smithclay/nortonstories huggingface dataset:
Year: 1876

AS far as can be learned, says the New
York Mercury, the Spitz dog made his
first appearance i'm Germany several
hundred years ago, and the books ray
he was brought there by sailors" but
from what part of the world is not'men-
toned. Fifteen or sixteen years ago the
Spitz came hither with the vast tide of
immigration from the faderland, and at
first was considered curiosity. About
eight or ten years ago, when the poodle
and King Charles had enjoyed their day,
and something new in connection with
the black and-tan was demanded as a pet,
the Spitz in his puppyhood made his
appearance, and the cunning little tod
ding bundle of fur from which peered
two black eyes of lustrous hue, met with
general favor and commanded fancy
prices. A puppy six weeks old some
times sold as high as $25-$10 being con-
sidered cheap; while the full grown ami
NAL brought from $50 to $75. Since
then, however, there has been a decline
in this kind of dog flesh. While in the
puppy state, or until they get to be six,
eight or ten months old, they are playful
and show some little fOndness for master
or mistress, but when year or more of
age they become utterly devoid of aff.c-
tion, and will snap and snarl at the very
best friends, even severely biting the
hand that feeds them. Like the Cat, the
Spitz shows more liking for the home
than the person occupying it. He is ex-
ceedingly tfeacherOus, and you cannot
tell at what moment it may seize its fan
cy to spring up and bite your hand or
legs, or even your nose, if he can reach
it. In summer the Spitz il perfect
nuisance, as he sheds his coat from Jnne
to September, and those who have them
find their floors and clothing covered
with hair. In the fall the Spitz appears
with a new coat, but he is a dirty fellow,
and unless washed every day or SO would
look like cur that you would feel in
clined to kick him into the street. The
natural color of the Spitz is white, though
sometimes they are born with fur of a
jet black, and not white hair to be
seen.


Has the Spitz any good traits? o,
yes; he is very intelligent and can be
taught all kind of tricks, and for watch
dog he lies far over any other species of
dog; but then he must be let severely
alone. You may whistle and coax and
speak to him in the kindest sort of way,
but to no purpose; he won't even wag
his tail, and if he condescends to turn
an eye towards you, his look seems to
say: Il amt making any new acquaint-
ances," or, "keep your distance" He
don't even reciprocate the attentions of
his master, and takes his Enchanting for
q rup ont dOOra O. a m after Of cOurae /
tell you what, the Spitz amt safe dog
to play with, and you'll get bitten as
sure as you live, some time or other, if
you bother him, for he seems to harbor
resentment. When full grown all the
play has gone out of him, and he's diff
ferent dog altogether than when'a puppy.
All he seems to care for is to lie stretched
out with his nose resting on his paws,
and then you'd better look out and not
put your hands on him.
Year: 1876

Washington Correspondence Chicago Times.l


From all accounts the captain of a
man-of-war must be a very unhappy
being. He has his separate cabin,
dimes alone, reads alone, and when he
ascends to the deck all of the officers at
once cross to the other side to leave him
one side unobstructed. He could not be
more let alone if he had the small pox.
Officers claim that this unbending rig
idity of behavior is alone one of the most
potent elements of discipline with a crew.
The crew of man-of-war is largely made
up of reckless, dangerous men. In num-
bers they would always be able to seize
upon the small arms of the ship and over
power the officers, and turn the vessel
into piratical cruiser. To keep down a
gang of reckless men of this class the
slightest infraction Of rigid discipline
cannot be passed over unnoticed. A story
told of Commodore Ammen, of the navy,
the inventor of the steam ram, illustrates
how important is unhesitatiDg action in
case of a mutiny. So severe are the pen
alties for mutiny, and so closely are the
men held in check, that mutinies of late
have become very rare. At the close of
the war Ammen was the captain of a
Pacific mail steamer. He had shipped as
a part of his crew a lot of soldiers, men
who had been sailors before the war, but
had served since that time in the army
They were a reckless, bad lot. Almost
before the steamer had left New York it
was evident that there was going to be
trouble. These sailors Haunted at the
grub furnished them ard said they must
have as good as the cabin passengers. One
day the affair eliminated by this gang
forming and coming aft. When they
entered the saloon they were headed by
two desreradoes who had melted the
mutiny. At their appearance several
army officers on board volunteered their
mildly, but said he would not need their
help. He walked forward languidly to-
ward the mutineers, and without giving
them an opportunity to say word, took
out his watch and said Now, men, |
want you to 60 right back to the fokesel.
l will give you one minute to CO."
Ammen has the appearance of benevO-
lent old deacon who would weep with
pain at the necessity of killing a fly.
His voice was as soft as if his mouth was
lined with plush velvet, and as sweet as
a maiden's whisper when Adolphus first
encircles her timid waist. When he said
simply to his men, "Now, want you to
90 back to the fokesel," the leaders
grinned. This mutiny was to succeed
too easily. So during the minute they
scofied at the old man. At precisely
sixty seconds after the expiration of
Ammen's remark he raised a pistol and
shot one of the ringleaders dead, "Will
you-go back to the iokesel?' said Ammen
to the second ringleader, pleasantly.
The man hesitated: flash! a report, and
he too fell dead.


The deadly persistent blandness of
Ammen's composure drove terror
through the ranks of the mutineers.
They went forward, and there was never
any more trouble. This prompt action
alone saved very rich ship and large
number of passengers from plunder, out
ra0e and murder
Year: 1876

AN observatory is to be built at the
foot of Niagara Falls, on the American
side, for the use of visitors who wish to
view the falls without dressing in water
proof suits. 1t will be constructed prin.
cipally of stone and iron, and will extend
from near the foot of the inclined railway
to point at the entrance of the" Shadow
of the Rock which will make it about
one hundred feet long by twenty-ioui
feet wide. At the end of the building
next the fall will be parlor observatory
the whole front of which will be of heavy
glass, through which the visitors can OBJ
tain fine view of the falls and be pro
tected from the descending spray.
Year: 1876

A sower went forth to SOW,


But instead Of the golden grain
i saw that his measure was filled with salt,
And turned TO look again.
He passed by fresh green field,
Where the heart Of childhood played
And he sowed little, and went his way,
But the beautiful growth was stayed.
He sowed in the field Of youth,
That was blossoming snowy white,
And the flowers drooped and hung their heads,
And shadow swept out the light.
In field where the standing com
Was tall as bearded man,
He sowed again, and the withered leaf
Hung sorrowful sign OF the ban.
The last OF his bitter seed
He sowed In ripened field,
And blight crept over the golden ears,
And the promise was more than the yield.
Then this was plain, though learned In pain,
That trouble to none was kind;
That the pleasant fields were the Joys we seek,
But the salt the woes we find.


-Chicdgs Inter- Ocean.
Year: 1876

The following pleasant personal
from the editorial pen of the Concord,
N. H., Statesman, in description Of the
Exposition, will be read with interest by
the many readers of Mr.. Kings centen-
nial letters in the Boston Journal:


"We met on the stand for the first
time in three years our friend and Will
ON compeer on the editorial staff of the
Boston journal, Edward King, whose
centennial letters to that paper, follow
ing his extensive correspondence from
abroad and especially from Paris during
the Franco-Prussian war, the siege of
Paris, and the fearful reign of the Com
mune, have made his name household
word in New England. He has grown
stouter since we last saw him just as he
was about to enter upon his tour of The
Great South" for Scribner's Monthly,
but his face is as fresh and rosy, his eye
as clear and his smile as bland as when
in days now gone forever we sat side
by side in the sky-ward editorial room
of the Journal, and filled up the inter-
walls of drudgery in pleasant banter over
the Commune, of which, by the by,
Mr.. King was in some degree an admir-
er and advocate He was kind enough
to accompany us on the following day
through the main building, pointing out
many objects of interest that otherwise
would have escaped our eye and beguil-
ing the time in delightful gossip and
reminiscence for, although young
man yet, Mr.. King has travelled abroad
and knows "My Paris like book.
He is facile and prolific writer of cor
respondence, is poet, and has ventured
on romance, and if he has not succeeded
as an author in achieving high rank
the failure is due to careless, easy-goiDg
habit of composition peculiar to journ-
alists, but which, in his case might be
corrected by close application. His GEN.
tennial letters have been widely read
and their popularity is due not alone to
their style, which is sometimes light and
frequently diffuse, but because they are
discriminating and display knowledge
acquired by familiarity with the great
expositions at Vienna and Paris. So
cially Mr.. King is one of the best OF
jolly good Heterogeneous and warm
hearted-tond of good dinner, and al
ways gentleman. We will add for the
delectation of our young lady readers
that he is bachelor, of say 80 years.
good-looking and debonaire, and devot-
edly attached-to his mother whose only
son he is .
Year: 1876

Did you ever see man try to find
shirt, or handkerchief, or something in
the bureau drawer where his wife keeps
her clean linenf 1t mostly happens
when he's in hurry, when he has got
his fireworks temper on, and his wife
has got the baby on her lap, or she is
cup to her elbows in dough. He finds
the white clothes laid in such symetri-
cal layers as only woman, after long
practice, can accomplish, and he dives
in a good deal as he would fish for nubs
of kindling in a barrel of shavings,
pitching everything right or left on the
floor, meanwhile, as he fails to get the
required article, strewing and swearing
and offering select expressions Of relief
to his feelings in a suppressed tone OF
voice, and vowing, In way especially
designed to reach the ears of his wife,
that it does beat the old-what's' s s
name "a thing can't be put where it
can be found" About this time his
wife yells out from below that the arti-
Gle sought is right at the top, when be
sarcastically wants to know if she sup
poses he has got no eyes," then he
tears round into that linen at a more fu.
rious rate than ever, swearing that the
shirt amt there, for he has got clear to
the bottom. And then he gathers every
thing up in bunch and rams them back
anyhow, just as he can grab them, il
savage handfuls, tearing around and
jerking things all over with nervous
looseness. Then he sings out in sort
of abstract way, as ii addressing no one
in particular, that he can always tel
where to find anything he needs at hi
place of business in a moment, that ht
keeps place for everything and every
thing in its place. just about the timt
he has worked himself into a red-ho
worry of boiling-over impotence, anc
got the whole room into a litter, hi
wife glides in and lays her hand upol
the missing article right in the drawer
where he had jerked it out and rammet
it back again in that quiet way a wo
man has Of maddening choleric hus
band into fit state for the lunatic asy
lum -Deaf Mute Aduance
Year: 1876

not so much business as one would sup
pose from the size OF the place. Now
the railroad is in working order. no
doubt the business will increase. The
crops are looking unusually fine, espe-
cially the corn


We are happy to say we found our
good old mother remarkably well for
one of her age, she being nearly eighty
years old, and looking as good, if not as
young, as in the days of yore. We are
going to visit the principal points of in
terest in this state and Massachusetts,
aud return home via the Centennial.
A. g. ID.
Year: 1876

A check was put upon the petty thiev-
ing of overcoats and umbrellas from the
offices in the post office building, New
York, ON Monday, when a man was
stopped while hObbling along one of the
halls, and the cause of his halting. a fine
silk umbrella, was drawn from his trous-
ers leg.
Year: 1876

The verdict of the jury in the Court On
Common Pleas in the case Of the young man
Henry Friede, which compels the Third
Avenue Horse Car Company to pay him ten
thousand dollars damages for injuries result
ing in the loss of a limb while descending
from one of the defendants cars, comes al
an opportune moment Contributiye negli,
gence was, as usual the companys defence.
There is something SO supremely impudent
in one branch of this defence that it deserves
special attention. This is that the defend,
ant contributed to his injuries by standing
on the front platform, against which practice
the company has a posted notice III every
car. 1t has long been ruled that the greed
which takes the money from passen.
gers who are so forced to ride in
order to get carried at all breaks down the
validity of any defence based on the notice.
That it should have been used in tho late
trial shows conclusively that the companies
know the danger to life of the practice which
they keep lobbyists at Albany to preserve
for them, and when they come to calculate
that this single trial viii cost the amount OF
two hundred thousand fares, exclusive OF the
law expenses, they will be moved to consider
whether it pays after all to be so avaricious
We have no sympathy with the muicted
company, which has shown itself the leader
in every infraction Of the public rights. Ts
the people who go home hanging on the
straps, crowded unhealthily together like
hogs, with all the concomitants of discour-
tesy, indecency and discomfort, we com
mend this defence, showing that the COM
pany will not only do wrong, but seek to
make that very wrong their defence. 1t will
make "no seat no fare" man of even the
inveterate ''strappers."
Year: 1876

pear at Cincinnati as the only Eastern can
didate, and that President Grant, Senator
Morton. Secretary Bristow and Governor
Hayes all Western men, were his only
formidable riyalz "A change came
DER the spirit Of my dream" when
an Eastern rival suddenly started up who
is likely TO go into the Convention
with quadruple the number of votes which
he can command, and who is a truer repre-
sentative of Eastern ideas With Senator
Morton as his chief rival Mr. Blaine had
nothing to fear on the currency question.
But against Senator Conkling he has no such
easy advantage Mr. Blaine's former record
on the currency question is very similar to
that of the democratic Governor Hendricks
hard money man with boundless tolerance
for erring brethren. In the heated currency
debates two years ago Speaker Blaine
stood as neutral as Governor Hendricks
did last fall between the hard and
soft money men of his own State and Ohio.
When the republican party was in danger of
splitting on the currency question, in 1874,
after President Grants veto of the imitation
bill which had passed both houses without
a sign of dissent from Speaker Blaine, he is
known to have exerted a great deal of trim
ming activity to bring about compromise.
As soon as a sterling hard money candidate
from the East is brought into the field Mr..
Blaine suddenly discovers the necessity of
making hard money record, and finds the
urgency so pressing that he cannot wait until
the currency question comes regularly before
the House before Haunting his new hard
money principles in the face of the country.
We think it mistake to smuggle speech
ON the currency into debate on another
subject when Mr. Blaine had nothing to say
which had not been often said before.
Everybody must see that a speech so mis-
timed, so irrelevant, so foreign to the busi-
ness before the House, so barren of new
ideas, 50 utterly destitute of practi-
cal suggestions as to methods, is a
mere personal fetch to give its au-
thor hard money record when he
finds that he is threatened with formid-
able hard money rival whose record on that
question is bright, clear and consistent, and
who faithfully represents the sentiments of
the Eastern States. This fresh exhibition of
the intellectual and political servility which
keeps jealous watch of rivals and attempts
to sail in their wake will not raise BIr.
Blaine in the estimation Of his countrymen.
statesman should not thus subsist on the
crumbs which fall from the tables of men
who are Independent and original enough to
have a policy of their own.
Year: 1876

Attorney General PierrepOnt's Mistake.


An obvious rule of propriety restraints us
from commenting on the proceedings of the
Court at st. Louis during the progress of
General Babcock's trial, although a journal
published at this distance might, without
disrespect for the Court, indulge in more
freedom than would be proper in the local
newspapers near the scene Of the trial If
General Babcock is innocent all just men
must wish that his innocence may be vindi-
Gated, and the press has no moral right to
prejudice the jury either against him or for
him.


The duty of standing aloof and refraining
from all attempts to influence the trial one
way or the other is equally binding on the
President, the Attorney General and all
officers of the government who have no inn
mediate connection with the trial. They
have no more right to PREJUDICE the case and
attempt to influence the Court than the press
of the vicinity or the press at distance.
Judged by this sound rule the course of At
torney General Pierrepont seems incapable
of defence. He seems, at an earlier stage of
the proceedings, to have mistaken the
extent of his authority. The statute
of 1869 takes the prosecution Of revenue
offences quite out of his hands and gives the
Treasury Department complete control over
them, authorizing it to settle or compromise
cases in the interest of the government, and,
of course, to exempt minor offenders as a
means of procuring evidence against the
greater criminals who have used them as
tools. 1t is a common practice with prose-
cutting officers to promise lenity to accom-
plices who are willing to turn States evil
dence and whose testimony is indispen-
sable for the conviction of their asso-
ciates. In apparent defiance of this sound
practice Attorney General Pierrepont issued,
just previous to the Babcock trial, circular
to the District Attorneys engaged in the pros
ecution of the whiskey thieves which would
naturally be understood as forbidding the
usual immunity to criminals who consent to
give testimony against their associates. That
circular if understood in its obvious sense,
would prevent any person from turning
States evidence and defeat the ends of JUS
tice by terrifying witnesses and shut
ting their mouths. A thousand newspa-
pers could not so efectually interfere
with the administration of justice as a threat
from the Attorney General of the United
States that accomplices who consented to
testify against their principals shall be rigor-
ously punished on the strength of their own
confessions 1t looks too much as if the
Attorney Generals devotion to the wishes of
the President had swayed him to compli-
ance inconsistent with the duties of his po-
sition and subversive of one of the ordinary
means of convicting criminals. If this was
not the intent of this strange and unexam-
pied circular it is difficult to assign any
reason why it was issued at all.
Year: 1876

THE DEATH OF REvERDY JOHNSON removes
yom among us man whose purity of life
was always unquestioned amid the sharpesi
criticisms on his public course whose broad
learning and legal acumen placed him among
the very first of American jurists, and who's,
career despite its occasional failures to in
terpret the desires of his countrymen, will
be long and honorably remembered by tho
State of his birth and the nation at large.
Year: 1876

The HARVEST QUEEN. cannot by any
means join in the self-gratulatory despatch
which the White Star Line Company sends
from Liverpool to its agents in this city re-
specting the finding of the English Board of
Trade in reference to tho sinking of an
American ship by one of its steamers-the
Adriatic The Board of Trade has re-
Year: 1876

Our Patriotic ALDERMEN yesterday adopted
a series of resolutions directing, as far as
their power extends, and requesting as far
as it does not, the observance of Washing
tons birthday by the citizens of New York
as public holiday with bunting, cessation
from business and an official 7e Dem.
There was some trouble about the lat
ter part of the business. as we have
no State Church. The Mayor, who has fine
voice, might lead the singing and if church
cannot be settled on the Hippodrome or the
Academy of Music might be settled on as a
compromise. There was, we are panied to
observe, no complimentary allusion TO Mr.
Tuppers play of Washington" Neverthe-
less, we can assure our Conscript Fathers
that the day and the man will be ftly
honored by the first city of the nation he
did so much to found, and their good inten-
tions in the matter remembered to their
credit.
Year: 1876

THE ADMISSION OF EvEREsT's EVIDENCE in
the Babcock trial yesterday vas victory
for the prosecution. The JUDGES decision
admitting it is a model Of judicial fairness.
and shows the value of the testimony to lie
more in its connection with oher evidence
than as a solitary fact
Year: 1876

Mr. PLnIsoLLs S FIGHT against the practice
Of sending unseaworthy ships to sea, with
the inhuman object of having them founder
for the sake of the insurance, has resulted
in the introduction of two bills in
the English House of Commons-one
supplementary of the temporary Ship
ping act passed at the close of the
last session and one devoted exclusively to
the subject of marine insurance. Sir Staf-
ford Northcote who introduced the latter,
was President of the Board of Trade in
former conservative Ministry, and Sir Charles
Adderly. who introduced the former, is the
present President. There is thus some guar
antee that both measures are carefully pre-
pared. although they may fall short Of Mr.
Plimsolls ideal.