Pussy Makes a Pet of the Rat and Is a Mother to It

It is related in the San Francisco Chronicle that, four miles from Farmington, in California, resides a well-to-do rancher named Morrow. He has a little 4-year-old son, Vernie, who usually has about everything he takes a fancy to. Among the things he fancies an which he has is a large, matronly cat that has been brought up to make due provisions for herself and her progeny. Jet is this cat’s name and jet her color. Jet and Vernie are great friends, and they are frequently seen roaming around the premises together when Jet’s time is not taken up with her own private affairs. Jet has always borne the reputation of being “sure death” to any rats or ground squirrels. A short time ago, in exploring the barns, granaries, and barn yard, Vernie came upon a nest of young rats, which he immediately took up an carried to the house, and placed carefully in a drawer in his mother’s sewing machine. Mrs. Morrow objected to the nest of rats being in the drawer, and took them out to drown them, when Vernie insisted he must keep one, and begged so hard for it that his mother gave it to him. In a short time he laid it down and forgot about it. Then Jet came along and took up the young rat and carried it to her bed as a companion for her one kitten and a solace to her own mind. Strange as it may appear, the young rat made himself at home, derived his sustenance from the same source as the kitten, received the same maternal attention from Jet, who seemed to forget that she was nursing her legitimate prey, to the great delight of Vernie and the surprise of the older heads about the neighborhood. This strange state of affairs continued for two or three weeks, when the baby rat strayed from Jet’s protection, and met his death at the claws of another cat not so merciful as Jet. Strange as this may appear, it is a fact, and can be verified by several persons who witnessed this peculiar and happy family.

When winter’s snows promise to make hazards too hazardous for indulgence in golf playing, the old and interesting game of billiards will amuse the house-bound. Now the occasional woman has played billiards, for many years, and played it well; but it was not until Lord Dunraven’s pretty daughter, Lady Aileen Wyndham-Quin, came over this year, to see her father race his handsome yacht, that billiards came suddenly into great social favor. Lady Aileen, it appears, used her cue not only with uncommon facility, but proved how exceedingly graceful a slender woman can appear when in evening dress she pockets her balls or smashes her opponent’s most careful combinations. The English girl’s exhibitions of prowess not only set her feminine friends in America seriously thinking, but valorously practicing on the baize-covered tables, until the majority of even callow debutants know something more than how to prettily chalk their cues. After many of the smartest autumn dinners the women quickly wandered down, from coffee, small talk, and satin-hung drawing-room, to the big leather-upholstered basement billiard-room, where the men found them, pink of cheek and bright of eye, over a game of sufficient strength to command even masculine respect and a desire to engage therein.–Demorest Magazine.

Left His Astral Body to be Kicked by the Cashier

The shabbily dressed man arose from a table containing numerous empty dishes, and with a toothpick projecting from a corner of his mouth, walked over to the cashier near the door, and remarked:

“Say, mister, do you believe in psychology?”

“To some extent, yes,” replied he, curiously. “Why?”

“An’ astral bodies?”

“Yes.”

“I was told so on the outside. Now, my bill is one-forty, ain’t it? The question arises who is to foot the bill? With no chink, I can’t. But I’ll make a proposition. I’ll open the door in this way, move out in this way–”

“Come back here, you beat.”

“Not much. My astral self is just inside the door. Administer to it a dozen or so good, sound kicks, and fire it out into the middle of next month. I won’t care. S’long.”–Ex.

They Fly at Great Altitudes and Attain Speed Well Nigh Incredible

Boston Herald: The investigations of the celebrated artist and savant, Heinrich Gootke, have thrown an interesting light on many facts hitherto unknown concerning the migration of birds. It has been noticed that when the time of departure comes the birds vanish as if by magic. This is explained in various ways. The migration flight is always at an extremely lofty altitude, and it also takes place generally at night. The structure of birds renders them capable of existing at an incredible height. They can ascend to an elevation of from 35,000 to 40,000 feet, and at such heights sustain great muscular efforts for considerable lengths of time. At this altitude birds attain to astounding speed, a speed which seems to come to them simply for the purpose of migration. While the swallow is supposed to fly with the speed of the fastest train, the northern blue-throat, a bird which under normal conditions only hops, makes the journey from Central Africa to Heligoland in a spring night of scarcely nine hours. Its average rate is therefore 180 geographical miles an hour. The Virginia plover, according to Mr. Gootke, travels at the rate of four miles a minute, that is, 240 miles an hour. This incredible speed is of course only attained at great altitudes, where the extreme rarity of the air causes less loss of muscular power in overcoming friction and there is no wind to act as an impediment to progress. What guides birds in their migration? After fifty years of study Mr. Gootke refuses even to attempt to answer of this question from a scientific point of view. What adds to the mystery is that young birds of the year–their age not exceeding six or eight weeks–perform this first journey of their lives with the same unerring certainty as the old individuals which follow a month or so later.

Drums with Which the Natives are Able to Communicate

Capt. Five, a Belgian explorer, says that the people of the Congo have a curious and interesting method of telephoning. For a long time he refused to believe that the natives really had the power to communicate with others at a distance, though articles had been sent to him in answer to such communications. At length, one day, journeying on the river by pirogue, and being about fifty miles from Basoko, he determined, instead of stopping, to press on to the village. Then one of his people offered to telephone to the village that the party would reach the place toward evening and would like to have supper prepared on arrival.

A native with a drum then began to beat it after a peculiar fashion, and presently announced that he had heard a reply. He then rolled the drum for some time and tranquilly returned to his paddle. Capt. Five waited with much interest to see whether his approach would be expected and was astonished as he neared Basoko toward evening to recognize on the bank one of his fellow-explorers, Lieut. Verellen. A fire was burning ashore and supper was being made ready. Capt. Five, after greeting the lieutenant, inquired eagerly how he had learned of the approach of the expedition. The lieutenant replied that the news had been brought some hours before by a negro, who said that a white man was approaching by the way of the river and would need supper.

The drum used by the natives for this purpose is a small but noisy affair of wood. It is constantly employed in communicating short distances, in order to save time and trouble. In this instance there had evidently been relays of drummers along the whole fifty miles from the point where the original signal was given near Basoko. The natives are able, with their drums, to signal messages of considerable length. This particular instance is recorded in La Flandre, a Belgian publication.

Boston Transcript: P. Valin, a nervous little old gentleman of Somerville, has discovered that everybody who buys liquids is being cheated. He says the gallon measures in common use do not contain 231 cubic inches, as required by law, and he has proved it to his own satisfaction by testing a standard gallon measure with a set of square tin boxes of known capacity. Mr. Valin has great confidence in his own measures and in his method of proof, which requires a squaring of the circle, but a little thing like that does not bother him. He figured out a method of squaring the circle some years ago, and has been squaring circles ever since, with the greatest of ease. He says that, as a practical result of his figuring, he has found that the standard gallon is about a wineglassful “shy,” and he calls on the authorities, in the name of the president of the continental congress, at once to rectify this error. Just what he will do if the government continues to go on cheating the consumers of liquids he does not say, but the mandates of a man who has squared the circle, it seems, should be given some consideration.

Bad Habits Make a Man Act Like He Was Under a Spell

A man will try to convince himself by arguments so poorly founded that if they were presented by another they would be treated with contempt. As an instance: He may be ailing from the heavy poison of tobacco, or the lighter poison of coffee, the weakened condition will show somewhere in the body; eyes, head, stomach, heart, liver, bowels or somewhere. His doctor tells him to stop the habit, but each day the thought comes, “O, coffee and tobacco don’t hurt me, its my stomach that is at fault; I’ll have that cured and everything will be all right;” so he keeps on with his habits, and goes to drugging a poor old stomach that would do its work beautifully if the master would furnish enough vitality to run it, but he poisons his nervous system and robs the members of strength to carry on their work. When a man wakes up to what he is doing, exchanging his heath and chance to succeed in this world for a paltry habit or two, he quits them and follows nature’s wise laws.

It is easy to give up coffee if one can have Postum Cereal, the food drink, which is a fac-simile in looks of Mocha coffee. In taste it retains a like pungency with coffee, but has a distinct flavor of its own. It is made entirely of pure grains, and has the ability to make red blood.

Tobacco, morphine, whiskey, strychnine and coffee each contain much the same poisonous alkaloids, but very in strength. Postum Cereal is a delicious breakfast drink; it is fattening and nourishing for it is made of the grains intended by the Creator for a man’s natural use.

A fashionable audience in Paris recently listened to a lecture on chemistry by a celebrated chemist. At the conclusion of the lecture a lady and gentleman who were among the first to leave the hall had reached the open air, when the lady caught her escort staring at her. “What is the matter?” asked the madame, in surprise. “Pardon me, but you are quite blue!” The lady returned to the hall and approached a mirror. She started back in horror. The rouge upon her cheeks had been converted into a beautiful blue by the chemical decomposition which had taken place under the influence of the gasses which had been generated during the lecture. The majority of the women in the audience had suffered in a similar manner. There were all sorts of colors–blue, yellow, violet and black. Some whose vanity had induced them to put ivory on the skin, coral on the lips, rouge on the cheeks and black on the eye-brows had undergone a ludicrous transformation.–New York Tribune.