The Exeter Times, 1887-8-4, Page 31*
,
THE t'THOUSAND ISLANDS.'
1"k'OrIt'',
A (4raphio Desoriptien ef the• Nattitill FOX"
illation alld Bet3OeTy d t4e,
FitMOUtt Be1301t-
" 11:19 buttnning-bird bits 739W laid itfr eggs
in the at by the veranda," our friend
wrote ue from Gananoque ; "come soon if
You want to see them, And, Mise Sinclair
hate tented a chipmunk, Whiek eat0 0494
from her hand, by the big tree. I'm sure
yonboy woul4 like to have a peep at hint -
Also, the Indian -pipe plant is beginning to
flower in the wood behind the house. It
doesn't last leng ; you, must make 140:4 or
you will be too fate for tt,"
We knew, the hospitalele chalet at Gana-
noque of old; and evenif aim friend's SO-
oiety had not been enough of itself to enttee
us (which it amply was), the added delights
of a humming -bird's net, a tante chipmunk,
and the Indian -pipe plant in full, flower A RtiniorrIc CANADIAN,
/might surely have sufficed to move the heart —in so antal a eommuuiten patriotism runs
(of the stoniest of ?areas. I don't go in, perilously near to provincialism—lant I
myself, for being what you may call stony; must allow that a warm corner still existe
, on the contrary., where the junior branches ia my heart for tne rooks and reaches of
are concerned, I acknowledge myself but as the Thousand Islands.
clay in the hands of the potter ; so the very The "Princess Louise" steams down the
next day saw us sefely necked on board the Canadian Channel—one of the two chief
"Princess Louise"river-steamer, three navigable currents—past Wolfe Island
precious souls, and all agog to dash through' where I spent a rustic boyhood with the
thick end thin on the heaving bosom of the raccoons and the sunfish, and on through
broad St, Lawrence endless groups of other wooded islets, with
And the broad St, Lawrence did heave cedars sweephsg low to the water's edge,
that July evening, no mistake about it. A till, after a couple of hours aboard, two
fresh west wind was blowing .over the lake, white wooden lighthouses, guarding the
and the spray was dashing up with sea -like entrance to the little harbor, announce our
violence as we steamed away from the approach to Gananoque. A "creek" or
wooden wharves of Kiegston, heading down. minor river (pronounce it " crick " if you
dream for wish to be thoroughly transatlantic), here
THE THOUSAND ISLANDS. joins issue with the great St. Lawrence, and
of course on its way indulges in some local
Lake Ontario, when it cbooses, can get up a
waterfalls, once pretty, but now made to do
very decent storm indeed : quite as fine a
duty, alas! with American utilatarianism,
storm as any to bo seen upon the German
in
Ocean, with huge four -masters from Chicago turning the saw -mills which are the
reason d'etre of the flourishing small village.
stranding helplessly on the reels and spits ;
I will not describe Gananoque itself—Cana•
and even the river can run seas -high in its
dian villages are best left to the imagine -
broader reaches among the wide expansion
tion of the charitable reader; I will only
known as the Lake of the Thousand islands.
say
Now, Gananoque is the pretty metropolis of that its natural situation is absolutely
the Thousand Island district on the Cana. charming and its bay and outlook "as
beautiful as they "make them." The "Prin-
dian side, as Alexandria Bay and Clayton
cess Louise" drew up at the rough log
are on the American shore; and the " Prin.
ess Louise" is the little steamer which
wharf, choked with immense piles of white
lipine
es daily. between Kingston and Gana -planks—" lumber," as the American
Bogue during the suminer season, when the
augusge gracefully phrases it: and even as
ice is up and navigation is open. But I we reached the tiny quay we saw our host-
ess in her row -boat, already pulling round
have always found European ideas as to the
a granite bluff from her retreat to meet us.
geography of Canada so very vague that I
By private arrangement with the captain,
shall make no apology for beginning my
story with some slight account of the life in
countries—the
sweetly simple and domestic is
Thousand Islands and their immediate sur- "
ineer
roundings. "scooted," or blew, his whistle three times
Just at the point where the huge St. Law-
as he passed the lighthouse whenever he
rence emerges lazily from Lake Ontario—or
had visitors on board for our friend's chalet.
)
where Lake Ontario narrows into the St. The moment the " scoot " is heard on the
Lawrence, whichever you will—the bed of 1 cliff the chalet folks put out their boat at
the river crosses a transverse range of low once, and row round to the landingplace to
,
granite hills, whose bare summits have take up their visitors without delay on ar-
been ground into domeshaped bosses (or i.
roches moutonnees, as they say in Switzer.We disembarked from the "Princess r
land) by the enormous ice -sheets of the "'muse," and took our seats in the chalet
Glacial epoch. The granite of the chain is rowboat. Our hostess pulled; politeness
compelled me to offer myself as an unwor-
very bard and pure; it is quarried in large
, indeed, f I d • thy substitute but, when she firmly de -
e.. clined to surrender the sculls, I felt a secret
ing purposes, among these very jisiu
nal eo the great river, unable to cetaits-e-li twinge of satisfaction, for though it's one
thing to pilot a dingey from Oxford to
profound. a channel•as it might otherwise
have done in a more yielding rock, has Sanford Lasher, it's quite another thing to
spread itself out in wide pools over a broad pull a heavy hen -coop against the big waves
of the full St. Lawrence on a windy evening.
and shallow bed, only bleep enough for large
navigation by river -steamers in two or three' CANADIAN LADIES
well-recognized currents. The main line of think nothing of a mile or two of rowing,or
the Grand Trunk Railway in fact, between of a' still breeze; and modesty recognized the
Kingston and Montreal, traverses this same palpable fact that the sculls were in far more
low, granite range, and exhibits very clearly , competent hands. Practice makes perfect,
the conditions precedent for the produen however; and a few weeks in C nada soon
tion of so strange and I brought back to me the old knack of rowing
BEAUTIFUL A PHENOMENON with tholepins instead of rowlocks, though
' to the last the instinctive tendency to drop
ae the Thousand Islands. The range con- the wrist in the vain effort to feather—
sitts of numerous crouching, ice- worn feathering of course, is impossible with the
raMials or hillocks, shaped exactly like a pins—persisted always, much to my dieeom.
pin's back—or, to be more respectful, let us &ere.
say an elephant's, or a basking wha1e's-1 The chalet, whither we were bound,
while in between them lie deep grooves, or steeds a little removed frem Gananoque
valleys equally ice -worn, all running paral- village in wild grounds all of its own, raised
lel and scratched alike, as is necessarily high among the woods, on top of a sheer
the case with the grooves due to the down- cliff, beneath whose frowning crags we row -
ward movement of a single great glacier or ed into a little bay or haven, protected by a
ice -sheet. Now, the average width of the bold granite headland from the sea, that
St Lawrence under normal circumstances,' rolled high upon the open river. There we
when it isn't trying, Yankee fashion, to do a pulled up beside the floating wooden land -
big thing, is about a mile or a mile and a ing-stage, and disembarked on the grounds
half. But when it encounters this belt of of Mossbank. (The real name was not
ancient ice -worn gneis, with its accompany. Mossbank, but something very much pret-
ing dales, it spreads itself out into a sort of tier and more appropriate, only my friend's
encumbered lake some ten or fifteen miles solemn adjurations have bound inc down by
wide, filling up the grooves and interstices inviolable promise not to reveal either its
between the rounded humps, but leaving local habitation or its name too openly to
the higher mounds or hillocks themselves the profane, vulgar, or even, which is quite
as tiny islands intersected by endless. another matter, to the candid reader, of
miniature channels. The name Thousand this present magazine.) I forget how many
Islands is by no means due to characteristic' steps, partly wooden, and partly mit into
American exaggeration; the official survey, 1 the solid granite of the headland, led up the
made for the face of the perpendicular cliff from the wat-
TREATY OP GHENT er's edge to the chalet platform. I was
Oyes the nuniber as sixteen hundred and; told at the time—something like one hund-
nmety-two, and they extend for forty milesred and ninety, I fancy; but the beautiful
down the river from Kingston to Brockville, l picture of that calm bay, and the hanging
in a perpetual succession of beautiful pie- 1 woods, and the maidenbair fern springing
tures. . 1 in wild luxuriance from the clefts of the
If the islands and islets still remained ' rock, and the bearberry clambering over the
merely in their original condition, as round.; ice -worn bosses, and the wild sarsaparilla
ed, dome-shaped knolls, clad with pine and raising its green berries on its tall, bare
maple and Virginia -creeper, rising hump -1 stalk and all the thouaand and one exquisite
like in slow slopes from the water's edge, I details of frond and foliage, and fruit and
they would still be extremely romantic and; flower, distracted my attention from arith.
picturesque. But they are far more than; rnetical facts, gradational or otherwise, and
this. The ceaseless action of the river at; left me only eyes and mind for the
their sides, aided by the disintegrating' beautiful scene that unrolled itself slowly,
frosts of winter, and the pressure of the ice- step by step, before me.
packs when the lake i` breaks up" in early At the summit, on a rounded, rocky pia.
spring (exactly as if it were an academy for teau of bare granite, overgrown in places
young gentlemen in the Easter holidays), by clambering shrubs and trailing Western
has out many of their edges into steep little creepers, the chalet itself fronted the Sunset
cliffs, fantastically weathered, as granite Islands, and looked down from its aerial
almost always weathers, into beautiful perch upon the intricate maze of
broken crags and pinnacles. Thus the cliffs
- RUSSET LAND AND PURPLE WATER.
often spring sheer from the surface of the
\ water, worn by rain and frost into quaint, To the right lay the lighthouses and the is.
jutting shapes, and with rare ferns and lands in their neighborhood; in front, one
le,
flows and creepers hanging out here and islet behind another stood massed in view,
there from their el -evicted nooks. The sumbooked up by the low hills of the New York
mite remain for the most pert smooth and
i polished by the old ice -action; and the con-
trast between their bald, round surfaces,
' almorit gray with age and lichente and the
jagged and ruddy outline of the more recent
fractures, makes an extremely bold and
. effective element in the total picture. The
a islets are also of every imaginable shape,
size, and (trouping— some of them big
enough to hold two or three farms, mad
others of them tieing solitary from mid.
stream, crowned by a single waving stem
of Canadian cedar. Here is one, for exarnple,
a mere bare pitmaole of moulderingrock ;
and here is another, a craggy little island,
yet covered with endless variety of timber,
whose drooping foliage hange over the
bank and reflects itself plasaidly in the sin tional details within and without were ft
very mirror below. Thus eltuiter after clus- Plainly visible to tile naked eYe in a way
ter passes before one's eyes,
that would have delighted the honest souls
all
of Scott and Fergusson. The inner walls
FAIRY -TAKE, OMEN, AND ROM,SITTIO,
showed the polished framework (like a good
bet all as infiniteia varied in shape and con- church -roof) that eupported the single la-
tent as intricate ,nterinixture of rock and yer of planks, unpapered, arid otherwise un
vegetation, and land and water can pos- disfigured; the polisbed beams and joiste
sibly make thein, over -heed bore the weight of the boards
I must give the reader due warning, how. that formed at once the ceiling of the draw -
ever, that on this ground I am perhaps a ing-toom and the floor of the neat little t
trifle enthusiastic, To say the train, if 1 bed -rooms tip stairs. Thus Very room had
may for mice be frankly personal, I speak six sides of polished lightairown pino.wood
with the pardonable partiality of a native.
ainilndc4, axaboijpaI of this very die-
trict,, bOru at Kingston, the threshold of the
St. LP/W,Vel4c4, ktlad I'MfAlfV7 (aa we say be-
yond the Atlantic) on the biggest and Long-
eet ef the Thousand Islands, Hence, scenes
thing of the glamor of childhotel surrounds
the region still in my oyes t sweeter, flowers
blow there than anywhere else on this pro-
saic . planet; bigger fish lurk among the
crevteeet bitter btrdait between the honer
euekles, and livelier squirrels gambol upon
the ldekory treeit, than in any ether corner
of this oblate spheroid, I see the orange
lilies and the ladyeeslippers still, by the
reflected Hat of ten -year-old meinoriee,
So the cantious reader will perhaps dp Well
te tido a liberal disconnt of twenty percent.
On ell my adjectives, to submit my euloe
sistio vefles to a strict ad-ea/ore= drewbaolt,
and to accept the remainder as probably
representing an unprejudiced view of the
situation. I am not, I will admit,
shore; to the left, the high cliff cloeed in
the sight, with a single realty island rising
full in prospect, and the river stretching
illimitably onward, broken by endless tiny
archipelagoes, in the direction of the Corn-
wall Rapids, For the chalet itself, how P
shall I fitly describe it? A more charming 8
habarition. Being meant for midsummer
summer -house was never devised for human
use alone, warmth and snugness were left
wholly out of coesideration ; all the stress
was laid upon coolness and breezinens in the ta
sweltering heat of Canadian August. Inside ,
and out, the chalet was scrupulously of °
wood, wooderie it was built of the native
white pine, polished both sides, one thick.
ness of boards wily, and all the construe -
ngs 'Ontl 'Oat
delicate Oriental rugs and, native fur-ShbOl
lay,daintilt .upo* the Wi04(14190" ; 001Jugs
and sketelies '1094 4petilt10 .NY4110.4 light
and graceful stuninev like furniture filled up
the rooms t but,O0orWise all was the clean
wooden framework, and delightfully cool
and appropriate it looked. Fierthee to
carry mit tilie simmer effects of theAthele,
the three' recePtion-roorna on the ground-
ileoe, instead of being jealously paratiened
off from one &pother with the atereotyped
formality of urban We, were thrown into
one by broad ercheveye, where folcibag-
• doors might have been, but wore not, so
giving an air of roominess and freedom to
drawing -room, dining -room, and library
alike, whicil was especially gretefulin hot
Canailian noon -tides. With doors and win-
dows flung wide open, and roses and honey-
suckles peeping in from the richly festeoned
pillars of the veranda, can one imagine a
more delightful spot in which to Spend a
cloudless summer?
For, to complete the charm, a veranda ran
round the house below with broad shede
an comfortable rocking -chairs and creep-
)
ers elambered up the poste around, making,
as it were, a rustic frame for the eitqAisito
picture of river and Wan& that lay beyond.
Up stairs, each bedroom opens out onto a
continuons balcony, formed by the roof of
a
the veranda, aud running round the whol
halet, Swiss or Norwegian fashion, with
wood -work balustrade, overgrown with lith
sprays of native climbers. The view fro
the balcony was even finer than that fro
the platform of rook on which the hous
stood; it opened up yet wider vistas of th
river, and gave a broader prospect over the
blue hills of the dim American shore be-
yond.
I have been thus particular in describing
the house at Mossbank, because it may be
taken as
A FAIR SAMPLE
of the delicious little summer cottages in
which Americans and Canadians lounge
away the sultry months of the transatlantic
season. Our hostess, indeed, who combines
the artist's eye with the poet's, had been
peculiarly happy in her choice of a site;
Mossbank stood on, by far, the prettiest
point we saw anywhere among those sixteen
hundred and ninety-two fairy-like islands;
but almost all the cottages we visited were
picturesquettnd appropriate to their use and
sitvation, though none other, perhaps, was
quite so graceful in its design, or so dainty
in its appointments as the one in which we
were fortunate enough to fix our headquart-
ers. Dozens of Such cottages now stud the
prettiest parts of the various channels, and
it Is locally fashionable to run them down
as disfiguring and modernizing a beautiful
piece of rustic wild scenery. For my own I
part, though I have known the Islands in- I
timately from childhood upward, and can
remember them when their only inhabitants
were minks and musquash, and their staple
products blueberriea and wildflowers, I do
not think the quaint little cottages and the
wooden bunga ows are anything other (i
most cases) than improvements to the dis
trict. And I am *rather a Puritan, too, i
this matter of evildness. I hate the intru
sive foot of civilization. But civilization, a
it shows itself among the Thousand Islands
is not intrusive ; it rather heightens tha
detracts from the total impression. B
themselves, the islands tend toward same
nests; a graceful chalet, a light wooden to
farm -house, a white, gleaming lighthouse,
judiciously planted en a jutting height, and
welI embowered in spruce -fir and maples'
give individuality and distinctiveness to the
picture, and supply the landscape with
what it otherwise sadly lacks—points de re-
per—in the tangled maze of wood and
water. Every view is all the better for an
occasional landmark; the wildest nature is
aomewhat improved by a stray token of
man's occupancy and the possibility of inter
course with the mass of humanity.
LIFE UPON THE WATER,
Among the islands one lives upon th
water. By a certain tacit uneerstanding
between the islanders, every resident has a
recognized right to explore every other res
idea's petty domain. No obtrustve notice
boards flaunt before the innocent face of
heaven the anti -social and wholly uncalled-
for information that trespassers will be pro-
secuted with the utmost rigor of the law. On
the contrary, the usual formula painted on
the neat little placard beside the tiny land-
ing -stages assumes the optative rather than
the imperative mood : "Parties landing on
this island are requested to abstain from
damaging the ferns and flo vers." Tie fact
is, all the islanders are there as summer
visitors only ; each possesses but a tiny
realm of his oWn, often beautifully varied,
but always readily exhausted of its native
interest ; and the whole charm of the spot
would. evaporate entirely if proprietors in-
sisted with u.ngrained British churlishness
upon their legal right to shut themselves in
from landless humanity with the effectual
protest of a high brick wall. Accordingly,
everybody always lands freely, no man
hindering, upon evefybody else's private
island; and. the day is mostly passed in
wandering (attest) in a delicious, aimless,
listless fashion down tiny channels between
islet and islet, stopping here to pick a rare
wild -flower from a cliff on the aide, and halt-
ing there to explore and climb some jutting
rook whose peak promises a wider view over
all the surrounding little archipelagoes.
AN IDEAL LIFE.
Few modes of life could be more graceful
or humanizingthan summer life in these
delicious archipelagoes. Here and there,
to be sure, as at Thousand Island Park, a
whole big island has been bought up by
speculators (oddly mixed in the makin
Poilla be gator or mote dieapPitin ing„
YOU tette Omni Fen 1 49 net dotait )+00
emne to,way ohjorgatleg m (1°'
MOlitte , :Rho steamer $ticks te (Me
ether pf the two main'Phaunels, which
Are wide and deep, end copperatiVelyeinen-
cuMbered by reeks and iehtlide e it -avoids
the they Miner reaches, rich in Ondleee eurs
pies and Varying vlsto einetOittitti
the reel:Charms aid beauty of this faiites-
tic, feiey.like region, No, 00 1 to see elie
islands properly, you menet live en one of
them for iniveral days at let, and row up
and down among the lot eidemlionneels and
tangled back-watere, exploring the petty
bays and inlets, and oecaelonellg losing your
way altogether among the endlees intrteacies
of that Maze of water, Ittit if yell 0413 not
afford the tizne to see them thus, you should
at leaet spend, a, day or tWe at Clayton or
Gananoque, and take the "mind trip" on
the little•excursion-steamer, "Island Wan-
derer," which threads its way in and out
through the loveliest winding e of the land
-
looked rtver.
Death by Precipitation.
Death by precipitation is one of the oldest
modes of capital punishment, It prevailed
widely over the earth in primitive times.
Traces and traditions of it are found here
and there in different countries, and in lo-
calities far apart, We can eaeily understand
how this should. be so, for in ancient times
towns and villages were almost exclusively
built upon elevated melee and heights, for
the sake of seeurity. The nucleus of the
town was usually a large isolated rock, suck
as the rock of the Parthenon at Athena, the
roele of the Palatine at Rome, the rock of
the Chateau at Nice, and the rock of Zion at
Jerusalem. Precipitation among the Jews
was one form of atoning, which was the re
cognized legal punishment for blasphemy.
Indeed "stoning," as the Mishna inform
us, was regarded as merely a term for break-
ing the culprit's neck. It was made imper.
ative that the house of stoning," as the
place from which the criminal was east down
was called, should be at least "two storeys
high "; and it was the duty of the chief
witness to peroipitate the criminal with his
own hand. If he was not killed at once by
the fall, the second witness had to cast a
stone on his head ; and if he still survived,
the whole people were to join together in
putting , an end to him with a shower of
atones. Tills precipitation constituted an
essential and humane feature in the act of
stoning. Both modes we must regard as an
exceedingly primitive custom, the most nat-
ural method in which a, rude people would
wreak their vengeance, or inflict deserved
punishment. It was of a »piece with the pre-
historic custom of casting stones upon the
pltice where the dead were buried, and so
piling up a cairn there.
Pat's Answer.
Trip an Irishman, and he will fall on his
n , feet; corner him, and he will jump over
- I your head; question him upon a subject of
n which he is ignorant, and his answer, though
is not a reply, will enable him to retreat
with his flag flying. An Irishman, who
wished for a position as letter -carrier in one
of our large cities, went before the Civil
Service Board'for examination. He appeared,
wearing a careless air, as one about to go
y through a mere formality.
"What is the distance, Mr. Mahoney, be-
tween Toronto and Constantinople?" asked
the Chairman.
"Wat's the distance between Toronto and
that haithen city?" said Pat, "Well, sor, if
that's to be my route, I withdraw my
application."
One of Pat's countrymen, having served
in the Halifax navy -yard in a subord-
inate position, asked to be promoted, hinting
• that he would not object to going to sea,
if he could be assured of a good berth on a
man-of-war. He, too, was invited to appear
before the Examining Board.
8 "Mr. Mulhone'".:asked the Chairman, "if
you were in the China Sea, and the ship
under full sail was going ten knots an hour,
1
' and a man should fall overboard, what would
yoit, do ?"
he answer, without the
shadow camenowetmlexthe
swearing on Mulhones
1
face 911 was in the China Seas, under the
1 circumstances ye name, and a man should
fell overboard I think I'd write to his
friends that he was drowned."
Va.
The Discoverer of Spectacles.
Fewer inventions have conferred a greater
blessing on the human race than that which
assists impaired vision. It is impossible to
say how many there are at the present day
whose lives would be almost valueless were
itnot for the use of spectacles. Indeed, Dr.
Jonson rightly expressed his surprise, that
such a benefactor as the discoverer of spec-
tacles should have been regarded with in-
difference, and found no worthy biographer
to celebrate his ingenuity. Unfortunately,
however, his name is a matter of much un-
certainty; and, hence. a grateful posterity
have been prevented bestowing upon his
memory that honor which it has so ricbly
merited. But it rney be noted that popular
opinion has long ago pronounced in favor of
Spina, a Florentine monk, as the rightful
claimant, although some are in favor of Rog-
er Ba,con. Monsieur Spoon, in his "Re-
searches Curieuses d'Antiquite," fixes the
date of invention of spectacles between the
years 1280 and 1311, and says that Alex-
ander de Spina, having seen a pair made by
some other person who was unwilling to
communicate the secret of their conetruction
ordered a pair for himeelf, and found them
so useful that he cheerfully and promptely
with camp -meetings and other revivalist made the invention public. According to en
religious gatheriugseand laid out as a sort
of exclusive Bedford Park, where none but Italian antiquary, the person to whom Spina r
was indebted' for his information was Salvi- "es
approved members of a particular sect may no, who died in the year 1318, and he quotes u
from a manuscript in his possession an epi-
taph which records the eircumsta,nce :
"Here lies Salvino Armoto d'Armati, of
THE L1XE-E144 OT4V13.
Thu wisdom of tho club in deciding oot to
permit any lecturerto enter the hall until he
had passed an examlnation before a eornmit-
tee Was apParent When the aoxl, Flumbago
‘Tosy lin of Huntsville, walked into De-
troit to deliver his lecture on : Call We
AveP be Perfectly Happy ?" The committee
submitted him to the follovving examination
"When and where was Flat° boro 7"
"What breughe the downfall of the Ro.
man Empire 1
What nation first made use of the soup
bone as »a substitute for turkey ?"
"Who introduced the game of volley into
this country 7"
4; who •w4v3 De s9tQ, and why did he dis-
eover the ltlississippt River ?"
If I have 1,000,0P0,000 cocoanuts and give ewer, i d °
The Antj,,Poverty $ooiety,
The members of the Auti.Poverty Society
may not perhaps have been YeeY happy in the
naMO they )494Ve given to' their association:
They heve P9rtit10m
4nly giVen all jokers
opportunity for airing their wit at their ex_
pease oz4 perhaps with some reason, for.
law, apart from personal eharacter and
pereevering .eoergy, car; Poly go but a vex,
ehot way In putting an •end to poverty,
What is causing nineteen twentieths egs
the Poverty in Toronto or Ontario 7 Not the.
Intustie,e of the laws, but the thoughtleste
improvidence and viciousness of the
vidual. Men and wOrneo are poor and ofter*
destitute because they are wastefull idle and
vicious. if every one were industrious, per
severing, economical ae'clsober,therewould
Vast
g r cmgh,74
g en e laws, and though
the unearned increment were continuing to
go as it has done in the past. Fancy no wids.
ky, wine or beer drank in Toronto, no days
lost from workmen getting on the spree. No
wages squandered on what ie worsethan folly
o strange darkey 205,492 of them, how many
del have left 7"
How long would a body weighing 260
pounde take in faljirig 1,800 feet ?"
The list of questions 8 nibraced thirty-one,
and the Hon. Plumbago could not return a
correct answer to a single ene of them
Fte grew quite indignant over the exam:ins,-
tion, claiming that the only two things which
stoo4 in the way of perfect happiness on
earth were green watermelons at fifty cents
apiece and the houee.fly ; but the committee
were firm, and he was told to jog along.
"De report of de committee will be am
opted an' adopted," observed Brother Gar-
dner," an' each member of it will also con-
sider hisself formally thanked. Hed de Hon
Plumbago been allowed to take die platform
we should hey lot hell an hour of our valu-
able time an' been no wiser, We will now
proceed wid de reg'lar purceedin's."
TO BE INVESTIGATED.
The Secretary then read the following
communication from Charleston,I11. :
Brother Gardner—We take this opportun-
ity of writing to you with red ink on a blue
sheet of paper to ask that Giveadam Jones
will come down here and establish a branch
of the Lime -Kiln Club. J. B. Mitchell the
erocer, has offered us the free use of the
room over his store for one year and thir-
teen colored men are all ready to be sworn
in as charter members. We believe that a
branch will secure fifty members here in a
month, and probably put a stop to the dis-
appearance of chickens and small pigs and
watermelons.
In case Elder Toots can come with Givea-
dam Jones we will organize a ca,mp meeting
at the same time. How is the Elder on the
shout? We don't care so much about relig-
ion, but we want a leader whose voice can
be heard two miles against the wind. The
gentlemen named will be met at the depot
by a string band and forty colored people,
and while here they shall drink nothing
cheaper than pink lemonade with a stick in
it. We hope the club will take prompt and
decisive action on this petition.
CURLY JIM.
ABSOLUTE SMITH,
WansaursWierre,
Committee.
"De petishun ar' referred to de proper
committee," said Brother Gardner, an' I
wouldsinform de members ofit dat a thorough
investigashun am necessary. I was pusson-
ally acquainted wid Wakeful White in Sey-
mour, lnd., twenty-two :y'ars ago, an' he
was den a bad man—werry bad. In fackt
he ar' de only human bein' on dis airth who
eber succeeded in cuttin' de hind buttons off
my Sunday coat-tails widout my knowledge
If he ar' de same man we mus' be suah dat
he ar' reformed all de way frew, an' has un-
dergone a change of heart from top to bot-
totn. '
SINFUL SMITH'S BAD BREAR.
Brother Sinful Smith, a member taken in
about three months ago, and one who has
hitherto maintained a respectfeil silence dur-
ing club meetings, now suddenly arose and ,
offered the following idyl in competition for
the summer poetry prize offered by the club
"Sealed proposals are invited by
The board f Education for
Whatever furniture, fuel,
Printing and other articles that
May be required
By the hoard for the ensuing year,
Samples an specifications can
Be seen at the office of the
Board, High School building,
At any time."
He was about to readthe third verse when
Brother Gardner brought his gravel down
with a resounding whack and exclaimed;
" Brodder smith, stop 1"
" Yes, sah."
"What is you readin' to dis meetin'?"
"I calls it an idyl, sah."
"Oh, you does 1 Sot right down on your
cheer, sah 1 ar' de Committe on Lunatic
Asylum present? Dey ar',eh 1 De commit-
tee will take immediate harge of Brodder
Smith and remove him to de eunty-rooin.
Anter sittin' der de gemlen will exercise
dem own judgment as to treatment. I
would, however, suggest plenty of ice on de
back of his neck, an' plenty of boot leather
a few feet lower down. In addition to dat
Brudder Smith ar' healiby suspended frorn.
membership fur de space of three months
A pusson who boldly and maliciously seeks
to palm off on dis club as original an idyl
stolen bodily from de works of Shakepeare
mus' be made to feel de weight of our re-
buke."
FOR WISES.
The Committee on Applications reported
unfavorably on the candidates named:
Judge Exchange Johnston, of Canton,
Ohio, for having been sent to jail for steal.
ng two sheep. He sought to explain that
he thought the two sheep were simply one
pig but the wool wouldn't wash.
Elder Huckleberry Banks, of Toronto,
Ontario, for false pretenses, he having a
wooden leg and being deafi n the right ear.
n hunting up the Elder's record it was also
iscovered that ue had tvventy.onebird shot
in the calf of the other leg, and he refused
to explain how they got there.
Prof. Antimony Jackson, of Grenada,
Florence, the inventor of spectacles. Itia,y Mass., for sevegal suspicious incidents 001'
God pardon his sins The year 1318," nected with his career during the past year
One of these incidents was being found in
the post -office at night, where he claimed
to have called to inquire for a letter. Anoth-
r was in having two razorbacked hogs
take a cottage. One such little village is
exclusively Methodist, while another is
wholly given over to serious Congregation-
alism. But in most parts of the group
(and it must be remembered that the islands
cover, roughly speaking, an area of forty
miles by ten or fifteen) each house occupies
a little insular kin,gdoin of its own, where
the boys and giris can swim, and fish, and
ay, and fiirt, unmolested, where t e
enters can lie in hammocks under the trees,
nd ruminate on politics, philosophy, and
e tender affections:where callers tan
e espied from afar as they approachhore ; end wherehospitalathe
ity on Ample scale
as universal as it is unexacting. Note,
bp, that big black base and muskallonge
till lurk among the cracks and crannies
of the submerged granite, and that on
many islands you can sit on the jutting and
of a tiny promontory mid drop your line
or thein, plump from the shore, into
wenty feet of dear green water.
now NOT TO DO IT.
Our last words to the British tourists
who, stirred by my natural and indigenous
enthusiasm, may perhaps contemplate some
day visiting and exploring the Thousand
Islands. Don't for a moment seppose that
the islands can be adequately seen from the
deck of one of the big lake steamers that ply
iry and down between Montreal, Xingston,
anciToronto, This is the stereotyped British-
tottrist way d seeing thorn, and nothing
A Fortunate Escape.
La,martine the French poet was once visit.
ecl by a deputation of " Vesuvienno," furi-
ous female Rupublicans of the petroletist
tape. The captain was the spokeswoman.
She told him that the " Vestiviennes " had
come to tell him how touch they loved him.
"There are fifty of us here," she added,
" and our mission is, in the name of all the
others, to kiss you This announcenient
made the poet shudder. The captain of the
gang was tolerably good-looking, but the
others wore a horrible -looking, half -drunken
and halfmkazy set of viragoes. Ile was equal
to the emergency. Citizen," siticl he, "1
thank you from the bottom of my heart.
This is certainly tho happiest day of my life;
but peeinit me to say that splendid patriots
like you cannot betreated like women. You
must be regarded as men; arid, since men
do not kiss ono another, we meet content
oereelves with a hearty- liend-shakinn." The
ladies considered themselves' highly com-
plimented. " Via Laniartilie 1" they ahout-
ed, and each grasped his hand, When they
were gone, he looked like a man wh \ had
just Moped from a deadly peril,
penned up under his cabin, and when the
owner of the a,ntnials came around the Pro-
fessor claimed he took them for crows,
MB CLOSE.
There being no further routine business
0_ % perishable nature on the table, Brother
Gardner said:
"In gwine to our homes let us remember
dat de man who walks in de middle of de
road can't be slugged wid a sand -bag from
de alley. While we part as frens, an' while
each member should carry home a fraternal
feelin,3 de puseon whowelks off wid my hat
will be made to wish he had nobber bin
boat 1 We will now abduct."
What the States are bothered With just
now is too large a reveaue. Last revenue
year they hed more than a hundred Million ,
of dollars above what they needed, And
No senselves and worse than senaeleee be
ting. No tobacco chewing »or smoking. Why
were that taking place, there is scarcely
man in the whole community who word
not own his own house and lot in less tha
four years if he liked. Every child would b
fed, clothed endedneeted, our gaol would b
for sale and our judges would have almoe
nothing to do, and yet not ene la,w abou
land or anytning else have been changed
" AntisPoverty " indeed ! By all means
Let anyone vow that he shall be sober
dilligent, intelligent and saving and a larg
part of the poverty going would take to
itaelf wings and flee away. Still good, wis
equitable laws help and it is therefore wis
that these laws should be brought a
nearly as possible into accord with wha,
they ought to be, so thet one may not b
unduly helped and another unduly hindere
in the pursuit of health, wealth and leers
sonal happiness. If the laws about Ian
are bad by all means let them be °henget
and that they are not altogether what thel.
had ought to be will be seriously dispute
by comparatively few. It is all very we
as a joke that the Anti -Poverty Society pro
P0888 te abolish poverty by resolutions.
does no such thing. Tains at least, doe
not think that it fancies that end same
at can be secured apart from personal refer
lotion. It wishes every one to "sweep be
fore his own door," but at the same tim
there is surely nothing absurd or unreason
•
ne-
a
0
e,
a
d,
t
-
e -
abbe in the following resolutions which the.
Toronto branch lately passed :— '
Whereas—Land differs from other kinds •
of property in the following important par-
ticulars :-
1. It is not the product of labor, but was
furnished by the Creator forthe uses of
mankind.
2. A portion of the value, and especially -
in crowded cities, almost the whole value, is
not the result of the toil of the holder, but
the result of an increased demand, or of
public improvements.
3. Land is an indispensable condition of
existence. To deprive man of access to
land is to deprive him of the possibility of
getting means for subsistence:
And whereas our present land laws have
the following serious defects :-
1. The practically allow one portion of
the community to acquire possession of all
the valuable land, with the power of exclud-
ing the remainder of the community.
2. By the exercise of this power of ex-
clusion, and not for any service rendered,,
the holders of some of these lands can pre-
vent any industry being carried on unleser
on condition that a portiere of the product
be surrendered to them. The amount that
may thus be claimed varies from nothing on
the poorest lands to enormous sums in the
largest cities. In the best parts of Toronto
the charge is from $25,000 to $50,000 per
acre yearly.
3. Fed this charge the landholders return
no equivalent, they render no service. By
this charge industry is deprived of its re-
ward, and toil subjected to a burden which
inevitably prevents the laborer receiving
anything like a fair share of the product.
4. To the power of the landholder our
laws place ahnost no limit. He may hold
the land vacant and thus prevent any indus-
try being carried on, thereby causing en-
forced idleness. He may push his charge
for occupation to the utmost amount the
business will bear. Let population increase,
and with increased demand industry must
surrender more. No limit is placed to the
time that industry is thus compelled to sur-
render its product to the landholder. Year
after year must this surrender be made, and
by our present laws this surrender may con-
tinue to the end of time—toil producing
Idleness appropriating; toil compelled to
live in penny while idleness eiajoys abuncl-
ance.
Therefore, be it resolved, that in order
to prevent the extension of this pernicious
system, we ask our fellow -citizens to aid us
in urging on the Goyernmente, both Domin-
ion and Provincial, the advisability of s0.
changing the terms of all future sales of
public land, that any value that acerttee to
the land, over and above the value of the
improvements, shall be reserved for public
p
If the Anti -Poverty Society never say
anything more absurd or aim at any result,
more unreasonable than what is indicated
in mole resolutions, it will not go far astray. i
It is not very fair after all, s it? that et
man should give a hundred dollars for a bit
of land and, without his ever moving hand
or foot to add to its value, that be should
be entitled to levy a fax for its use for all
time coming, and that he and his children
should live henceforth in idleness on the
proceeds of that piece of ground and on the
, labour and skill of sole body or other. but
certainly not his. Who gave. that land its
, increased value? Who has the best right
i, the "unearned increment ?" Such ques-
tions may be asked, at any rate, without the
esker being justly chargeable with either
anarchy or atheism.
The Queen has donated £1,000 to the Int.
perial Institute.
Danseno Tonoute—Take a corned tongue
and boil tender ; split it, stick in a few -
cloves, cut one onion, a little thyme add
some browned flour. Have the tongue ems-
ered with water, in which mix the ingre-
dients, add three hard boiled eggs chopper/
fine, and send to the table garnished with
hard boiled eggs.
CRABLOTTP BIISSE.--Talta two pints rich
milk and soak three-fourths of a package of
gelatine in it. Make a custard of a quart of
milk, one pound of sugar and the yolks of
eight eggs, add the gelatine and two tea-
spoonfuls extract of vanilla. When it be-
gins to mope' dir in it a quart of rich,
bream whipped to a froth. Line a mold
'with stale sponge cake ; set on ice,
The following simple preparation will,be
ound useful for eleitumg mid polishing old
urnittree : Over a moderate five put a per-
ectlyolea,ri vote', into this drop ttvo ounces
1 white or yellow wait. When melted, re- ,
one frotn the five, and add four outmee pure
inmentine ; then stir until 000b when it is
eady for use, Tho mixture brings cat the
riginal colour of the Wood, addiug a lustre,
goal to that of varnish,
11)
every kind of corrope dodge is reeorted 10t
hi Order to get it spent. Why not abolish r
a good many taxes and lower others ,7 The o
remedy seems easy and likely to be efficient. e