Brooklyn detectives say that Daniel Evans, 19 years old, with no home, is the greatest “fit fakir” they have met professionally in the course of a long and varied experience, says the New York Tribune. He has been pretending to “take fits,” they say, with a regularity and perfection that has gained him lots of money from sympathetic persons, but which at least led him to jail, where to-day he languishes under the supervision of a “minion of the law,” who nervously watches Daniel Evans in case he should “take a fit” there.

Evans is the young man who has been visiting hotels and churches, where he had fits and fits and fits. After one fit he would have a collection taken up for his benefit and then he would seek another field and have another fit. He worked this novel scheme in various places in New York city and Brooklyn; in the former city at the Fifth Avenue hotel, in the latter at the St. George hotel and at other places. After each simulated fit Evans would collect money to pay his fare to Fresno, Cal., “where his poor old father lived.” He did this at the St. George a few weeks ago. He went to the Grace Methodist Episcopal church, Seventh avenue and St. John’s place, and had a fit and a collection in the middle of the Sunday evening services.

Last Sunday night he went to the First Reformed church, Seventh avenue and Carroll street, and had a fit there. The Rev. Dr. James M. Farrar, however, thought that Evans was having fits for value received and that his schemes was a fradulent one to gain money and sympathy. So after Evans had called at the “Dutch Arms,” a club connected with the church, Dr. Farrar informed Detectives Reynolds and Weiser, who arrested Evans.

It has been the pleasure of The Democrat, as the champion of the under dog in the fight, to say a good word now and then for the homeopathists, the weaker school, every man’s hand, from the supreme bench down to the resident physician, having, at times, been against them. It is now our duty to open the eyes of the citizens of this state to the loss they, and the homeopathic college, sustained when Dr. Morgan was allowed to return to the straight streets and white stoops of Philadelphia. It is of a miracle we would sing, a miracle never dreamed of by Hahne–or any other–man. The heroine’s name is Smith–Jennie Smith. She had been afflicted with chronic spinal disease for sixteen years, during which time she had been confined to her bed, and upon which she would have remained but for a kind Fate which sent her to the homeopathic hospital at Philadelphia and to Dr. John C. Morgan. Did Dr. Morgan vainly and highly attenuate his medicines? Did he dilute to an inordinate degree? No. But he knelt with his patient and poured forth his soul in prayer for her recovery. Far above the noise and bustle of the street cars was heard his invocation. Men came and men went, still he prayed on. Aghast the Philadelphians gazed; even the fire engines were ordered out; but above the shriek of the steam whistle were heard his supplicating tones; and when his voice was so hoarse that he could hardly whisper, and the skin was abraded from his knees, he arose and the maiden’s verbetrae [sic] were as stiff as those of the lonesome democrat who refuses to coalesce. We joyfully regard the possible result of this new system of practice. Where will it end? we ask triumphantly. To think of the gentle Palmer, the militant Franklin, the dignified Dunster, the saintly Donald, the eloquent Frothingham and the keen Jones throwing their saws and their pills, great and small, to the winds. No more the knife; the “new process for spinal curvatures” will be abandoned, for the newer, the supplicatory process, will supersede all. Even the excellent president of the university will petition The Infinite for the saving of the otherwise wholly lost soul of the gentle zephyr who directs the destinies of the Courier and Dr. Chase’s receipt book. So let us rejoice for the glad promise of a better day.

From a review of Physiologie des Passions, ou nouvelle Doctrine des Sentimens Moraus; par J. L. Alibert. Chapitre XI. de l’Ennui. Physiology of the Passions; or a New Theory of Moral Sentiments Chap. XI. of Ennui.

That ennui is a principle of action widely diffused, will hardly be denied by any careful observer of human nature. No individual can conscientiously claim to have been always and wholly free from its influences, except where there has been a life springing from the purest sources, sanctified by the early influence of religious motives, and protected from erroneous judgments by the constant exercise of a healthful understanding. For the rest, though few are constantly afflicted with it as an incurable evil, there are still fewer who are not at times made to suffer from its influence. It stretches its heavy hand on the man of business and the recluse; it makes its favourite haunts in the city, but it chases the aspirant after rural felicity, into the scenes of his rural listlessness; it makes the young melancholy, and the aged garrulous; it haunts the sailor and the merchant; it appears to the warrior and to the statesman; it takes its place in the curule chair, and sits also at the frugal board of old fashioned simplicity. You cannot flee from it; you cannot hide from it; it is swifter than the birds of passage, and swifter than the breezes that scatter clouds. It climbs the ship of the restless who long for the suns of Europe; it jumps up behind the horseman who scours the woods of Michigan; it throws its scowling glances on the attempt at present enjoyment; it scares the epicurean from his voluptuousness, and when the ascetic has finished his vow, it compels him once more to repeat the tale of his beads.

To the influence of ennui must be traced the passion for strong excitement. When life has become almost stagnant, when the ordinary course of events has been unable to excite any strong interest, ennui assumes a terrific power over the mind, and clamours for emotion, though that emotion is to be purchased by scenes of horror and of crime. “What a magnificent spectacle,” said the Parisian mob, “how interesting a spectacle to see a woman of the wit and courage of Madame Roland on the scaffold!” And it is precisely the same power, which excites the sensitive admirer of works of fiction to ransack the shelves of a library for works of thrilling and “painful” interest.

To the same kind of restless curiosity we have to ascribe the passionate declamations of the tragic actor, and the splendid music of the opera; the cunning feats of the village conjuror, and the lascivious pantomime of the city ballet-dancers; the disgusting varieties of bull-fights, and the celebrated feats of pugilism; the locomotive zeal of the great pedestrians, and the perfect quiescence of the “pillar saints.”

Mrs. Chas. Root, Cedar Springs, Mich., was told by physicians that they could do nothing for her. After taking two bottles of “Adironda” she was able to do her own work and ride to town to do her shopping. Sold by all druggists.

The walking mania is at feverish height in this country to-day, and a very pretty dissertation might be written about the effects of legs upon the brain. As a psychological study we recommend it to the students in the university, and to all others who are fond of metaphysics. The effect of legs upon the American people at this time is marvelous. Play-houses all over the country are nightly filled with a motley crowd, who applaud and encore until the welkin rings the disgusting “acting” of the actress who lavishly displays her shapely limbs; and who would be hissed from the state if it were not for these substantial auxiliaries. So, too, in the legitimate drama, the occasional display of a pretty ankle enhances the attraction, and has more than once been the salvation of a piece. But it is not alone upon the stage that “legs draw.” Thousands of persons daily rush to see some phenomenal feat of walking, paying as much for the privilege of witnessing a pair of legs traveling a saw-dust path, as they would have to pay to see forty pairs of legs upon the stage, while at the same time enjoying the comfortable seats of the modern theatre. We do not mean to put O’Leary and Harriman and Mrs. Anderson upon a level with ballet dancers, nor to class walking with the can-can, for the latter is immeasurably more degrading. We simply ask what is there in legs that attracts thousands to the comique and Gilmore’s garden, while lecture halls, libraries and churches are deserted? Legs and not brains command attention to-day, and while the possessor of the former received a pittance for years of severe, menial labor, the owner of the latter earns a fortune in a few days. Why is it thus? Can Prof. Cocker tell us?

“Did you ever think,” said an observing man lately to a reporter of the New York Tribune, “how much loose electricity there is around? It is brought to my notice especially every time I have occasion to ride in a trolley car on a wet day. I have frequently received a stinging shock by taking hold of the brass rail as I swung myself aboard. My feet are wet, you see, and water is so good a conductor that a ground connection is established with myself as part of the circuit. The sensation is quite enough to be disagreeable, I assure you.

“The metal doorsill, too, is another place where the current leaks out. Since I discovered that by personal experience I have often amused myself by watching the people who enter and leave the car. If they step over the wet threshold well and good, but if their feet touch it they are likely to get some of the superfluous power. Then the expression on their faces is ludicrous. Most of them look completely bewildered, as if they didn’t know what had struck them, and I suppose they don’t know for the instant.

“Those are not the only places where there is free electricity, either. In my own office I can get as severe a shock as I could from a battery. In one of the incandescent light fixtures there is a spot where the current escapes in great force. By touching this place with a key, a knife or any bit of metal and resting my other hand on the iron of the steam radiator near by I can take a shock of such power as to burn my hand and make me drop the experiment in a hurry. The other day half a dozen of us joined hands and formed a line between the two places. The man at one end held a key to the fixture and the fellow at the other end laid his hand on the radiator. You would hardly believe how strong the current was. Our hands seems suddenly gripped together and after we let go our fingers tingled for minutes from the effect.

“I have often thought that a computation of the amount of unused electric force there is around us would be interesting. There must be numbers of other places that I have never noticed where it escapes and I suppose there is no doubt that in the aggregate the power wasted would be sufficient to accomplish a tremendous amount of work.”

In spite of the latitude and Arctic current, Labrador is the home of much that is delicious in the berry world. Even the outlying islands furnish the curlew berry and bake apple in profusion, and upon the mainland, in the proper month, September, a veritable feast awaits one. Three varieties of blueberries, huckleberries, wild red currants, having a pungent, aromatic flavor, unequalled by the cultivated varieties; marsh berries, raspberries, tiny white capillaire tea berries, with a flavor like some rare perfume, and having just a faint suggestion of wintergreen; squash berries, pear berries, and curlew berries, the latter not so grateful as the others, but a prime favorite with the Eskimos, who prefer it to almost any other; and lastly, the typical Labrador fruit, which, excepting a few scattering plants in Canada and Newfoundland, is found, I believe, nowhere else outside of the peninsula–the gorgeous bake apple. These cover the entire coast from the St. Lawrence to Ungava. Their beautiful geranium-like leaves struggle with the reindeer moss upon the islands, carpet alike the low valleys and the highest hilltops, and even peep from the banks of everlasting snow. Only one berry grows upon each plant, but this one makes a most delicious mouthful. It is the size and form of a large dewberry, but the color is a bright crimson when half ripe and a golden yellow when matured. Its taste is sweetly acid, it is exceedingly juicy, and so delicate that it might be though impossible to preserve it. Yet the natives do preserve it with all its freshness and original flavor throughout the entire winter, merely by covering it with fresh water and heading up tightly in casks or barrels.

Last autumn the Vacuum Oil Company of this city began the work of drilling for salt at LeRoy. State geologists had given the opinion that there was a vein, and several hundred dollars (about $1,500 it is said) were raised in that village to assist the Rochester parties, it being expected that the same vein would be reached there as had been reached in Wyoming, only much nearer the surface. On Friday, about half-past three o’clock in the afternoon, when the well had been bored to a depth of about four hundred and fifty feet, a strong vein of gas was struck, which blew the tools out of the well, and rushed out with such force as to extend to the fire in the coal stove, about ten feet distant from the mouth of the well. The house in which the men were working took fire, and the destruction of the derrick seemed inevitable, when the rush of the gas from the well gave way to a gush of water, which put the fire out, and was so strongly impregnated with sulphur that it could be smelled a distance of nearly half a mile. For some time afterward there were alternate rushes of gas and gushes of water from the well, each holding its own for about a minute and a half. About six o’clock the water was spouting to a height of about sixty feet in the air, and was strongly impregnated with salt; while at half-past seven o’clock it had reached an altitude of 110 feet. The bore of the well is eight inches, but the casing takes up about an inch, thus leaving an opening of about seven inches, from which the water still gushes with such force that a large blacksmith’s anvil, placed over the hole, was blown directly out.–Rochester (N.Y.) Express.