THE FARMERS WIFE. There is an hour that is to me The sweetest of the day, Although it comes when winds are chill And skis are dull and grave Tis when the day is hard work is done, And bright the fire doth glow, And my husband to his humble home Comes trudging through the snow. Why do I hold this hour the best Of all the twenty four? Because hes all the world to me, My good man at the door; And whether rain or hail may fall, Or winds of winter blow, Yet I am sure my husband will Come trudging through the snow. The room is tidy, fresh and clean, The babys face is bright; What matter if outside there be The dark and stormy night? The kettle simmers on the stove, And well my heart doth know My husband soon will to his home Come trudging through the snow. A good ten years ago he led Me hither as his bride, And ever since, through joy and woe, Weve struggled side by side. However hard the day may be, To me things brighter grow When comes the hour that brings him home, A trudging through the snow. N.Y. Ledger THE WHISTLER. O whistle and Ill come to you, my lad; O whistle and Ill come to you, my lad, Tho father and mither and a should gae mad; O whistle and Ill come to yon, my lad. Some years ago at a Boston, theater, during one of the tedious waits when the orchestra has finished its selection and everybody had expressed a criticism on the play, there came one of those, dead lulls during Waich live minutes seems an age, and jrst at that moment some one in the second gallery began to whistle Home, Sweet Home. The low, clear notes were as musical as the strains of a flute, and they pierced the air with their homesick melody and touched ever heart. All heads turned to look up, but it was im osible to distinguish the whistler of the sweet strains among the very ordinary looking people there, until a policeman appeared and churlishly silenced him, and then it was seen to be a sickly looking, poorly dressed man who had entranced every ear with his plaintive, tender melody and left a memory in every heart. Nowadays whistling is almost one of the lost arts. For goodness sake stop that dreadful whistling, says some distracted mother to her noisy offspring. She does not consider that whistling is a safety valve to the boys feelings, a relief to the pent up Utica of his powers, and one of the few accomplishments natural to the genus boy. The school boy with his sachel in his haul Whistling aloud to keep his co rage up. It is a fact that there are boys who can not whistle. They will go through the motions but only succeed in making a frightful face, and no no se, while others can cut the air with a sharp, shrill, longed awn inspiration, that will startle a sleepy dog half a dozen blocks in the distance. and bring all the other bos out live rats to meet at one given point. Send a boy on an errand and ten to one lie will whistle all the way there, and aIl the way back, giving every conceivable note that the human whistle is capable of. Ordina il, people do not notice this infection in the air in the shape of froe concerts, but stop a few moments some day on a busy co ner and listen to the whistling boy. You dont he e any whistling you are disappointed; but wait when it comes. There is a land that i farer than day. You cant describe a whistle anymore than you can a kiss; both are lab al performances that lose much in description. But look at the boy that is whistling that sweet and saintly tune; he has a boot blacks kit, has a face as shrewd as a ferrets, and is testing a lead nickel and speculating as o the best way he can run it out again. He is followe i in a little while by a tired looking messenger who is giving Peek a boo for all it is worth; and then you are almost set to dancing as St. Patricks Day in the Morning comes rollicking down the street, with snatches of opera, Baby Mine, The Wearing of the Green and more fashionable snatches from the latest operas. The sweetest whistler ni Detroit is a colored boy who is inseparable from a wheelbarrow of clothes which he is taking home to his mother to wash. There was ne er anything set to music that he can not produce in perfect time and with every note clear and distinct. One day he whistles negro melodies, another it is all church music. Then he gives medleys and there is a singularly plaintive, almost painful sweetness in his tones. It is said that bad boys do not whistle; they are secretive and quiet. There is a story of a woman who was left a one in a temporary home on the prairie with her little family while her husband went to a distant town after provisions. She describes in heroic verse her fear of the red man and ho v she sat late at night by her window and was terrified by the approach of footsteps. Whistling girls and crowing hens Always come to some bad end. A girl is usually too volatile to whistle; she puckers her rosy mouth, shuts both eyes, screws up her face, and just as she gets ready to whistle goes oft into a fit of laughter, and spoils it all, but once in a while some demure little maiden will whistle, and it is positively a much more frequent phenomena in nature than a hen that crows. But oh, the whistling girl Ive met, As blithe is she as any bird; And from her lips morn, noon and eve, The merriest of tr.lls are heard. From task to task with lightsome step She ha iters whistlng as she goes; And her deft hands charm what they touch And order from disorder grows. There is something pathetic in a whistled tune; the business man sitting up at night trying to make his ledgers balance, hears some late pedestrian, boy or man, whistle the Last Rose of Summer or Bonnie Doon, and straightway the pen drops from his tired hand and the bewildering figures disappear, and in their place he sees home and the mother who lived there, and he catches the song of the robins in the old orchard and the scent of the sweet briar that grew by the door. Away, away, tormenting cares, Of earth and folly born. He is at home again, and as the unknown whistler passes on and the tender, wandering air dies away, the eyes of the listener are dim with tears, And his heart is filled with a longing pain To be a whistling boy again. Detroit Post and Tribune. History Repeats Itself. It is true that the country has departed somewhat from the primitive simplicity of its earlier days; that we lead in some respects a faster life; that our officials are more beset with temptations; and that in our great centers of population there is more poverty and more vice than there was a hundred years ago. These results were, inseparable from our rapid growth and the almost overwhelming tides of immigration that have rowed into the land; but tile various evils, the frivolities and extravagances of our time are by 110 means peculiar either to the country or to the ao;e in which we live. Turning to an old tile of the Pennsylvania Packet, we find in its issue of February 1, 1786, an editorial on The Luxury of the Present Time, from which we make the following extract. In the history of France, wri ten in the life of Henry the Third, are the following words; The most universal cause of all disorders was luxury; the high taxes of this reign had engendered this proud and delicate monster. The many yeople in civil offices, all those through whose hands the public money passed, wallowed in wealth. The largest sums sometimes cost them no more than the dash of a pen; it was but falsifying an account, and they filled their pockets; and as it came so oasily It made them launch into all kinds of super iuities; but the worst of it was the bad examples infected others. etc. When we consider (comments the Packet) the destruction which luxury has caused in all those nations where it has been introduced, we should tremble to think to what a height it has risen within a few years in this Nation. We are sensible that for some years past out commerce has been declining, our manufactures g ing to decay, and great numbers of the industrious part of the people wanting employment. This is a truth that every great trader has seen and fe t, and yet this proud and delicate monster stalks about, and spreads its conquests in proportion as the public property inc. eases. how often is the substance of that editorial repeated now! b ut let in make an extract from the Massachusetts Gentinel of the same year. It is out of character for the merchant to complain that business is dead who keeps a chariot and stud, who gives an entertainment once a week and a card party twice. It is out of character for a tradesman who once prided himself on the appellation of aspeckled shirt m m to complain that he can not, money being so scarce, pay his rent or his taxes, when he wears nothing but the finest web of the loom, etc. it is out of character for the farmer to complain that he can not pay his rates, nor debts, nor anything else, whose three daughters are at a town boarding school, under the discipline of dancing master, when they should be at the spinning wheel and who, while they should be dressed in decent homespun, as were their frugal grandmothers, now carry half their fathers crops on their backs. N. O. Picayune. A Word for the English Sparrow. It is possible that much of What is said aga nst the English sparrow is based more upon prejudice than upon observation, and it is only just to this greatly condemned bird that when a word is in his favor it should have a wide aring. Such a word is said by the ermantown Telegraph, and results m close observation. The writer of article in that paper says that the ds are da ly before him upon his mises, whereon lie raises all kinds fruits and vegetables. They have en carefully observed, and their bevior lias been noted at all times and der all circumstances, the conclusion ing that they are the most efficient d valuable insectivorous birds on the em. ses, and though unless fed in the ring with vegetable ofial they will t the early spinach and lettuce, and e first tender leaves of fruit trees, ey do not eat to an extent to cause aterial damage. They eat no fruit of iy kind. When insects appear in the ring, up to June or August, they apear to be unremitting in feeding upon em. and the pear crop on the premis in question has never been so free om the attacks of its enemies general as since the sparrows have been here. Though pugnacious among emselves, they do not drive away her birds, as is proved by the fact that the premises in queston there are more robins than ever, and as many birds and wrens. Then the sparrow in be used for food, as it becomes ry fat, and the writer from whom we e cuoting suggests that they should s allowed to be shot for food, as their crease is so rapid that there would ways be an ample supply. Boston Journal. Colonel Percy Yerger was suddenly sized in the midst of his family with a ery violent attack of the cramps. For heavens sa e gimme a swallow of randy, he said to his wife, as he visted him elf in agony on the sofa. I havent got any in the house, replied his wife with appalling indifference. You must get some, and keep in the house so as to prevent these attacks, howled Yerger, kie ing like a ule. If I were to keep it in the house, old man, you would be having these attacks all day long. The proper way to cure you of the e bad spells is lot to keep any liquor of any kind in the house. Texas Jack. A year or more ago, as the foreman of one of the iron works of this city was crossing the yard one day he espied a little skip of a boy, seemingly not over eleven years old, seated on a big flywheel and chewing the end of bitter reflection. Who are you? Im Jack. What are you doing here? Resting. What do you want? A job. Those were the inquiries and answers. The boy was pale faced and ragged, but in his steel blue eyes the foreman saw game. And, too, the idea of a waif like him setting out to battle the world touched a tender chord in the heart of the man who had boys of his own, and he set Jack at work in the yard. No one thought the boy would stay a week, and so no one cared to ask where he came from or who he was But he stuck. He was hard-working and faithful, and as the wreek went by he gained friends. One day he walked up to the foreman and said. I want to learn the trade. You? Ha! ha! ha! Why, Jack, you are not big enough to handle a cold chisel. I can whip any 'prentice boy in this shop! was the earnest declaration. Just hear him! Why, any of the lot co dd turn you wrong side out! When you get big enough to whip the smallest one you come to me for a job. At noon that day Jack walked up to the biggest apprentice boy in the shop and said. Come out doors. What do you want? Im going to lick you! What for? Because I want a chance to learn the trade. The two went out, and in sight of twenty witnesses little Jack won a victory. At one oclock he touched his cap to the foreman and said. Ive licked your biggest prentice and want to go to work! Ten minutes later he had become a machinists apprentice, and if you go in there to day you will find him with greasy hands, oily lace and a head full of business ideas. Jack carries the keys to the drawers where the steam gauges, safety valves and other trimmings are kept, and he knows the use of every tool, the workings of every piece of machinery, and there is a constant call for Jack here and Jack there. Be ore he is twenty he will be a finished machinist, and before he is twenty live he will be foreman of some great shop. He is quiet, earnest, respectful and observing. What he does is well done. What he is told he never forgets. And here in Detroit are hundreds of boys who complain that there is no chance for them, even when backed by money and in luence. They wait and wait and whine and complain, and leave it to waifs like little Jack to call up the game in their souls and walk boldly into a great manufacturing works and sa Im here I want a job. Detroit The Floods and the Forests. The sudden occurrence of the great Ohio flood upon a scale unknown in the records of the rivers risings suggests some important inquiries. The long series of Smithsonian rainfall reports show that the principal minimum of the yearly precipitation in the Ohio Yalley takes place as a rule early in February. Why there has been an exception to the rule this year is not easy to explain fully. One thing, however, seems clear. The fierce flood which burst forth from the western slopes of the Alleghanies on February 5, and raised the level of the river at Pittsburgh nine feet in a single day, was the beginning of the great inundation. This rise of the mountain streams should be traced apparently to the snow melting effects of the warm wave of February H. which carried its moist southerly winds with a temperature of oyer sixty degrees against the western sides and through the passes of the Alleghanies. The water thus suddenly disengaged from the frozen state on the mountains and sent on its dis