how she came to be Fortune Teller.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1923, 1 November 1884, Page 6

how she came to be Fortune Teller.

A HETinnD oard-shuffler tells a Cleveland Herald man how the fates decreed jthat she should become a fortune-teller : " I'll tell you how I carae to tell fortuaes. My husband and I were living in a little Western town. Business was poor, and he had gone off to work on the railroad. My only child was taken very ill with lung fever. The only physioian in town was fin unskilled local pill-maker. It would cost at least $10 to get a reputable physician' from a town a few miles away, and J had no money to meet the expenses. I idolized my child, and as day after day the disease gained on him my suspense grew terrible. " Near me lived a middle-aged woman named Woodhull, a relative of the famous Victoria Woodhull. Some one had taught her how to tell fortunes with cards, and, in that pioneer town, where excitement and diversion were at a premium, she used to tell the fortunes of railroad men, who piesented her with pocket money. In time she acquired quite a reputation as a fortuneteller. To relieve my .suspense I sent for her to come over and sit with me awhile beside my Bick child, but she had left town, and the messenger who returned said that half a dozen people had just arrived from the country to have their fortunes told. A bright thought entered my head. I told a neighboring woman to watch beside my sick child, and with my cards in my hand I went over to the Woodhull house and told fortunes. I had an unusual number of patrons, and at night when I returned home I had the coveted $10. That night ,the physioian from the neighboring town arrived, and not an hour too soon. He adopted the heroio treatment aud saved the life of my child. Finally my reputation as a fortune-teller became such that I saved up enough to buy a home. How is it dono ? Can it be learned out of books ? Not to any great extent. 'I never remember to have seen the complete rules governing the soience in print.

The Arbutus. Looks so shy and innocent, Blushes like a startled thing ; Who would think it knew the whole Of the secrets of the spring ? Keeps its rosy ear laid low, Harking, harking, at the ground, Never missed a syllable Of the slightest stir or sound. Ohuokkd often in its leaves* Thinking how the world would wait ; Searching vainly for a flower, Wondering why the spiing was late. Other secrets, too, it knows — Secrets whispered o'er its head ; Underneath its snowy veil Oft these secrets turn it red. Whisper on, glad girls and boys 1 Sealed the fragrant rosy wells ; You and spring are safe alike — 1 Never the arbutus tells I —11. H. in The Atlantic.

tfnclc Esek's Wisdom. (New Series.) A very stubborn man is often wrong, but seldom dishonest. A strong intimaoy may exist between two fools, but friendship never. Let us be kind to each other here on earth ; it will save ua much confusion when we meet in heaven. Silence is a good place to hide, but fools oan'fc find the place. There are plenty of people who know how to make money, and how to waste it, but few who know how to spend it. The symptoms of patience and laziness are bo near alike that it would bother many people to tell whioh disease they have the more of. If there were no fools, this world would be a dreary place to live in.

Never otfrse whisky, friend, when your brain throbs, your hand shakes, ,and the, whole world looks gloomy and dark. When you have to piok up the threads of a lost memory and have to pay for your excesses, again we say, never curse whisky. No ; be a man and blame, if you do not curse, yourself. Whisky is all right ; it's the man who abuses it that is all wrong. Supposing a mJro gave you a

gun and a barrel of gunpower, and eaid : — Now, here is a gun that only needs three drachms of powder to shoot well, and you exercised a judgment in opposition to his, and put in six. Which would you blame if it burst — the gun, the powder, the man that gave them to you, or yourself '?

Efficiency of Coal. A pound of average coal develops, with perfect combustion, 12,000 units of heat, which, multiplied by 772, the mechanical equivalent iv unila of work of one unit of heat, equals 9,264,000 foot pounds of work, representing barely a consumption of one-quarter pound of coal per indicated horse power^ per hour. The very best engines of modern times, leaving out only a few exceptional cases, require not less than 2$ pounds of coal per horse power per hour. The average engine uses very much more.

Effects oi Rum on Pigs. Mr. W. Mattieu Williams onoe witnessed a display of drunkenness among three hundred pigs, which had been given a barrel of spoiled elderberry wine all at once with their swill. " Their behaviour," he says, " was intensely human, exhibiting all the usual manifestations of jolly good-fellowship, including that advanced stage where a group were rolling over each other and grunting affectionately in tones that wero very distinctly impressive of swearing good fellowship all around. _ Their reeling and staggering, and the expression of their features, all indicated that alcohol had the same effect on pigs as on men ; that under its influence both stood precisely on the same zoological level."