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Still, time brings alleviation to most earthly troubles. Even remorse grows duller with ageâ€"till the day comes for it to burst out afresh in fuller force than ever and goad its victim on to a final confession. Days and weeks and months rolled by, and Hugh Musinger by slow degrees began to feel that Othello was himself again. He wrote, as of old, his brilliant leaders eve day regularly for the Homing Telephone: 0 slashed three-volume novels with as much vigour as ever. and rather more cynicism and cruelty than before. in the Monday Register: he touched the tender steps of various quills, warbliug hls Doric lay to Ballade and Sonnet, in the wanted woods of the Pimlico Magazine with endless versatility. Nor was that all. He played high in the eveuln at Palla- vicini's, more recklessly even t an had been his ancient use ; for was not his future now assured to him? and did not the horrid picture of his dead drowned Elsie, tossed friendless on the bare beach at Orfordness, haunt him and sting him with its perpetual presence to seek in the feverish excitement of roulette some momentary forgetfulness of , his life's tragedy? True, his rhymes were‘ sadder and gloomier now than of old, and his play wilder: no more of the rollicking, humorous, happy~go-lucky ballad-mongering ‘ that alternated in the Echoes from Calli-l machete» with his more serious verses: his sincerest laughter, he knew himself, with some pain was fraught, since Elsie left him. But in their lieu had come a reckless abandonment that served very well at first sight for real mirth or heartfelt gen- iality. In the old days, Hugh had alwaysi cultimted a certain casual vein of cheerful pessimism: he had pesed as the man whoi drags the lengthening chain of life behind him good humouredly: now, a Grim sardonic l smile usurped the place of his pessimistic bonhomie, and filled his pages with a Carly- lese gloom that was utterly alien to his in- born nature. Even his lighter work showed traces of the change. His wayward articles “ls Death Worth Dying ‘3” in the Nizuteemh' Century. was full of bitterness; and his’ clever shit on tho Blood-and-Thunder school i of fiction, entitled the Zululiad, and pub- lished as a Christmas “shilling shocker,” hada ting and a venom in it that were wholly wanting to his earlier performances l in the same direction. The critics Everything indeed had turned out for the best. The lute Squire had chosen the happiest possible moment for dying. The infant and the gun'disn were on Hugh’s own side. There need he no long engage- ment, no tremulous expectation of dead men's shoes now: nor would Hugh have to put up for an indefinite term of years with the nuisance of a (ether-in-law's perpetual benevolent interference and well-meant dictation. Even the settlements, those tough documents, would be all drawn up to suit his own digestion. As Hugh sat, decO'ously lugubrious, in the diningAroom at Whitestrand with Mr. Heberden, the fam- ily solicitor, two days after the funeral, he could hardly help experiencing a. certain subdued sense of something exceedingly akin to stifled gratitude in his own soul towards that defective breech-loader which had relieved him at once of so many embar- rassments. and made him practically Lord of the Manor of (‘r-vnsumptum per Mere, in the hundred of Dunwich and county of Snfi'olk, containing by edmeasnrement so many acres, foods, and perches, be the same more or lessâ€"end mostly less, indeed, as the yesrs proceeded. But for that slight drawback. Hugh cared as yet absolutely nothing. One only trouble, one kill-joy, darkened his view from the Hall windows. Every principal room in the house faced due south. Wher- ever he looked, from the drswing room or the dining room, the library or the vestibule, the boudoir or the billiard-room, the White- strand poplar rose straight and sheer, as conspicuous as ever, by the brink of the Chad, where sea and stream met together on debstahle ground in angry encounter. Its rugged holes formed the one striking and beautiful object in the whole prospect across those desolate flats of sand and salt marsh, but to Hugh Messinger that ancient tree had now become instinct with awe and horrorâ€" a visible memorial oi his own crimeâ€"for it was a crime â€"and of poor dead Elsie in her nameless grave by the Low Lighthouse. He grew to regard it as Elsie's monument. De after day, while he stopped at Whitest‘ran , he rose up in the morning with aching brows from hisslee less bedâ€"forhow could he sleep, withthebr enthatdrownedeudoastashore his dear dead Elsie thundering wild songs of triumph from the bar in his ears ?â€"-and gazad out of his window at the dreary out- look. to see that accusing tree with its gnarled roots confronting him ever, full in face, and poisoning his success with its mute witness to his murdered victim. Every time he looked out upon it he heard once more that wild. wild cry, as of a stricken life, when Elsie plunged Into the careering current. Every time the wind shrieked through its creaking branches in the lonely night, the shrieks went to his heart like so many living human voices crying for sym- pathy. He hated and detested himself in the very midst of his success. He had sold , his own soul for a. wasted strip of swamp and marsh and brake and sandhill, and he found in the end that it profited him Whips. . _ ,, l Tte way of the [arm-greener went easy for a. while with Hugh Msoainger. Hia sands nu Imoolher shun he could himself have expected. His two chief bugbeara faded away by degrees before the strong light. of facts into pure noneutity. Rolf did not know that Elu'o Challnner lay dead and buried in a lonely grave at Orfordneea; 3nd Winifred Meyeey Wu not left a. w-rd in Chancery. or otherwise inconvenienced and strictly [lad up in her plans for msrrying him. OJ ohe contrary, the afflirn of the dc - cease/i were nrrmged exactly as Hugh him- self would havn wished them to be ordered. The will ia psrficnlnr was a. perfect gem ; Hugh 0 NH have thrown his arms round she blameless attorney who draw it up; Mrs. Merely uppl iited sole executrix and. quar- dinn of the infant; the eetabe Ind Hull beq 'eachod absolutely and without re~ maiuder to Winifred in person: s lifo intern": in certain Ipec’fiad Iumu only. an arranged by Rev lament, no the reluct her- self ; and the cum all clear for Hugh M u- singer. THE THREAD OF LIFE; CHAPTER XXII.â€"EOLY MA'mmosY. SUNSHINE AND SHADE. In the morning wb'an he rose, he went over to the windowâ€"E'sie's window, round Elsie, Elma, Elsie, E'sie I It was for this he_had_ sold be:r9yed_his Elsie He did not sleep. He lsy awake all the long hours through, and murmured to himself, ten thousand times over, "Elsie, Elsie, Elsie, Elsie!" His lips moved as he murmur- edsometimes. Winifred opened her eyes onceâ€"he felt her open them, though it was as dark as pitchâ€"and seemed to listen. One‘s senses grow preternatnrally sharp in the night watches. Could she have heard that mute movement of his silent lips? He hoped not. C no : it was impossi- ble. But he lay awake till morningin a deadly terror, the coll sweat standing in big drops on his brow, haunted through the long vigils of the dreary night by that picture of E!sie, in her pale white dress, with arms uplifted above her hel 19: head, flin ' g herself wildly from the ark black papilla, the gloom of evening, upon the tender mercies of the swift dark water. He dared say no more. To remonstrate would be madness. Any reason he gave must seem inadequate. But he would sooner have slept on the bare ground by the river-side than have slept; that night in that desecrated and haunted room of Elsie’s. “Are we to sleep here, Wlnnie l‘r he cried aghast, in a tone of the utmost: horror and dismay. And Wlnlfred, lookiny up at him in silent surprise, answered merely in en unconcerned voice: “ Why, yes, my dear boy; What’s wrong with the room? It's good enough. We're to sleep here, of course â€"3_erte_inly: " 1 To say the truth, Hugh detested White. strand. He never wanted to go near the place again, now thet he had made him- self in very deed its lord and master. He hated the house, the grounds, the river; but above all he hated that funerenl poplar, that seemed to rise up and menace him each time he looked at it with the pains and pen- alties of his own evil conscience. At Enter, Winifred dragged him home once more, to visit the relict In her lonely mansion. The Bird went, as in duty bound ; but the duty was more then commonly distasteful. They reached Whitestrend late at night, and were shown up stairs at once into a large front bedroom. Hugh's heart leaped up in his mouth when he saw it. It was Elsie's room: the room into which he had climbed on that fateful evening ; the room bound closest up In his memory with the hideous abiding nightmare of his poisoned life ; the room he had never since dared to enter ; the room he had hoped never more to look I: on. “Au-n ma 6n .‘nnn Ln-.. WIâ€"ni- 9' In- n-1,”! - Nesting in London suited Winifred, for her part, excellently well. In poor papa's day, indeed, the Meyseys had felt them- selves of late far too deeply impoverishedâ€" since the sandhills swallowed up the Yond- stream farmsâ€"evento go up to town in a hired house for a few weeks or so in the height of the season. as they had once been wont to do, during the golden age of the agricultural interest. The struggle to kee up appearances in the old home on 9. reduce income had occupied to the full their utmost energies during these latter days of univer- sal depression. So London was to Winifred a practically almost unknown world, rich in potentialities of varied enj eyment. She had been there but seldom, on a visit to friends; and she knew nothing as yet of that brilliant circle that gathers round Mrs. Bouverie Barton's Wednesday evenings, where Hugh Maseinger was able to introduce her with distinction and credit. True, the young con ie began life on a small scale, in a quiet little ouseâ€"mosteesthetical- \ 1y decorated on economical principlesâ€"down 1a side-street in the remote recesses of iPhilistine Bayswater. But Hugh's coterie, {though unsuccessful, was nevertheless exoficio distinguishei : he was haud-in-love with the whole Cheyne Row set â€"the Royal Academicians still in embryo ; the Bishops Designate of fate who at lpresent held suburban curacies : the Cabi- inet Ministers whose budget yet lingered in domestic arrears; the germinating judges whose chances of the ermine were confined in ,near perspective to soup at sessions, or the lsmallest of small devilling for rising juniors. iThey were not rich in this worlds goods, ,those discounted celebrities; but they were a lively crew. full of fun and fancy, and they delighted Winifred by their juvenile exuber- ance of wit and eloquence, She voted the men with their wives, when they had an â€"which wasn't often, for Bohemia can se dom afford the luxury of matrimonyâ€"the most charming society she had ever met; and Bohemia in return voted “little Mrs. Massinger," in the words of its accepted mouthpiece and spokesman, Hatherley, “as witty a piece of Eve’s flesh as any in Illyria.” The little “ arrangement in pink and white” became, indeed, quite a noted personage in the narrow world of Chevne Row society ‘ said Massinger was suffering from a shallow spasm of B ronic afl'ect- tlon. He knew himself 9 was reall snfl'ering from a profound fit of utter sel - contempt and Wild despairing carelessness of consequence. The world moves, however, as Galileo remarked. in spite of our sorrows. Three months after VVyville Meysey's death, Wh.t~strand reocivad its new master. It ‘ was strange to find any but Meyseys at the Hall, for Meyeeys had dwelt there from time immemorial ; the first of the bankers, -ven, though of a younger branch, having purchae ed the estate with his newly-gotten gold from an elder and ruined representative of the main stock. The wedding was a very quiet afi'air. of course; half mourning at best, with no show or tomfeolery : and what was of more importance to lquh. the ar- rangements for the settlements were most satisfectory. The family solicitor wasn't such a feel as to make things unpleasant for his new client. Winifred was a nice little body in her way, too ; affectionatst proud of her cap ire poet ; and from a lordly height of marital superiority, Hugh rather liked theIpink and wh to small woman than otherwise. But he didn't mean to live much at VVhitestrand eitherâ€""At least while your mother lasfe, my child,” he said cautiously to Winifred, letting her down gently by gradual stages, and saving his own reputation for kindly consideration at the same moment. “ The good old soul would naturally like still to feel herself mistress in her own house. It would he cruelty to mothers-in-law to dis- turb her now. Whenever we come; down, we'll come down strictly on a visit to her. But for ourselves. we'll nest for the present in London." I There is hardly a person in Gslletis, Ill., Ibut whet knows “Old Sam." 8- large ey horse helon ' g to J. \V. \Vatkins. est Saturday“ ld Sim" visited the black- smith shop so often that he was led out several times during the day. Sunday morning early he took his standinfront of the shop, and there he remained all day in the hot sun, never leaving except when led away by his owner. Monday evening, as soon as nnhitched, he left his feed, which had been placed in the wagon bed. and again took up his stand in front of the blacksmith shop. By this time consid- erable of a crowd had gathered at Weber’s store, and it was suggested that “ Old Sun" wanted shoeing. The blecksmibh was sent for, and on opening the shop door “Old Sam” walked in and stood prefectly still without bridle or any one_ holding while the shoes were being nailed on. As soon as the job was completed he went beck to his leed, and has not visited the shop since. The people are proud of " Old Sun" and think him a very smart horse, and why shcnldn't they 3 There is 9. stream of silver pouring into Washington at the rate of half a. million dol~ lsrs’ worth s day. It comes in the shape of fresh, glittering new dollars, standard silver dollars of the vintage of 1883, with the mill- ing unnicked and thefece of the Goddess of Liberty fresh from the stamp. The stream is flowing at present from the Philedel his. mint, but before long the sluice gate wl 1 be switched around and the shining flood will be turned in from New York, then, after a time, from New Orleans, and finally from San Francisco, thus giving the United States a silver belt that wil! outshlne even that of a. champion pngilist. The Adams Express Company carries the silver in trunk: or iron- bonnd boxes, srded by armed men. At this end of the ins the silver is carried direct to the Treasury Department in rent iron- letticed weggons, t:th look like t e sntm-l cages in e mensgerie. At the trensu the boxes are taken Into the building In hto the basement, then down a win shinny in the north-east corner of the bur ding into the sub‘bnsement, where the air at present has an odour of soft mustiness that brings thoughts of mysterious treasures, hidden gold, stories of Capt. Kidd, and similar ideas. The visions of the mystic are suddenly dis- pelled by a. prosy, business-like door of grat- ed iron that bars the way and brings the visitor to a halt.â€" It could not! It should not! He could never stand it. Either they must never live at Whitestrand at all, or else-or else, in some way unknown to \Vluifred. be much manage to do away with the Whiteshrand poplar. Winifred flung her arms around him with every sign of grief and dismay and burst into a sudden flood of tears. “0 Hugh, ” she cried, “ you don't know what you say i you can‘t think how you grieve me.â€"Don’t you know why? You must surely guess it.-It isn’t that the Whitestrand poplsr‘s a famous treeâ€"n seamark for sailors â€"a landmark for all the country roundâ€"historical almosrt not to say celebrated l It isn’t that it was mentioned by Fuller and Drayton. and I'm sure I don't know how many other fam- ous peopleâ€"poor papa knew, and was fond of quoting them. It's not for all that, though for that alone I should be sorry to lose it, sorrier than for an thing else in all Whitestrand. But, oh, Engh, that you should so. ‘ so ! That you should say, “ For my part, hate it.”-â€"-Why, Hugh, it was on the roots of that very tree, you know, that you saw me for the ve first time in my life, as I sat there dang ing my hatâ€"with Elsie. It was from the roots of that tree that I first saw you and fell in love with you when you jumped off Mr. Relf's yawl to rescue my poor little half crown hat for me. â€"â€"It was there you first won my heartâ€"my 1 poor little heart‘sâ€"And to think you reallv Want to out down that tree would nearly, very nearly break it.â€"Hngh, dear Hugh, neygr, never, never say so ‘2 ’ No man can see a woman cry unmoved. To do so is more or less than human. Hugh laid her head tenderly on his big shoulder, soothed and kissed her with loving gentle- ness, swore he was speaking without due thought or reflection, declared that: he loved that tree every bit as much in his heart as she herself did, and pacified her gradually by every means in his lar e repertoire 0! mal- culine blandlshmente. dint deep down in his bosom he crushed his despair. If ever he came to live at Whitestrand. then, that hateful tree must for ever rise up in mute accusation to bear wlt_ness against him l “ Well, W'imiie, " He answer-edmuoh more telflgrly. >T_he tqne had melted him. Hugh drummed his finaers on the frosted pane impatiently. “ For my part, I hate ll," he answered in a. short bub sullen tone. “ Whenever I come to live at Whitestrend, I shall never rest till I've out it down and stabbed it up from the room entirely. " “ Hugh "' There was something in the Accent that made him start. He knew why. It re- minded him of Elaie’a voice as she cried aloud ” Hugh 1" in her honor and agony upon that fatal evening by the grim old poplar. Winifred rose from the dressing-table and looked out by his side in blank ausprllo. “ Why. Hugh,” she cried, noting both him unwanted tone and the absence of the now customary per form of her name, “ how can you any so? I call it just lovely. Blocking out the View, indeed 1 Why it is the view. There‘s nothing else. 1:43 the only good point in the whole picture. I love to use it even in winterâ€"the dear old poplarâ€"so tall and straightâ€"with its twigs etched out in black and grey against the sky like that. I love it better than anything else at White- strand." whose sides the rich Wisteria clamhered so luxuriantlyâ€"and looked out with weary sleepless eyes across the weary dreary stretch of barrel: Suffolk scenery. It was still winter. and the wistaria en the wall stood bald and naked an! bare of foliage. How different from the time when Elsie lived there ! He could see where the bough had broken with his weight that awful night: of Elsle‘s disappearance. He gazed vacantly across the lawn and meadow towards the tumbling sandhills. " ‘Vinifi‘ed." he “1dâ€" he was in no good mood just then to call her Winnieâ€"“what a big bare bundle of straight tall switches that poplar ill So aunt and stiff! I hate the very sight of it. t s a great disfigurement. I wonder your people ever stood it so long, blocking out the view from their drawing room windows.” A Stream of Silver. A Wise 01d Horse. (To BE oommuxn.) A man named Menzies has been sentenc- ed at Victoria, B. C., to ei ht months’ im- prisonment for selling a C inese girl for $150 to a Chinamao. Menzies, who does not seem to have known the serious nature of the ofl‘ence he was committing, took the girl to several of the clergymen' of the city, but all refused to perform a ceremony which would be incomprehensible to the Chinese couple and therefore not binding upon their consciences. Menzies then gave the girl to the Chinaman and told :them they were married. Judge Gray, in sentencing the accused, was very severe upon Menzies for trying to misuse a sacred ordinance of the Christian Church to carry out his unholy purpose, and declared: “If the contract- ing parties are heathens, let them be married according to heathen rites binding on their , consciences, or if necessary that there should be a civil marriage let them go to a civil magistrate or the registrar. I cannot understand the sacred service of a Christian church being so prostituted and dishonored. It is no answer to say the Chinese buy and sell these women. and not regard marriage in the light we do. You belong to what we believe a. higher scale of civilization and ought to feel that bartering children for prostitution, whether under the form of marriage or otherwise, is a disgrace as well as a crime." Concerning our two other common sum- mer hawks,â€"Cooper's and the sharp-shin- ned,â€"bhe verdict is rather less favorable. Out of forty-six mommhs of Cooper's hawks, eight contained nltry, while only one con- tained mice. he larger part contained other birds, from pigeons ho sparrows. Oi sharp shinned hawks, forty-eight stomncns were examined. Only one contained poul- try, four mice, and thirty-six sparrows, Warblers, and other birds. All in all, there figures are not very alarm- ing. and for the present at least, after so many years of persecution, it seems that our hawks any safely be left alone, to “ be fruit‘ ful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.’ Of red-shouldered hawks, one hundred and two stomachs were examined. Out of this number. only one contained poultry, while sixty-one contained mice, twenty contained other mimmsls, and forty contained insects. No farmer ought to be long in deciding that an ab ” hen-hawks"as these are frlends rather than ‘enemies. Two hundred and three stomachs of the red-tailed hawks contained two hundred and seventy mice. Such effi- cient farm-hands msy surely be spared a chicken or two new and then. Dr. Fisher and his moisten examined the staunch: of three hundred and eleven red-tailed hawks, with the following results : Twenty-five contained poultry ; four con- tained queile ; five contained crows ; thirty- five contained other birdsâ€"sparrows, etc. ; 'wo hundred and three comainea mice ; fifty- flve contained ether memmnla; and twenty- four contained insects. of hawks and owls. This is based on the examination oi one thousand andseventy-two sbomaohs of these rapaoions birds, and will rove of special interest to farmers. In aesaohnsens, for instance. the three com- monest large hawks are the marsh hawk,â€" nsnally seen flying low over meadows and marshes, and conspicuous forfius white run ,â€"-and the red-tailed and the red- shon dered hawks. The two latter are most often noticed soaring hi 1: in air, and (aiming people gen- erally are nown as “ hen-hawks," implying unfit tiggyprey agon‘poultry: The Report: of the Commissioner of Agri- culture for 1887. recently tuned, includes a repmt of the assistant omiuhologist of the Dapnrtfnonh, Dr. A. K; Fuller, on film food New this willingnessâ€"eagerness, it may even, without exaggeration. be calledâ€"to be convicted of what is acknowledged to be a fault, strikes one as a curious anom- aly. No one would answer, if told, “ You are very truthfuL” “Oh. no. I'm 3 00n- staut liar ;" nor, if complimented upon consistent attention to her own business, would respond, “On the contrary, scan- dal-mongering is my favorite occupation." At least, no one would give either of these answers in the serious way in which the claim to the possession of a hot temper is made. May there nut be, underlying this inconsistency and explaining it, a miscon- oeption of the real meaniuo and source of a quick temper? To many minds, this undesirable nait seems to be the outcome of many very admirable qualities. T. be hoptempered means, inferentially, in such mental vocabularies, to be generous, and in e-minded, and unselfish, andâ€"after a litt e lapse of timeâ€"forgiving. But I main- tain that it means exact] the reverse of all these things. If a man s quickâ€"tempered, if he give way to anger quickly and un- rlghteously (for I leave out of the question entirely that righteous wrath which rises for good reason only, and is quite a differ- ent matter from temper), he is not generous, for he shows no regard for the comfort of those around him ; he is not unselfish, for it is safe to say that in nine cases out of ten, if not in ten out of ten, his fury is kindled by some fancied slight to himself, and is allowed to blaze simply as an illumination in honor of his self esteem ; he is not for- giving, because, though he may recover quickly from his abenatiou, and soon be perfectly urbane to the whilom victim of it, the restoration is simply forgetfulness, and to forget the injury inflicted upon another by his own hasty words is by no means synonymous with forgiveness of injuries he himself may have received. Last of all, he is not large-minded. I am convinced thatl a quick temper is an unfailing indication of a limited intelligence and a lack of men- tal quickness. If the mind were large enough to grasp the true relations of things, to see how small a pointin the universe this temper-rousing episode occupied, and if it could see this quicklyâ€"in a flash of thoughtâ€"the outburst would be averted. A matter not unworthy of remark is the almost universal claim laid to that sup- pmd-to-be undesirable possession, a quick temper. “ I have a frightfnlly quick lem- per 1" is an assertion omen made without any sign of regret. rather with evident self-complacency. And how often, when, with the intention of saying something pleasing, we remarked upon the sweetness of a friend's disposition to the friend in person, are we met with the reply, “ Oh, you're quite mistaken; I’m one of the quickest-tempered people in the world 1” given in a tone that does not imply mod. eat depreciation of a compliment, but a de- cided sense of unappreniated merit. Hawks Useful to Farmers. Selling a Chinese Girl. Quick Temper. noggin ca'n tell how he '7“ n _ 8t82d_pr°§1?efi,tx WW“ be EMe Jink'sâ€"“Johnaon wants to borrow $100 from me. Is he good?" Binkaâ€"“Yea, with proper securities.” Jinksâ€"“What would you suggest?" Binkaâ€"“A chain and padlock, & pair of handcuffs and a. dog. Tum would be enough, I think, to hold. him." Wifeâ€"John, dear, if it should be my mis- fortune to die before .you do, do you think you would marry again? Husbandâ€"Well, I dunno, my loge.- Un_til it eomes to him, Betheps you know the bright star celled Siriusâ€"that star which blnzss in the south- em sky, shining by turns red and blue green and white? That light from Sirin; left its surface twenty gears ago. Sirius is no fan- ofi‘ that it has ta en the light twenty yenre to tench the world. They must be very distant indeed, you will say, because they look so much smaller than the sun. And they are very distant. Alpha Centauri, the nearest star, who's dis- tance we know is two hundred and twenty- five thousand times as far away as the dis- tance of the sun from the earthâ€"two hun- dred and twenty-five thousand times nine. ty-one millions of miles, or millions of millions of miles! The light from Alpha Cantauri, which we see. started three and r. half years it ago. All those three and a half years it has been flashing ODWArd 'at the rate of one hundred and eighty-eight thou- sand miles each secondâ€"it has traveled one hundred and eighty-eight thousand 1111188 with each tick of the clock! That shows us how very far off Alpha‘Ce‘nteur‘i is. 1“ Well. astronomers tell us that on a. good night, with good eyes, we can see from two to three thousand stars. The actual num- ber of stars which may be seen without a telescope, is two or three thousand overhead; five or six thoussnd round the whole world. But, with the help of the telescope, Sir William Herschel, the astronomer, oulculv eted twenty million stars round the whole worldâ€"twenty million suns; for sun-s are only distant suns. How many stars do you see when you look up to uhe sky, on a clear, moonleaa ni ht? Same people would say it they were as ed this question: “0h, hundreds!” or “ thousands!" And some might even go to the length of millions ; but: very few would give an exact answer. Frequently as high as $4 is offered for the use of $10 for a single month. In such cases each of the nineteen other borrowers gives to \he lucky one only $6 apiece for theSlO apiece which they mske him psy next month. Then the next highest bidder gets the $200, less the interest he offered, and so on, until the entire twenty, at twen- ty different times, have obtained the use of tliis $200; but the one that comes the last, having oflereu the least interest of them all, reaps the harvest of the “whey.” This method is adopted by most Chinese laundrvmen in New York and other large cities to open new laundries. It pnrtakes of the gaming flavor which is captivating to every true Celestial. A} a rule it requires $100 to open a laundry in New York. But this amount is a fortune to a newly arrived Chinaman, and unless he starts immediately into the laundry business, he would become a burden to some of his friends. The Chinese immi- grant, unlike his European compatriots, never comes here unless he is safely sur- rounded by friends or relatives upon his arrival. These immediately initiate him into the mysteries of the laundry business. In some friendly laundry the newcomer is placed undera six months‘ apprenticeship, beginning at the wash tub, until he reaches the ironing table, and lastly the polishing board. Au apprentices begins with $3 per week and board, and a. gradual addition of $1 per week after the first month, until he is able to take charge of alaundry himself. Then if he has money he hires a place and hangs out his sign. If not he goes to one or two friends, and they will call a “ whey” or syndicate for his benefit in the following manner. MYSTEBIES OF THE ” “WHEY.” Suppose I have an established laundry, and want to borrow $200 at a certain per centum premium, but I cmnot find any one Chinaman who is able to loan me the amount. I put up a notice in Mott street thatnpon such and such a day I wish to make a “ whey” of twenty men, who all are supposed to be situated like myself, each wanting to borrow $200. When we twenty borrowers all come together we each ut down 510. Then each one secretly writes upon a slip of paper the amount of interest he is willing to give to get the $200. These slips are carefully sealed and thrown into a bowl. At a given time they are opened, and to the highest bidder goes the $200, less the interest. which is invariable deducted immediately from the principalz‘ They become laundrymen here simply becsuse there is no other occupation by which they can make money as surely and quickly. The prejudice against the race has much to do with it. They are fine cooks, neat and faithful servants, and above all, very skillful mechanics at any trade they haves mind totry. In the western states, where their Value is better under- stood, they are used in as msny different positions as any other foreigners, and the laundry business is occupied only by those who fail to find other employment. NO OTHER ALTERNATIVE. But here in New York as yet there is no other alternative. Many su sole minded men as well as skillful mechanic who came to America to better his condition may be found wlelding the poliehmg iron: in a New York Chinese laundry. It taken from seventy-five dollars to two hundred dollars to start one of these Chinese waeh houses, and the way most of these lanndriee are started would give valuable tips even to an American Wall street deacon. The main expenditure in a Chinese laundry in v. stove and a trough for washing and partitions for dry room and sleeping apartment, and a sign. The question has frequently been asked by Americans, “Do these Chlmen wash clothes in Chine? How is in that hourly All who come here enter the laundry business? Do they love it?" No, they do not love it any more than any other kind of labor. They did not even know who: the "Melioan men’s" shirt looked like, mu '_ less how to dress one, before they cflto Americs. Laundry work in China is invminbly done by women. and when a. men steps intoe women’s occupation he loses his social stand- iig. Chinese Laundrymen. The Stars.