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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Wingham Times, 1885-11-06, Page 6enindeedritaitia THE HOUSEHOLD,. .HOME IS HOME, HOWEVER LOWLL A Proverb Paraphrased. Home Is home, however lowly, Vetoed around by many a spell ; If within its procfnota holy Room be found for Love to dwell There ie, sure, no spot on earth, Whereaoe'eraur steps may roam, fan outshine the smiling hearth Ot a tranquil, happy home, Home is home, however lowly; There is magio in the word ; Strife. avaunt, and Melancholy, Whilst its comforts I record! Woman dear my song approve, To my aid, Penetee.,come Whiled I hymn, with duteous love, Home, however homely, home. Home le home, however lowly - Peaceful pleasures there abide; Soothing thoughts and visions holy Cluster round our own fireside. Though the outer world be dark, Ani its ocean lashed to foam, safe within its sheltering ark, Ail is galm and bright at home. Moue is home, however lowly ; Oa, how sweet when storms are rife, And our feet have struggled slowly ' Through the tangled ways of life; Sad, encumbered, faint, and weary, Spared the grief again to roam, To lay down our burden dreary, At the blessed door of home. Cookery for Beginners. The pleasing custom in many families is to make the daughters reaponeible for "fancy cookery." Mamma turns naturally, when company is expected, to her young allies for themanufaoture of cake, jellies, blanc -mange, etc., and for the arrangement of fruit and flowers, and seldom cavils at the manner in whioh they do the work. The difference in the appointment of feasts in homers whertethere are girls growing up and grown, and in those where there are none, is so marked that I need not call at- tention to it. LEMON OR ORANGE JELLY. One ptokage of gelatine soaked in two cups of cold water. Two and a half cups of sugar. Juice of four lemons and grated peel of two (same of oranges). Three cups of boiling water. A quarter -teaspoonful pow- dered cinnamon. Soak the gelatine two hours ; add lemon juice, grated peel, sugar and spice, and leave for one hour. Pour on the boiling water, stir until dieoived, and strain through double flannel. Do not shake or equeeze, but let the jelly filter clearly through it into a bowl or pitcher set bsheath. Wet moulds in cold water end get aside to cool and harden. RIBBON JELLY, Take one third oarrant jelly, one third lemon jelly, and as much plain blanc -mange. When all are cold and begin to form, wet a mould, pour in abaut a fourth of the red jelly and set on the ice to harden ; keep the rest in a warm room, or near the fire. So aeon as the jelly Is firm in the bottom of the mould, add carefully some of the white blanc- mange, and return the mould to the ice. When this will bear the weight of more jelly, add a little of the lemon, and when this forms, another line of white. Proceed iu this order, dividing the red from the yellow by white, until the jellies are used up. Leave the mould on ice until you are ready to turn the jelly out. A pretty dish and easily managed if one wall have the patience to wait after putting in each layer until it is firm enough not to be disturbed or muddied by the next supply. BUTTERCUP JELLY, One half paokate of gelatine soaked in half a cup of cold water for two hours. Three eggs. One pint of milk. One heap. ing cupful of sugar. One teaspoonful of vanilla. Bit of aodathe size of a pea stirred into the milk. Heat the milk to scalding in a farina -ket- tle and stir in the soaked gelatine until the later{is dissolved, and strainithrough a coarse cloth. Beat the yolks of the eggs light, add the sugar and pour the boiling mixture grad- ually upon it, stirring all the time. Return to the farina -kettle and stir three minutes, or until it begins to thicken. Let it 000l before you flavor it. Whip the white of one egg stiff, and when the yellow jelly coagulates around the edges, set the bowl containing the frothed white in cracked ice or in ice -water and beat the jelly into it, spoonful by spoonful, with the egg -whip, un- til it is all in your sponge thick and smooth. Wet a mould and set it on the ice to form. Lay about the base when you dish it, WHIPPED CREAM, I have been assured by those who have made the experiment, that excellent whip- ped cream can be produced, and very quick- ly, by the use of our inoomparable Dover Egg -beater. I have never tried this, but my pupils may, if they have not a syllabub• churn. Put a pint of rich sweet in a pail or other wide mouthed vessel with straight aides, and set in ice while you whip or churn it, As the frothing cream rises to the top, re - Move it carefully with a spoon and lay it in a perfectly Olean and cold colander, or on a hair sieve, set over a bowl. If any cream drips from it return to the vessel in which it is whipped to be beaten over again. When no more froth rises, whip a tablespoonful of powdered sugar into the white alyliabub on the colander, and it is ready for use. Hinte. Lemon juice will remove tan and %taine from the hands. For the face, mix the le- mon juice with an equal quantity of the white of egg, Beat them together, then put the mixture int) a porcelain or granite - ware dish over a slow fire, and stir until It thickens slightly, but not until it is hard. Put it on the face at night. Sweet oil is said to whiten the akin, and also to inareaae the flesh, when eaten in quantities. Yet, when sickening or un- pleasant to the stomach, it sometimes turns the skin brown, and of oeuvre under such cireumetancea not enough of it could be talc. en to make much difference in the flash, When the stein of the face, neck, and hands has become hard from exnnaure to the elements, whether in summer pleasure trips or outdoor occup:ttiin of e mors uti i'r,. rias character, it may be t:cftened .nil muoo benefited by tab ii a mixture meat.. of four ounces of the einuisloin of bitter atlnnende and twenty grafna of borax, It should be applied to the ski'' with a piece of soft sponge, and washed off in a little while with a soft towel and tepid water. Oatmeal is exoellent for softening the hands. Rubbing the hands with cold cream and drawing , on a pair of locse,kid gloves at night is also good, Dogekin gloves help to whitten the hands and do not irritate the skin. Cold boiled potatoes are .extremely good for whitening and softening the hands and akin. Take them when not quite done, though they should not be to hard, and use in the plane of soap, The Laugh of England's Crack Cruiser.. A large gathering of speol:ators aesembled in the dockyard at Chatham to witness the launch of her Majesty's ebip Severn, Thie vessel, when completed, will be one of the most important additions which have been made to the royal navy. The Severn is an unarmored fast steel cruiser, belouging to the Ola a of the twin screw prottotodcor- vette, which inoludee the Thames and the Mersey. She is a more powerful vessel than the cruisers of the Leander type, and posses. ses greater steam power. The principle fol- lowed in her construction has been that of the water -tight hull, and the main object which the deeignera have had in view is to guard as much as possible the boilers, en- gines, and magazines from danger. The Severn has been about two years in the course of construction,. and is estimated to cost about £160,000. If the anticipations of her designers are realized, it is believed she will turn out to be one of the fastest cruisers in the service. Her principal di- mensions are as follows : Length between the perpendiculars, 300 feet; extreme breadth, 46 feet ; mean draught of water, 17 feet 9 inches ; load displacement, 3,600 tons. Her armament will consist of two 8 inoh breech -loading guns, ten 6 inch breech -load- ing guns, one 9 -pounder boat and field gun, one 7 -pounder boat and field gun, six 1 -inch Nordenfelt guns, and two -forty -inch Gard- ner guns. She will carry Whitehead tor- pedoes, and discharge them above and below water on each broadside. Although the hull is unarmored, the vessel is provided with a nine -inch thick armor steel faced conning tower, steel protective horizontal deck plating two inohee thick, and three Inchon of the same on slopes. She will be fitted with horizontal compound engines of 6 000 indicated horse power, made by Meissen. Humphry, Tennant & Co., of Dept- ford. There are two propellers, and the vessel is estimated to attain a speed of 17a knots per hour. The authorized comple- ment of her coal bunkers is 500 tons. and accommodation is provided for 300 officers and men, Three o'clock was the hour appointed ler the proceedings to begin. As the hour ap- proached a large staff of workmen made all preparations for the christening ceremony, which was performed by Mies Daisy Watson, daughter of Admiral Watson, C. B , Admiral Superintendent of the dockyard. Prayers having been read by the Rev, Mr. Dearden, a signal was given by the chief constructor, in riaponee to which Miss Wat- son moved the lever holding the ropes. As the last support weir knocked away a pause of a minute or two occurred, during which the vessel remained fast on the stocks, There was a momentary bustle and a flicker of excitement ; but presently the vessel, obeying the slight pressure which had been applied to it, began to move from the fast- enings which had retained it so long, and amid a storm of enthusiastic cheers slid swiftly into the Medway. As the Severn got fairly out of the slip the cheers were again renewed ; the royal standard, tate union jaok, and the Admiralty flag were hoisted on board the cruiser, and the band of the Royal Marines brought the proceed- ings to a close by playing " Rule, Britannia." It ie expected that the Severn will be ready for her first commissi.:n in a few months. Giving Way To a Sister. Not many sisters would be as obliging as was the one mentioned in one of the follow- ing incidents, which illustrate some peculiar customs existing among French Canadian peasants. For these people, as indeed is the c- ss for almost all communities, the chief social event is a wedding, Among the habitans it is ally oat the only set occasion for feitivitles. Tho priestthenpermits dant•,', big, and allows unusual expenses to be in- orred. Courtship is short, and engage - meats are made frequently with a view to pecuniary interests, as in France, A widower recently went to spend an evening with a neighbor who had a sister —a spinster whom no one had thought of marrying, When tho visitor left the house the brother accompanied him, and suggested that he marry the epinater. They returned to the house, and$went to the bedside of the lady who wan asleep, When she had been awakened, the visitor said to her,— " liJdademoiselle G—, take a good look at me; I am rather worse than 1: look by caudle -light, and I've nine small children, and not much land. Will you tnarry me?" The elderly maiden, sti.l hali--asleep, rub. bed her eyes, looked. the hank suitor over for a moment, yawned, and replied, " Yes." " Then be ready next Tuesday." And that was all there was of that court. ship, which was certainly brief, simple and to the point. In another case, the would-be bridegroom found his betrothed crying after the banns had been published. " Whatever is the matter, Marie 1" he asked " Weil, 'Baptiste," she replied, " my sister Louise wants very much to marry, beoauee she is older than I, and it is her turn first. And It makes me sad to see her disappointed. Now, if you would only marry her 1 Everything is ready, and it would be such arelief 1" " Well, well," cheerily replied the young man, " don't cry a`aout a little thing like that, Louise will do; go and toll her to get ready.') - Daudol, the Peach novelist, is a nnan, rather under middle height, but strikingly handsome. His black hair, which is parted in the middle, hangs down upon hie goat col- lar His forked bead is Hark brown and a litt'•e thin, his eyes are large, dreamy, and southorn, with a soft, melancholy expression, A wine merchant in Hamburg hal am queathed - queathed 1,000 thelere per annum, the in'cr- est of his capital, to the baldest man in the oity, with the proviso that should a matt Wm tip with no hair at all on his head, he is to take the entire Capital, Brom the Bed to the Bow Biver, The Southern route through Manitoba from the Red River westward has been well brought before the notice of the reading public and is the portion of tho province which is most densely settled. Along the river south of the capital we have the rail. way towns of Emerson and Morris besides several villages where railways have n 't reached. In this stretch we have the houses of the old settlers and native farmers with their narrow river frontage and in many respects the appearanoe they presented forty years ago. On the other hand the two railway towns mentioned show the effeots of more enterprise than judgment, Morris had at one time a population of some six hundred, but has not much more than half of that number now. It has suffered eevere- ly from ovorbooming, and ie only now begin- ning to show a reaction of a favorable kind. It is surrounded by a beautiful country, whioh may be looked upon as one of the boat agricultural districts xn Manitoba, and now that the boom ideas of its speculators have been rudely wiped out, ite healthy growth is setting in, It must yet take its place as a market town of some importance, and there are points about it which renders it attractive to the capitalist looking for an industrial location, With the main line of the C. P. R. Southwestern running through it, and the Red River nigh at hand it has good shipping facilities for manufacturing concerns. At present its bueinees institu- tions number about twenty, and inoludo a flour mill which has been sometime silent, Emerson, the gateway city of Manitoba, la another pint where over speculation has lain like a load upon progress, and seldom has a town suffered so much from bubble speculations. It has its fine business blocks, some of them built by scheming speculators who never paid tor them, and thereby forced quite a number of traders into insolvency, and has altogether the appearance of a town of considerable pretensions. At one time its population was conalderahly over 3,000 but now dons not number more than 1,500. Besides having every facility for bueinees in the way of buildings it has a well settled oouniry tributary to it, and but for the scheming of speculators would now have been a prosperous town, and contending for the position of second trade point in the province. It is the key to the Northwest by the river route. and will yet be a busy point of transfer, especially in the event of the Hudson's Bay Railway being construct- ed. Its prospects are good for the future, and there are evidences that a better era has set in, and that the town will from this move on towards prosperity. It has still nearly forty places of business of every It nd including a flour mill, a saw mill, a brewery and several small industrial institutions, and has good solid business men, who will sur- vive to see the day of rushing prosperity. From Emerson westward we advance into the garden of the Northwest, the famed Southern Manitoba, acknowledged by all who have been through it to be the finest grain raising country in the world. From Gretna north and west to Morden is the first fine stretch of this district, and at the latter place we leave the beautiful natural valley. which the energy and industry of the Mennonite settlers from Ramie have made a huge grain field. In Gretna the boundary town there are some sixteen busi- ness places, and an amount of bushman is done which would only be credited by those who have been frequently there in winter, and seen the long lines of grain laden wagons coming to market. Although un- pretentions in appea-ante, Gretna is un- doubtedly a wonder from a bueinees point of view, especially when we consider that its population does not exceed one hundred and fifty. At Morden the end of the Mennonite settlement is reached, and the town itself draws WI trade from a country settled by people from different countries, and all set tled on farms, which for grain raising ad- vantages have no equals outside of Southern Manitoba. The town has a population of about 400, and has over forty business insti- tutions in it. It is as yet too young to have any importent industrial ine`itutions, but these must come in time, while at present it is probably the best grain point of its size in the whole Canadian Northwest. About seven miles from it atands the remains of the town of Nelson, which promises soon to be a thing of the past, nearly all its mer- chants having moved. into Morden with their effects. Leaving Morden for the west by rail, we commence the ascent from the valley to the table land above, passing through the vil- lages of Thornhill and Dalingford, and eur- rounde d by waving grain fields as far as the eye can se-, we in time reach Manitou the present terminus of the Pembina Mountain section of the C. P. R. Here we have a population of at least 500, and over thirty places of business. As Morden is the grain - market of the valley, so Mauitou is the grain market of the upland plateau on which it is - located, It is simply dropped in the centre of a huge grain field, so to speak, and is a _ rushing western town in every respect. Like Morden it is too young for important;in- duetriee, but its day of industrial growth cannot be far distant. From M initou westward the work of ex- tending the railway is now going onward,' while millions of bushels of grain are wait- ing to be carried out of the country b'yond. On the western side of the Pembina Valley, which is crossed about ten miles west of Manitou, there are numerous villages await- ing the approach of the lccomotiv a, some of which may be fortunate enough to secure a station, while others are likely noon to be numbered among the towns of the past. We have Pilot Mound with some twenty busineea Institutions inoluding a mill, where several thoroughly en- terprising business men can be found with their stores around the base of the mound which over -hangs the place, Then there in Crystal City with nearly as many business h uses, C,earwater with about a dozen, and quite a number of smaller villages scattered along the north side of the proposed new line until S ^uric is reached, and on the south aide of it away down to the Turtle Moun- ° tain district, 'where hundreds of settlers have for years linen waiting anxieuely for a ins of railway.— li'i x) Ia ' )E 1 ) ni t Ca n e ,rr' aaZ', The Praiser of Wales% lest dog, Bang was mastered, I learn, in Stockholm, after Il.is Royal Hihnees'% departure (for Hungary recentlyl thr )ugh its collar With the Prince's name on. It was dispatched after its Royal I master, who was delighted at its recovery, . s. A WESTEEN DESI'EBADO, The Person who Shot Ten lien fa Tele e Minutes. An Eastern journal recently published an Ito:oont of the shooting of eight Texans by Matt Raley iu Eansae some years ago, The article ormolu led with the statement that Riley, some years of ter tbsrtragedy desorib• ed, was attacked with paralysis and died in the Eietern Sta es, ltiley did not die in the Last, but, on the contrary, Is alive and a resident of San Francisco, where he has lived the greatest po.tioa of the time sinoe bis celebrated adventures in Kansas caueed a sensation through• ut the Southwest, Matt Riley, or Matt Foster —the latter be- ing his right name —was at the date of the occurrence referred to one of the most noted and desperate of the professional fighters and gamblers of the West. He was about 30. years old, ani in physique the counter- part of the redoubtable John L, of Bacton. His whole life has been pasted in scenes of rough adventure. When a boy he enterel the civil war on the C mfederate elde, being a native of Arkansas, and finally graduated as a full-fledged bushwhacker. At the burn- ing of Lawrence, Kan , he obtained a .con- siderable share of booty, and, growing tired of fighting for hie party, concluded to do something for himself. At that time the sparse population and peculiar conditions of 1.fe in Kansas offered great inducements to a desperate man, and Riley made the great State his abode. He filled several positions —was sheriff of Ellsworth and was deputy marshal at Newton at the time of the sen- sational adventure with the Texans. Mo- Clesky, the Murehal of thetown, was Riley's partder, Riley had formed McCiusky'e acquaint- anae at Laramie, where he met him in com- pany with some of the most desperate char- acters that ever infested the West. Subse- quently MoClueky and Riley met on the Atchison and Topeka road, and they became p irtnera in the preservation of the peace, and the proprietors of a hurdy-gurdy and gambling house at Newton. On the day of McClueky's death Riley had been out hunt- ing a horse thief, and got back in the after- noon. While standing outside the dance house he noticed that the place was doing a lively business, There were eight women dancing on the floor and as many mere ped- dling drinks, and the cowboy element was numerous and uproarious. MoClueky was sitting on a ohair with his back to the wall looking e.t the proceedings, when of a sud- den a party of Texans who had planned to kill him sprang forward from the crowd and began to shoot at him. McClusky bad kill- ed one of their men a 'me time before, but was wholly unsuepicioue of au attack, and he was RIDDLED WITH BULLETS before he could draw hie pistol. The des• perate character of the man aeeerted itself in the death agony, and his last movement was to nook his pistol and point it at his as- sailants. He had not strength to press the trigger, however, and fell on hie face, dead. At the first report of the Texans' pistols, Riley started for the dame house. His quirk eye took in the tragic situation of his partner at a glance, and in an instant he had seized the nearest Texan by the neck, and, holding him up before him as a living target opened a fusillade on the assassins. When the firing ceased there were nine men ly- ing on the floor dead and wounded. When Riley loosened the grasp of his herculean arm from the neck of his human shield the tenth victim of the terrible encounter drop• ped lifeless to the boards. Riley formed a partnerehip with the no- torious Jack Wiggins. and opened a large saloon in Salt Lake City. Oa the opening night a Mormon known as Dutch John, who figured as a destroying angel, entered the saloon and intimated to Wiggins that no Gentile would be allowed to run such an establishment in the city. Some hot words following, the destroying angel seized a, bot- tle awl hurled it through the largo mirror behind the bar, shivering the glans into fragments. Wiggins had his pistol out al- most before the destroying angel swung the bottle, and the crash of glass was drowned in the report of a shot that sent DUTCH JOHN TO ETERNITY, For the inauepici •ue incidenr of the opening night Wiggins was arrested and sentenced to death. With that lofty conaideratioh which dis- tinguished Morin an justice, Wiggles was given the choice of death by hanging or shooting He chose the rope, although ex- horted by hie rough friends to seleot the bullet as the moat c xpedient and respect- able agent of extinction. When reasoned with by Riley, he stated that he preferred to be hanged, " for," said he, " I've seen many a good man shot, and I want to see one hanged." A few days before the day of execution Riley managed to secure an opportunity for Wiggins to break jail, which that worthy improved with alacrity. The fugitive was concealed for eight days in the cellar under the Hotel, Riley had sold his saloon and spent all his money to secure the escape of Wiggins, He had nired a notorious charac- ter named Bill Bean to take the fugitive to Evanston, Wei. T., on horseback, as from thtt laoint he could get East it safety. On the night when Bean was to have taken Wiggins away the latter aeked Riley to give him his pistol, as he had only two of his own, and he wanted another for Bean, whom he expected to fight for him if nines - eery. Riley refused at first, as the pistol was an old friend, but finally yielded to Wiggins's importunities and handed himthe weapon. The moment Wiggins got the pis- tol he became almost insane with passion, and, seizing Riley, thrust the muzzle of the cocked revolver down thelatter's throat till it nearly choked him. Before Wiggins could carry out his threat to ireow THE IIEA1) OPF ITIS PARTNER Mean and others interfered, and Riley made his escape. He at once went to his lodginge, and, getting another plebe', rush- od back to the cellar, but Wiggins had set out on his journey and tragedy was averted. It subsequently tranaplred that Wiggins was jealous of Riley, whom he Suspected of paying attention to hie enamorata while he wan hiding from the officers of the law in the cellar. After warring from Utah Wiggins could not test, He goon made his where. abouts known by several daring eeetpadea, and was finally arrested and taken bank to Salt Lake. IIe again centred and tome ycars after ho wan shot in a row in Now Mesico. Riley moved to Nevada from Salt Lake, qty, and figured In that teetion as a monte gambler and a hard oaso generally. He finally descended on San Francisco, and, itt conjunction with Charles ltferion, better known as Boston Charley, a swell mobaman, now serving a term in an Eastern peniten- tiarp, opened the first'bunoo shop in San Francisco, and did a thriving business, the capital being furnished by 'cine business men of the pity. While iu this avocation Riley, alias Foster, fell desperately in love' with a 16•year•old girl of Hebrew descent, and finally married her, despite the moat, tion of her parents, when sue waseicaroely 16 yearn of age. After this exploit he set- tled down to the comparatively quiet life of a faro dealer, in which profession he be- eame paralyzed under remarkably strange circumstances. Ous night when dealing "a flyer ' a Rambler won eleven straight bets. Foster, for by that name he was then known, burst into the wildest profanity, and wound up his exhibition of anger with the• wish that he might be paralyzed if the man won the next bet. The men won, and as the faro box dropped from the nerveless hand of the dealer the players looked at him in horror, for he was etrickon HELPLESS WITHI PARALYSIS of the left side. Some time after the broken- down desperado, no longer a stalwart speci- men of humanity, but a poor cripple totter- ing on crutches, was committed to the alms, house by hie wife. It seemed impossible that he could ever again return to the world, but the tremendous vitality of the man brought him back from the jaws of death, and he is again struggling for a liv- ing, a cripple sustained only by the hope that he may somehow regain the affections of his former wife, now separated from hint by divorce and married again. STATISTICAL. The Prince of Wales has 75 uniforms and a snore of official ;ostumee, as Governor of the Charter House, President of the Society of Arts and innumerable other distinctions. His dress by which he is chiefly known, that of an ordinary English gentleman, adds many costumes to a wardrobe which would enchant the most fastidious dandy. There are existing more than forty Egypt- ian obelisks; many of them are fallen and broken. There are eeventeen of them in Italyy, seven in England, two in France, two. in Coustentinople, and one in America. The smallest is at Berlin, which is twenty-five and a half inches high. An unfinished one in the quarries at Syene is estimated to weigh 1,500,000 pounds. The centre of population in the United States Is moving rapidly westward. It is now a little to the south of Cincinnati, hav- ing long since crossed the Alleghenies. The movement has been about 44.5 miles west for every mile south, In 1890 the movement westward wi 1 probably be even greater, and N so rapid has been the settlement of the orth• west, the centre of population will befarther north than at present. • To meet the requirements of a classic fig- ure a lady ehould be 5 feet 4a inches tall, 32 inches bust measure, 24 inches waist, 9 inches from armpit to waist, long arms and neck. A queenly woman, however, should be 5 feet 5 inches tall, 31 inches about the bust, 261 about the waist, 35 over the hips, 114 inohee around the ball of the arm and- 64 inches around the wrist. Her hands and feet should not be too small. The new railroad station belonging to the North Western Railway Company at Bir- mingham, England, has been completed and is the largest structure of the kind in the wo Id. It covers twelve acres of ground, and $5,000,000 have been expended upon its construction ; one thousand workmen have been employed upon it for two years and a half. The platform exceeds a mile and a half in length and four hundred trains daily pass through the tunnels, The people cf the United States drink about two gallons of liquor for every bushel of wheat they consume According to offi- cial reports the liquor annually consumed in- cludes 69,156,903 gallons of spirits, 19,155,- 953 barrels of fermented liquor, and 20,508,- 345 gallons of wine. Estimating the popula- tion at about 55,000,000, the average con- aumption appears to be about 1 2 gallons of whiskey for each person yearly, over 10.25 gallons of beer, and .35 of a gallon of wine. The quantity of beer consumed appears to be about 595,000,000 gallons, The Czar Alexander L died Deo. 1, 1825. In 1833, his friend and adviser, M. Arant- cheieff, deposited in the Imperial Bank of Russia fif cy thousand roubles (about $37,500) to remain at interest till the hundreth anni• vereary of Alexander's death, when three- fourths of the sum is to be awarded by the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences to the person who shall write the best history of his reign, and one-fourth reserved for the ex - pensee of publication,,At four per cent. in- terest, the whole amont will be 1,439,220 roubles, or $1,079,415 Perhaps the child is already born who is to receive this vast hon- orarium. Few persons are aware of the extensive nature of the victualing on board the great ocean steamers. Each vessel is provisioned as follows for the passengers and crew t Three thousand five hundred pounds of but- ter, 3000 hams, 1600 pounds of biscuits, ex- clusive of those supplied for the crew ; S000 pounds of grapes, almonds, figs and other dessert fruits ; 1,500 pounds of jam and jelliese tinned meats, 6000 pounds; dried beans, 3000 pounds; rice, 3000 pounds; onions, 5000 pounds ; potetces, 40 tone ; flour, 300. barrels, and eggs, 1200 dozen Fresh liege. tables, meats and live bullocks, sheep, pigs,, geese, turkey, ducks, fowls, fish and game aro generally supplied at each port, so than it is difficult to estimate them. Tho Bird of Evil Omen• The rooks which for many centuries have - frequented the spires of the ancient cathedral of Rat soon, have suddenly disappeared, and not a bird la now to bo seen in the vicinity. This circumstance has excited the utmost. consternation in south Germany, aa the last Unto that the rooks took flight from Ratisbon Cathedral their departure heralded a severe outbreak of cholera. Extreme cold commute tin into a calm-crys• talline mads containing large cavities. The pipes of a ehuroh o-gan have been so altered. by cold as to be no longer sonorous,