The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1896-01-17

= Curssos 11aesAl Raee wAich oht.i..1

1ANAeA8 aSSceslOIy kObS0HS6O an o1tSClAIl
known the "~sin-eater." tt was IN.
practice for 2 relative-usually 4 won,
an-to put on the breast OF 4 deceased
person . quantity Of bread and cheesp
and beer, and the sin-eater war sent for
to consume them and to pronounce the
everlasting rest Of the departed. II was
believed that in doing this he absolutely
ate md appropriated to himself the sins
symbolized by the viands, and thereby
prevented their disturbing the repose Of
the sinner who had committed them.
Such an arrangement would obviously
leave nothing to be desired on the n
side, but how it worked on the other we
are not told. What was supposed to be
the condition of this spiritual under
taker after the ceremony was con-
cluded? Did his appropriation of the
dead mans sins imply a sort of moral as
similation OF them. answering to his
physical assimilation of the bread and
cheese? The question would obviously
be one of some Importance to a sin-eater
in large practice. If the responsible
ties of his profession were as great as
ties of his profession were as great as
hypothesis, he would need to retire
from it early, and to devote a consider
able portion of his closing years to re-
pentance and good works.
Again, it is natural to ask what hap-
pened at the decease of a popular or
fashionable" sin-eater. Would any,
one among his professional brethren
undertake to eat his sins, even in,the
first flush of satisfaction produced bv
stepping into his shoes? If so, then,
indeed, has the epithet of gallant"
been rightly bestowed upon little Wales.
1t is as though one doctor succeeding to
another's practice should consent to as
sumo the moral responsibility for his
late colleagues treatment of all his de-
ceased patients, in addition to his own
similar burdens.
We yield to none in admiration of the
quiet and homely heroism of the medi-
cal profession, but we doubt whether it
would enable them to face such an or
deal as this. AS to the Welsh practi-
TONERS to whom we have compared
them, we shrink from pursuing the an
alysis further. It is evident that, as in
the schoolboy game of "conquerors,"
where a stone which can smash the
smasher, of, say, 43 other stones takes
over all it's conquests, and becomes it.
self a "forty-fourer," so the responsible
tiles of these unhappy men might ac-
cumulate at an alarming rate. One
hardly dares to contemplate the inter-
nal condition of the s~in-eater who had in
life attended a long series of other sim
eaters. The cheese would be almost
converted into Welsh rabbit. before he
had got it down.-London Times.
The wheat yield in the Genesee
valley, Idaho, this season. is immense. w.
n. Glib thrashed 1000 bushels off of 200
acres, averaging about As bushels othe
acre. Dan Healy cut and thrashed IA
acres of wheat that went 50 bushels to
the acre
"A Missouri rattlesnake at the mu-
scum of comparative zoology at Cam
bridge has been observed to lose his
skin twice a year and to add a rattle
for every skin. Instead of losing the
rattles as he does the skin, they are re-
tanned by the closing of the inner end
of the old rattle over the knob of the
new one, and accidents accepted, the
snake bears with him this record of his
age.
The trade in California sweet wines
is showing a gratifying increase. The
total estimated product for this year is
5000, 900 gallons, which is IS per cent.
more than was marketed last year.
Heretofore there has been little profit
in the vintages because of the fierce COM
petition of growers, but the producers
have now made arrangements with a
sweet-wine syndicate which will con-
troll the entire product of the state and
give all concerned some share in the
profit.
In America it has been observed
that bees often bore tubular corollas in
order to get at the nectar of flowers, in
stead of entering by the mouth, as
humblebees do in Europe. In essayson
the crossfertilization of flowers. this
supposed anomaly has been the subject
of much comment. Itnowappears that
the humblebees of Europe and America
have identical habits in regard to the
in which visits to flowers are
made, and that it is the class Of insects
known as the carpenter bee, or the
borer, which works in the outside man
ner indicated.
The question Of the influence OF the
size of seeds upon termination and up
on the size of the plants that spring
tharafrom has RECENTLY been studied