"Seals are very fond of music," said G. L. Tompkins of New Bedford, Mass., "and the hunters who pursue them most successfully usually make use of some musical instrument to attract them. I have a distinct recollection of the first seal hunt I ever went on. Early one morning I, in the company with about a dozen others, set out in a rowboat for a spot where the seals were said to be plentiful. The boatmen dipped their oars slowly in the water and sung in unison a weird, wild song in a peculiar undertone. To me, being uninitiated in the sport, this seemed to be a curious accompaniment to a seal hunt, but I was still more surprised when one of the men produced a flute and played on it a quaint, sympathetic air.

"The effect of the music was soon evident, as dozens of seals poked their heads up, some remaining basking on the water, while others clambered up on the ledges of rock, charmed almost to unconsciousness by the music. Steering the boat to the shore, the musician all the while keeping up the plaintive air, one of the men jumped out. He carried with him a huge club and along sharp knife. Noiselessly creeping to where some of the seals where lying on the rocks listening intently to the music, he dealt one of them a terrible blow on the head with the club, stunning it, and then made short work of the poor animal with his knife. In the same manner we secured 11 fine seals before night."—St. Louis Globe-Democrat

Marble Rock, Iowa, Oct. 11.—George Reams, a citizen of this place, murdered his wife and cut his own throat, and is supposed to be dying. It appears that the pair have been quarreling for some time past. The tragedy was discovered about 11 o'clock. The rooms bore evidence of a terrible struggle, a chair having been used by one or both in the combat preliminary to the cutting. The woman had an arm broken, while the upper part of the body was a mass of bruises and cuts. It seems that after felling in the forehead, the man dragged her from the kitchen to the sitting room, and, obtaining a razor, cut her throat from ear to ear and down to the spine, almost severing the head from the body. Then locking all the doors he cut his own throat and will undoubtedly die.

"One of the things that helped my recovery," said a woman recently, who has just regained her health after a serious illness, "was a pretty red jacket which my sister brought me one day in lieu of jellies and fruit. It was becoming, and I enjoyed it. The doctor, when he first saw me in it, said I looked 20 per cent. better than the day before; man like, he didn't appreciate the reason, and my spirits, and, consequently my condition, bettered in proportion. Too often invalids are wrapped in any old thing that is handy. I remember laughing once when a friend in robust health showed me a dainty lace-trimmed sick gown. 'For me,' she explained, 'if I ever need it.' The notion struck me as absurd, when she was never ill, but after my experience with that bed jacket I appreciate better the value of attractive environment under depressing circumstances."

If a ham weighing 30 pounds were taken up to the moon and weighed there the "pull"—the attractive force of the moon upon the ham—would amount to only five pounds. There would be another weight of the ham for the planet Mars, and yet another on the sun. A ham weighing 30 pounds at New York ought to weigh some 800 pounds on the sun's surface. Hence the astronomer does not speak of the weight of planet, because that would depend on the place where it was weighed. But he speaks of the mass of the planet, which means how much planet there is, no matter where it might be weighed. At the same time, says Current Literature, we might, without any inexactness, agree that the weight of a heavenly body should be fixed by the weight it would have in New York. As we could not imagine a planet in New York, because it may be larger than the earth itself, what we are to imagine is this: Suppose the planet could be divided into a million million million equal parts and one of these parts brought to New York and weighed. We could easily find its weight in pounds or tons. Then multiply this by a million million million and we shall have a weight of the planet. This would be equivalent ot what astronomers might takes as the mass of the planet.

A Utica family changed their residence from one street to another a few days since. Among the household effects was a handsome square piano the cover of which had in process of transportation been slightly cracked. When the tuner came he noticed the cracked cover, and told the lady of the house that he knew of a man who could repair it so that it would not be noticed. There was a carpenter working about the house, and as the cost of moving had been considerable, the lady decided to have the carpenter do the work, and informed the tuner that he need not send his expensive expert. Calling the carpenter she showed him the damaged cover and informed him that he could easily fix it with glue. the carpenter set about his task, and the lady paid no further attention to him.

A day or two ago she had company, and was requested to play upon the piano. Acquiescing, she went to the instrument and attempted to lift the lid. It would not budge. Thinking that it was locked, she spent ten minutes looking for the key. Having found it, she learned that her surmise was incorrect. Failing after repeated and strenuous efforts, to lift the lid, she was compelled to forgo the pleasure of entertaining her guests in this way. When her husband came home he exercised hs muscle, but to more avail. After three or four trials he began an examination, and found that the carpenter had labored under the mistaken notion that the lid ought not to rise, and had, accordingly, placed a thick coating of glue between it and that part of the piano upon which it touched. To make the job undeniably complete he further secured it by driving a tenpenny nail through it.—Utica Observer

Almost at the same time two different inventors in different places have announced their success with electrical devices for seeing at a distance. They are J. B. Fowler and William H. Thompson. In Fowler's device four wires are required to accomplish the combined effect of distant vision and hearing. Details of the operation are withheld, however, on the plea of getting out of a patent. Each inventor uses the name "Televue."

Certain passages (of a risky play) were so audacious that many of the spectators on hearing them looked at one another aghast, smiling, as if to ask each other if they had heard aright; or turned to look at women to see if they would blush or would rise to leave the theater. But no woman, at least of those sitting around me, did I see to blush, and all remained intrepidly facing the fire. I dismiss the question of "Art," and I do not judge this sort of drama according to the criterions of the pure moralists; but I do say: To these spectacles women and girls go. To the spectators who turn now and then to interrogate them with their looks, their very presence replies: "This nastiness pleases us;" which is as much to say: "Any one might say such things in talking with us;" which almost signifies: "We ourselves would say it." It is this which offends every decent man, however unprejudiced in point of morals he may be. One may have one's opinion about the virtue of a woman, but when a vile fellow in conversation says in her presence some filthy thing, one soul revolts, even if the woman smiles instead of being ashamed—rather more so if she smiles. And it is not properly our sense of morality and shame that is shocked; that is the knowledge that even in corrupt society there are certain limits to freedom of language beyond which one cannot step without trampling under foot the laws of convention and of decency which rule social intercourse and are conditions necessary to its existence.