smithclay/nortonstories huggingface dataset:
Year: 1876

The desperate war that has been waged
for the past two or three months by the
trunk lines of railway to the interior from
the Alantic seabord does not abate. The
New York and Erie, the New York Central,
the Pennsylvania, the Baltimore and Ohio
and the Grand Trunk Canada railroads have
reduced their charges on some of the classes
down to ten cents per 100 pounds to Chica-
go, which is said to be the lowest point ever
reached. What action the New York Cen
tral will take is not yet known, but it is gem
orally expected that they will make a simi-
lar reduction.


New York is getting its full share OF
centennial trade. The hotels are literally
crammed, the various places of public amuse-
ment, night after night, have every seat oc-
cupied, the horse cars and cabmen are taxed
to the utmost of their ability, and the mer-
chants, wholesale and retail, for once, admit
that they have as much business as they can
well attend to. Many of them are obliged
to keep open their stores until late in the
evening to accommodate customers. Never
since the war have the streets and avenues
presented so busy an appearance. Broad
way looks like the old times, and the boule-
wards up town, as well as the parks, are not
less full of life and animation.
Year: 1876

"Don't do what?' our fair readers
will ask. There are a great many things
you ought to do, and a still greater num-
ber that you had better not do. Fore
most and prominent among the latter is
to reform a drunkard by marrying him.
Depend upon it, if you cannot keep
him sober during those days OF the
average woman's strongest influence
over wayward men, the season of court
ship, the chances will be against success.
Some women have succeeded in this
labor of love, but there are 10000 fail
ures to one success. 1t is field of mis-
sionary labor that few of the sex are fitted
to enter. If John gets drunk once a
month while he is billing and cooling,
depend upon it he will require semi
monthly seasons of Eacchanalian recrea-
ton when he becomes a benedict. A
man who gets drunk is necessarily q bad
or foolish man when he is under the in
fuence of liquor, and is very apt to soon
become a bad man whether drunk or
sober. The romantic idea, that woman
who can reform a drunkard is deserving
of a crown of glory, is all the veriest
bosh. They would he shocked by the
suggestion that a man who marries a
fallen woman and restores her to a life
of virtue would be deserving the praise
of all mankind. The latter would be a
much easier task than the former, and
more likely to succeed. The debase-
ment in one case is generally incurable,
and scorns the influence of kindness or
affection, while in the other the op-
portunity to escape from alife of degrada-
ton would in most cases insure hearty
cooperation with the missionary in such
a field. But the drunkard, as is gener-
orally the case, may be addicted to a
number of other vices, each one of which
ought to be considered as repulsive as
that of drinking.


Still, the experiment is tried by new
votaries, who think they can succeed
where Others failed. 1t is a terrible de-
lusion. Love and devotion are power
less on a drunkard. Nothing but an
| iron will and firmness that few women
possess can check the career of a man
who has once taken hold of strong drink.
He must become subject to her will, and
| be restrained from his evil courses by a
power stronger than love or kindness.
| There are enough men who become
( drunkalds after marriage for all reason
able purposes of experiment, without
taking them fully trained in career of
vice and debauchery Therefore, we
| say: ''Girls, don't do it J"
Year: 1876

the mud, biting, wrestling, and growing
till they gave up the fight out of sheer
exhaustion. But for her instructive care
of her cubs the old bear might easily
have got away; she would not leave
them and she was lost. Their gratitude
if they had any, did not prevent them
from making a hearty meal on part of
her remains, as the party from the yacht
were engaged in the operation of remov-
ing her skin. The young bears at length
found their way to the Jardin des
PIantes in Paris: and there, it may be
said, Nemesis overlook them in revenge
for their unnatural appetites During
the late siege of Paris the exigencies Of
the times called for victims, and the
arctic bears became the food of Partisan
citizens when the commoner kinds of an
imal diet were exhausted. Thus the
four-foOted cannibals became the prey of
the foreigner, and no doubt frequently
served at second hand, as food for Pari-
sian powder.
Year: 1876

lAuieI "oilus


Many families owe their prosperity
fully as much to the fact OF
female management as to the
knowledge and activity of the
father. The managing woman is a pearl
among women; she is one of the prizes
in the great lottery of life, and the man
who draws her may rejoice for the rest of
his days. Better than riches, she is a
fortune in herself-a gold mine, never
failing in its yield. The woman who is
able to sympathize and carry on smoothly
the work of an ordinary family illus
trates higher sagacity than is called for
by seven-tenths of the task done by men.
Men take one trade and work att; moth
er's and housekeeper's work requires
a touch from all trades. A man has
his work-hOurs and his definite tasks; a
woman has work at all hours and an in
cessant confusion of tasks; his work
brings the money, but does not so tax
the head, heart and hands, as woman's
work does. Every wife should know
her husbands income. That knowledge
should be the guide of her conduct. A
clear understanding respecting domestic
expenses is necessary to the peace of ev-
cry dwelling. 1t it be little, better is
palmer dinner where love is than
an overloaded stomach, and hatred
Herewith. If it be ample, let
it be enjoyed with all thank
fullness. When the wife, seeing her duty,
has made up her mind to thia, she will
brighten her home with smiles, which
make it a region of perpetual sunshine.
A saving woman at the head of a family
is the best savings bank vet established,
one that receives deposits daily and
hourly, with no costly machinery to
manage it in. The idea of saving is a
pleasant one, and if the women would
imbibe it once and adhere to it, before
they are aware of it they would lay the
foundation for competent security for
a stormy time and rainy day, but it is an
excess in saving when we deny ourselves
of every thing that will make us COM
Portable, Oursurroundings convenient and
Year: 1876

| new 1ork Mercury.


After strolling through the Kansa,


City stock-yards the writer went into 8


place near by for a glass of lager. The


room was full ofcattlemen from the west


Wild, rough fellows were they, vet there


are far worse for this writer himself re-


members with pleasure some old DAYS OF


that exciting life on the plains. 1t seemed


to be sort Of cleaning-up day. A pic
ture of child had been taken from its
| place on the wall, and now stood on the
| floor. A great burly fellow noticed it,


and pointing to it sand, with a laugh:


That little cuss leaning up there re-


minds me of laugh the boys had on me


last spring when we were herding Tow


ner's cattle on the Upper Platte. We


rode down to old man Cooley's one DAY


to fill ourselves up with st. Louis


crooked When we got there we found
the old woman sick. the old man eros
and squaw, who had captured two dol
lars somewhere, drunk and asleep lust
outside the door. We went in and took
drink, and then the boys wanted to fix
some kind of fireworks to the squaw
that would scare her little and make
her show her speed across the prairie


Just then happened to look into a cor
ner, and there was an Indian baby, that
squaw's, lashed to its board and leaning
up against the wall just like this fellow
The little black thing looked thin and
pinched and hungry; but Indian-like, it
wouldn't squall and mako fuss about
1T. 1t only stood there watching us
till the big tears went rolling down its
cheeks, and it trying its level best to
swallow tears and everything down. The
boys all laughed at my getting tender
over an Indian, and laughed, too, when
saw the wicked eyes it made at me.
But the old man brought some bread
and milk and l filled it up with one
square meal, anyhow. You may laugh,
now, but good dinner civilizes them
aeathen quicker than half dozen mis-
sionariss. You ought to have seen the
mouth the little cuss made at me when
he had enough. The boys whOoped over
it and said he wanted to kiss me for my
mother. | didn't care what they said;
it didn't make no difference to me how
mean and dirty and thievin' its father
and mother was. the little black heather
was human, anyhow, it couldn't talk,
but it said thankee, and that was enough
for me. 1t had the mark of God Al
nighty's finger on it plain enough, and
was bound to respect all plain cattle
marks, you know"
Year: 1876

As an English steam yacht was cruis-
ing in Spitzbergen waters one night in


1859, the watch on deck obrerved three
bears going along the western shore of
the ford or narrow bay. The sportsmen
on board, who were fast asleep, were
quickly aroused and gave chase in a
boat. After rowing several miles up the
ford against a strong ebb-tide the party
described the bears seated on a strip of
land-an old mother with her two cubs.


They did not observe the hOat until it


was within five hundred yards of them !;


the mother th"n stood on her hind legs
to reconnoiter, and at once turned tail


and ran off at full speed with her young
ones after her. They ran so much faster
than the boat could follow along the
edge of the ice that it seemed as it they
would get clear off. But they by-aud-by
reached the end of the ice, and had then


to plunge into a space Cf soft mud, cut
up by the little channels of water, and
with a good deal of rotten ice scattered
about, as the tide had left it. Here the
progress of the bears wss at once i'm
peded. The cubs were unable to jump
the channels, but had to scramble over
them as best they could; and the old
bear, after taking her Jump, invariably
aited tor them and helped them to
scramble up the steep places among the
ice. The poor young ones were much
distressed and were heard growing pite-
ously as they struggled on after their
dam. The delays enabled the boatmen to
come up with them, and the chase became
exciting, when all at once the boat ran
aground in narrow channel about two
hundred yards from the bears. A long
shot from a rife stopped the running
powers of the mother; the sportsmen
then scrambled through the mud and
dispatched her. Her cubs, covered with
mud and shivering with Geld, were lying
ON her body, growing savagely, and
were secured by nOoses formed of walrus
lines, which coupled them together like
a.brace of dogs, which in size they resem.
bled The moment they found them
selves bound they attacked each other
with great fury, rolling over and over in
Year: 1876

IL the recent outrage on the French
Catholic mission in China several
priests and attendants were murdered,
and property to the amount of sixty
Thousand dollars destroyed. The French
minister is taking active steps to punish
those concerned in it and between chat
and the difficulties with EaglanI the
China outlook is somewhat grave.
Year: 1876

WE hear rumor that the tornado
which devastated Hazel Green last
Friday evening, struck a farm house
in Willow Springs town while the
family were at supper, and lifted the
building from it's foundation, with
out injuring any one at the table.
Year: 1876

RAILROAD ACClpENT.-DhF Friday


evening last, as the regular train


was proceeding from Calamine 10
Mineral Point, the engine and ten
der were preciptated into n gulch or
water course at the Ansley farm, by
the culvert having been washed out,
and leaving the track so insecure
that when the weight of the engine
came upon it it gave way. The
gulch is some eight feet deep and
twelve feet wide or more. The en-
gineer, Mr.. Joe Opie, was so serious
ly injured that for time his recov-
cry was despaired of, but we rejoice
to hear that hopes are now enter
tanned that his hurt will not prove
fatal. The fireman and another
train-man, who were 0n the engine
when she went down, escaped with
out injury, except thorough wet
ting. The track having been DAM
aged in different places by the
freshets of some days previous, the
train was proceeding very SLOWLY at
the time of the accident, otherwise
the wreck would have been more
general. and many of the passengers
would probably have been killed


The engine was not got out until
yrst rday, and is badly damaged


Mr. Opie's injuries are internal, and
their rX'ent cannot he read y deter


mined. but indications are said to be.
favorable.
Year: 1876

REV. ALFRED CHARLES and his
wife have the sympathy of many
friends here in the great Affections
laid upon them within the lass ten
days. Their first trial came one
week ago last Sunday morning, when
their little son Willie, aged about
five years, expired after an illness
OF less than "a hours. Since then
we hear another child has been
taken from them by relentless death,
and both parents are Frustrated with
serious illness. The children died
Of scarlet fever, bat the natusc of
tAe parents sickness We have not
learned. We earnestly hope for
their speedy recovery and strength
to bear up under their heavy trial.
Year: 1876

A VERY narrow escape from sud
den death is thus recorded by the
Darlington Repubticaa A farmer
had visited tire village in the morn
ing, and had got drunk on Danling-
ton whisky, he left town and walked
down the railroad track. He lay
down to sleep with his head upon
the rail for pillow There he lay
in a drunken slumber totally uncon-
scious that the afternoon train would
soon he along. Some children going
home from school saw him, and
thinking he was killed, called some
men, who found that he was not
hurt. Proyidentially that afternoon
the engine ran off the track and de-
tanned the train some three hours.
Year: 1876

Nearly two months of the session
OF Congress gone and one bill passed
The committees made up by Speaker
Kerr either do not want to report OF
do not know how. The passage oi
that one bill has cost the eoun;ry
several hundred thousand dollars.
Year: 1876

afterward, called Goldsmith an "idiot."


DIR. johnson contracted an inveterate
dislike to sustain intellectual exertion, and
wondered how any one could write except
for money, and never, or very rarely, wrote
from any more elevated impulse than the
stern pressure of want. "Who will say"
says Richard Cumberland, "that johnson
himself would have been such a champion
in literature, such front-rank soldier in
the fields of fame, if he had not been
pressed into the service, and driven on to
glory with the bayonet of sharp necessity
pointed at his back2 If fortune had turn
ed him into field Of clover, he would have
laid down and rolled in it. The mere
manual labor of writing would not have
allowed his lassitude and love of ease to
have taken the pen out of the ink
horn, unless the cravings of hunger had
reminded him that he must fill the sheet
before he saw the table cloth. x X :
He would have put up prayers for early
rising, and laid in bed all day, and with
the most active resolutions possible, beer
the most indolent mortal living.
l have heard that illustrious scholar asser
that he subsisted himself for considerabl,
space of time upon the scanty pittance o
four-pence halfpenny per day. How
melancholy to reflect that his vast trunl
and stimulating appetite were to be sup
ported by what will barely feed the weane,
infantw No wonder he so often screenet


himself when he ate, or, later in life, los


his temper with Mrs. Thrale when sh
Year: 1876

BOoKs.--"I have ever gained the most
profit and the most pleasure also from the
books which have made me think the
most; and when the difficulties have once
been overcome, these are the books which
have struck the deepest root, not only in
my memory and understanding, but like,
wise in my affections. God be thanked
for books? They are the voices of the dis
tant and the dead, and make us heirs of
the spiritual life of past ages. Books are
true Jewelers.. They bring to all who faith
fully use them in society, the spiritual
presence of the best and greatest of our
race. No matter how poor am, no matter
though the prosperous of my own time will
not enter my obscure dwelling, if the
sacred writers will enter and take up theil
abode under my roof; if Milton will cross
my threshold to sing to me of Paradise, anG
Shakespeare to open to me the world o
imagination and the workings of the human
heart, and Franklin to enrich me with hi
practical wisdom, shall not pine for wan
Of intellectual companionship, and ma!
become cultivated man, though excluded
from what is called the best society in tn
place where live.'
Year: 1876

AN UNTOwARD REsULT--The Norwich
Conn., Bulletin says: "An uptown man,
who believes in selfimprovemcnt, suggested
to his wife recently that they should argue
some question frankly and freely every
evening, and try to learn more of each
other. The question for the first night
happened to be whether a woman could be
expected to get along without a spring hat
and he took the affirmative but when he
was last seen he had climbed up into the
hay-loft and was pulling the ladder up after
him."
Year: 1876

CURED OF PEEPNG.-A Davenport drum
mer got into trouble at De Witt Hotel,
not long ago. He just lay down on the
floor and stuck his head into stove-pipe
hole to ovserve the movements of the
occupants of the room below him, man
and his wife, who were preparing to retire
The woman saw the Paul Pry and shriked
and the irate husband caught him by the
hair and pulled him down through the
stove-pipe hole, all but his feet, which
wouldn't come through. The operation
removed enough hide from the drummer
to start lanyard, and he says he viii
never, no never, peep any more, if his skin
will only grow on enough for him to weal
clothes.
Year: 1876

A young mother, while dressing a very
young child, few days ago, said in rather
an impatient tone, "You are such queer
shaped lump of a thing, it is impossible to
make anything fit you" The lips of the
child quivered, and looking up with tears
in its eyes, it said, in deprecating tone,
aGod made me- The mother wasrebuked,
and the little lump was kissed dozen
times
Year: 1876

THE WOoLwICH RAILwAY.-In an article
in the Quarterly Revieo, an English
magazine, in 1925, it is said "What can be
more palpably absurd and ridiculous than
the prospect held out of locomotives
travelling hoice as fast as stage coaches! We
should as soon expect the people of Wool
wich to suffer themselves to be fired off
upon one of Congreve's ricochet rockets,
as trust ourselves to the mercy of such a
machine, going at such a rate. We will
back old Father Thames against the Wool
wich Railway for any sum. We trust that
Parliament will, in all railways it may sane
ton, limit the speed to eight or nine mila&ar
hour, which, we entirely agree with Mr.
Silvertree, is as great as can be ventured on
with safety" This is quite contrast when
compared with mail trains running at sirt3
miles an hourl The renowned Quarterly
with all its wisdom, missed the mark in a
| least the above named instance. We have
no doubt there are some makers of book
who would claim that they also missed i
in other instances.
Year: 1876

Get up at five o'clock in the morning and
tell your wife you are going to dig in the
garden, and breakfast on oatmeal mush,
and get healthy and strong. As she stands
looking on and admiring your physical
strength, and you are sure you can never
spade up another row without fainting,
ask her why she don't go in and get the
shad fried; and then you can sneak out of
the back gate for cocktail. Always make
your good resolutions in spring time.
Year: 1876

A tramp" writes to the Providence
Journal of his profession as composed " of
men who go from place to place through
the country, gathering and disseminating,
of course great amount of useful infor-
nation, relying mainly upon the public
hospitality for their temporary main
tenance, never wearing out their welcome
by long sojourn in one place, never inter
fering in politics, carefully and conscien-
tiously abstaining from all agitation of the
labor question in any of its phases. y
Year: 1876

God required the Jews always to pay
those who had been working for them
before The sun rent doWn. How kind and
tender God is to think about the poor and
take care Of them in this wayi
Year: 1876

TIE VERDIcT.-The coroner, in summing
up a recent case, pointed out to the jury
that there was no evidence whatever that
the deceased had come to her end by foul
play, and therefore there was nothing else
for them to do but to return verdict of
Death by the visitation of Cod The
jury, however, thought it dgnifed to retire
for consideration. They dared not, of
course, give a verdict right in the teeth of
the coroner's summing up, and so, after
long consultation, this is how they satisfied
their own consciences and the demands of
justice: ave find that the deceased died
by the visitation of God, Jm endcr the most
suspicious circumstances"
Year: 1876

STAMMERING.-A gentleman who stam-


mered from childhood almost up to man
hood gives a very simple remedy for the
misfortune. "Go into room where you
will be quiet and alone, get some book that
will interest but not excite you, and sit
down and read two hours aloud TO yourself,
keeping your teeth together. Do the same
thing every two or three days, or once a
week if very tiresome, always taking care
to read slowly and distinctly, moving the
lips but not the teeth. Then, when con-
versing with others, try to speak as slowly
and distinctly as possible, and make up
your mind that you will not stammer.
Well, | tried this remedy, not having much
faith in it, must confess, but willing to do
almost anything to cure myself of such an
annoying difficulty. l read for two hours
aloud with my teeth together The first
was to make my tongue and jaws ache,
that is while was reading, and the next to
make me feel as if something had loosened
my talking apparatus, for | could speak
with less difficulty Immediately. The
change was so great that every one who
knew me remarked it. l repeated the
remedy every five or six days for month


and then at longer intervals until cured
Year: 1876

can homes"


ALTITUDE FAscINALIoN.-Jumping from
points of elevation is a fashion of suicide.
To stand on an elevated site exercises
singular fascination over some people,
leading them to jump into the air. 1t
causes others to perspire and tremble with
fear. Last summer | talked with the
guardian of the steeple of the Cathedral at
Strasburg on this subject, and he informed
me that few visitors were free from the
feeling of fright on reaching the first
terrace, which is of great altitude, and that
twas so pronounced as to generally prevent
them from going any higher. Sometimes
the women tainted. l confess l was not
free from vague dread in looking out
over the immense reach of landcape which
this view takes in, although there was
absolutely no danger, the terrace being
securely guarded by strong iron rails.
This man of the upper air-the guardian
or guide-informed me that the summer
before an Englishman had tainted, but





continued to ascend every day for a week,
until he could look out in the direction OF
the Black Forest, from the lantern, with
equainimity. During the summer a man
had jumped into the air through altitude
fascination. He was probably dead before
reaching the ground, on account Of the i'm
mense height from which he hurled him
self. Formerly the vendome Column wa
the scene of so many deaths of this kinC
that decree was issued to prevent visitor
from ascending it unless accompanied by


guardian. 1t was the Tarpeian Rock Q
Paris. Such number have killed them
selves from the fascination of altidute, 0
the fright produced thereby, that elevate
places must be recognized as dangerous fo
certain people. Those whose selfkilling
, premeditated of course are not comprise
therein.-Galaay.
Year: 1876

The fretted slave of the Greek household,
and the idle toy and doll of the age of
Chesterfield, has given place to a better
idea; and we go forward with Gods help
to find the true woman in the free Ameri-
can homes"