestys pardon, SC I have!' and with 8 quick glance a' his French opponent he continued ''and it is the second time to-day tha l have mistaken a knave for a king!'
The St. Johns herald., 1894-04-05
FROGS AND WASPS.'
The Former Eat the Latter and Seem to
 Enjoy Them Very Much.

Enjoy Them Very Much.
 Some time ago I discovered, acci- dentally, that frogs are voracious eat CTS of wasps. have in my garden tanl, for watering, with aD island of rockworlz, which is favorite haunt of the frogs, writes R. D. Bartlett in the London Spectator. The wasps just now are carrying on raid against my fruit, and when wish to gratify at once my revenge and my frogs I catch a ma rauder between a post card and an ln- verted wine glass, carry him off to the tank, wet his wings to prevent his fly ing, and set him on the rockwork be- fore the frogs.
 After moments pause a frog ad- vances, and in an instant the wasp has disappeared, drawn into the frogs mouth by single dart of his long tongue. Occasionally the wasp reap pears, wholly or artially, having made it unpleasant for the frog, but he is al most always swallowed in the end. Usually convul3ive movements may be noticed ii the frogs throat and body, cS though the process of deglutition were not quite easy; but that they like the dict is evident from the fact that a single smallish frog has been known to take three wasps one after another.
 Indeed, it is remarkable what very small frogs, quite infants, will swallow a wasp with avidity. One afternoon tiny frog swallowed a full-grown wasp when big relative went for him quite savagcly, like a big schoolboy thrashing small one for presuminR to be helped before him.
The St. Johns herald., 1894-04-05
ChincSe Gossips.

Some of the women in China have a curious profession. They visit various houses and retail gossip at so much an hour If the hostess be especially pleased with the information thus i'm parted she mal-es the lady q present in addition to tho regulation charge. Many of these gentle gossips are bright and witty takers. and by keep ing themselves well posted il the local news earn handsome incomes.
The St. Johns herald., 1894-04-05
She Won Her Point.

Nearly half century ago maiden lady residing in Peterborough purchased an ax from George Davis, hardware dealer in Manayunk. The ax was in constant service, and by its many trips to the grindstone was worn down until the steel blade was no longer of use. Recently the old lady carried the pole or head of the aX to Manayunk to have a new blade inserted. Meeting friend, he advised her to go to Davis store, now kept by two sons of the former proprietor, and get new one in ex- change, as the old one was warranted to last a life time. The two Davis brothers protested against exchanging, while the lady vehemently urged her rights. A large crowd soon congre- gated, everyone siding with the woman. She finally triumphed, and walked out of the store with a brand new article, waving it over her head as an emblem of her victory over the firm.