Topics Of The Times

Ak cxtraordinaiy security was offered by a rnan who recently adverlised in a Berlín newspaper for a loan. The advertisement ran as follows: "A medical student whose means are exhausted would like to meet with some one who would advanee him the nucessary sum rate of interest. If necessary ho would guarantee at once to marry his eveditor's daughter, or, if he prefersit, would give au undertaking to do so on passing hi final examination." The mulo, though it leads a life of toil and privation, has so many opportunitip-s to illustrate its treacheroiis and "hi n 1 i i-ta- m #- j- . ai n I ■ . , , ■ t , ] is I Iil I i 1' fit iuaiiiliiü L spillL ttlin isu iiuuiiiaujj 111ted by nature to improvo them that, on the whole, it probably is not an unhappy beast. But this providentinl eompensation does not apply to mules eniployed in coal mines. The Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company employs no feyer than 1,700 of tlioso blighted creatures under ground, and many of them do not seo the light of day from one year to anothcr. On being at last drawn up from their subterranean prisons they are lotally blindeii ay the transition from darknesstolight, and this affliction is often permanent. Moreover the men and boys who have charge of them become so expert 'inrï wily that only at long intervals does a mulé sueceed in kicking a victim hito ,he grtrat hïeafter. Mu. JonN Gage, a ricli eitizeu of Vineland, N. J. , is desirous of seeing a crematory erected in that town, and oflers to contribute $500 toward its contruction and two acres of land adjoinng tbe Oak Hill Cemetery for a site. ár. Gage is eighty jears old, and must herefore expect, in the course of nature, to be in need of a grave or an urn i ï tv on! -f 1-q#-iio 1 -t ív i n il li o mri c cr tl it ) refera thc latter. To tlic observation hat the Le Moyne furnace at Washingon, Penn., finds little to do he replied: 'That is not the question. ïhe more rematories there ai-e erected the moro. videspread will the desire for cremaion become. The erection of crema■ories is the bestjway to combat popular jrejudice against their use. Nothing vould prove a greater blessing to future generations than the passage of a law ompelling all bodies to be burned iatead of allowiug them to be interredin tie ground." In Castle District, at a point about ve miles north of Virginia, Nev., ÍS a rtrn-fc-! tunnnl iï'1-ïiïi w nlrnc '1 í"ill_ tant and most singular protest against ts own existence. The exoavation was made iour years ago in the side of a teep hill. When they had penetrated he hill about fiften f eet the workmen i ut into a mass of soft clay through ' vhich they struggled twenty-iive feet urther with the aid of timbers, and then ;ave up the job. Being left to its own .evices, tlie tunnel proceeded to repair lamages. It very plainly showed that t resented the whole business, as its irst move was to push out all the timers and dump thern down the hill. It id not stop at that, but projected from ts mouth a nith or stODDer of clav the uil size of the excavation This carae ut horizontally some eiglit feet, as hough to look about and see what had iccome of the miners, when it sroko it ÉF and rolled down the slope. In this vay it has been going on until there are mndreds of tons of clay at the foot of he hill. At flrst it required only about week for a plug to come out and break ff, then a month, and so on, till now he masses are ejeeted only three oriour imes a year, yet the motion continúes, nd to-day the tunnel has the better of he fight by about f our feet. The faruous spectre of the Broeken vhich frcquently appears in the Hartz monntains seldom visits this country, mt it was seen not long ago f rom the 1oujabe range in Nevada by Mr. 11. A. klarr, of the Coast and Geodetic Surey, who gives this account of the atmospheric phenomenon: "Snddenly, as I stood looking over the vast expanso eneath me, I saw myself confrontcd y a monster figure of a man standing n mid air before me, upon the top of a learly defined mountain peak, which ïad but the tbin air of the valley below or a resting place. The figure was only a short distance from me. Around t were two circles of rainbow light and color, the outer one faintly defined as compared with the inner one, which vas bright and clear and distinctly irilescent. Around thehead oï the figure vas a beautiful halo of light, and from ,hn figure itself shot rays of colors nornal to the body. The sight startled me more than i can now teil. I threw up my hands in astonishment, and, perïaps, some little fear, and at this moment the spectre seemed to move tovard me. In a few minutes I got over my fright, and then, after the figure ïad faded away, I recognized the fact hat I had enjoyed one of the mostwonderful phenomena of nature. Since hen we have seen it once or twice from Feff Davis Peak, but it has never created such an impression upon me a,s it did that evening when I was doing service as a heliotroper, all alone, on the op of Are Domo."