LEISURE HOURS

LEISURE HOURSFor Conference Between the Magazine and its Readers.

LEISURE HOURS

For Conference Between the Magazine and its Readers.

When The Taylor Publishing Company made its announcement of the forthcoming appearance ofBob Taylor’s Magazine, its statements were received with interest by all, with enthusiastic approval by many and with predictions of disaster by sundry Jeremiahs and Thomases. For the last named class the fact that a Southern magazine had not succeeded, though many had been projected, was sufficient reason for the conclusion that none could succeed, and possible success versus probable failure was discussed throughout the length and breadth of the land.

Meanwhile, Governor Robert L. Taylor and his co-laborers in the enterprise, imbued with a belief in the feasibility of the venture, with the idea of the vital necessity to the people of the South of a literary periodical which might adequately and fittingly represent the literary life and customs and romance and ideals of the South, and with an indomitable intention of firmly establishing such a useful vehicle of thought and expression, proceeded with their organization. Literature in regard toBob Taylor’s Magazinewas prepared, a campaign of publicity was inaugurated, articles and stories were secured for the first number, paper was bought, and an issue of 10,000 copies was determined upon, as amply sufficient for the first number.

But herein the projectors of the enterprise underestimated the demands of their friends. No sooner was the prospectus issued which indicated the character of the magazine and gave a partial list of the contents of the first number, than the mails were congested with correspondence; agents were appointed by the hundred; subscriptions poured in; and it was decided to print 15,000 copies instead of 10,000 copies.

The size of the magazine, too, grew rapidly in the hands of the staff, until, instead of the 116 pages originally planned, it was found desirable to give 164 pages. This was rendered necessary, in part, by the large amount of advertising secured; and this is one of the best indexes of the faith of the people in the success ofBob Taylor’s Magazine. Hard-headed men of business do not give up their money for mere sentiment or out of compliment to even so eminent and widely loved a man as Governor Taylor. No. They look uponBob Taylor’s Magazineas a valuable advertising medium—and they are right.

At last, on the 21st of March, the eagerly awaited magazine appeared, and far surpassed the most sanguine expectations of its readers. In the intrinsic merit of its articles, stories and departments, in its dainty and appropriate cover, in its numerous and handsome illustrations, in its excellent typography and press-work, and equally in its well displayed and interesting advertisements it fully satisfied the most critical. The realization of a literary magazine worthy of the South was apparent.

And yet the Jeremiahs, silenced as to the initial number, mutteredsotto voce: “Well, you can’t do it again.” Nevertheless, the present number bears internal evidence that we have “done it again.” And we shall “do it” every time. This we promise. We shall no longer pay heed to that (fortunately small) class which experiences a melancholy pleasure in making direful predictions.

The avidity with which the first number ofBob Taylor’s Magazinewas greeted was astounding even to the editor-in-chief and his staff, notwithstanding the thousands of encouraging letters, the enormous influx of subscriptions, even before a type had been set, and the fact that the interest was not confined to the South but was manifested with especial earnestness by the people of the North. Letters of congratulation by the bushel, and complimentary editorials, reviews and press notices have told the tale from Androscoggin to San Jose. Space, of course, precludes the reproduction of them here, even if it were desirable, but the following selection from a letter of the senior member of one of the largest advertising agencies in the United States is so significant that it is felt that its insertion will be pardoned:

“I thought it was hardly possible there could be a place for another magazine, and consequently took little interest in your first announcements. When your first number came to hand, however, I was so attracted by the dainty cover showing the ‘fiddle’ with which the name of Bob Taylor is so intimately associated in the minds of those who know anything of the South, and especially of Tennessee, that I carried it home last night, and did not lay it aside until every word in it by Bob Taylor had been read and several of the articles re-read.

“Heartiest congratulations on the merit of the first number, the character of which, if maintained in succeeding numbers, will surely make a place for this new apostle of sunshine.

“Only give us more of Bob Taylor, if possible. Why not let him have a page between each other article each number may contain. Why restrict him to a department or departments? John Brisben Walker wrote the entire September, 1904,Cosmopolitanunaided. It is believed Bob Taylor could write an entire number without any assistance if he would make up his mind to do so, and it would be certain to prove a hummer.”

Fifteen thousand copies is a large number for the first issue of any magazine; yet they were exhausted within one week after the magazine came from the press, and thousands of copies have since been ordered by agents and dealers, while an ever increasing army of new subscribers demand, like so many Oliver Twists, with vehemence and iteration—MORE, MORE.And yet every copy is sold!

It is a situation that pleases while it embarrasses, and it gives the valuable pointer that we must provide larger issues, which we shall do, that no one may miss a single number.

Considering these facts, so briefly outlined, we would not be human were we not elated and happy and thankful. And yet we have not, we trust, been spoiled by lavish praise, but rather spurred on to greater efforts to measure up to our opportunities, to the expectations of the Southern people, and to our mission to exploit the virtues, resources and capabilities of this section, while bringing every month more sunshine and happiness into the heart of every reader ofBob Taylor’s Magazine.

For the information of new subscribers we repeat that we invite, for insertion in this department, communications on all subjects of unusual interest and importance, such as

Prose and poetry of sentiment, fact and fancy.

Forgotten or unpublished bits of history and tradition.

Anecdotes of famous men and women, and of quaint and curious occurrences.

The best short stories and tales you have heard or read, if unusual or unfamiliar.

Suggestions for the special benefit ofBob Taylor’s Magazine—how it may be improved, what it should contain, what it should admit.

There is little danger that the glories and beauties of the Old South, as reflected in its social life and ideals, will be forgotten in the industrial progress and prosperity of the New, for thesethings have been made immortal by the sure touch of tradition and literature, but there is another phase of the old regime well worth our pride and attention, which seems to have well nigh faded out of popular impression and consideration. We refer to the industrial and commercial activity achieved by the South before the war, of which the general idea takes so small and disparaging account. It is tacitly assumed and loosely declared that previous to 1860 the South lived in ease and sloth upon slave-labor and the cotton crop, paying no heed to manufactures or industrial development, and that before the wonderful business progress of the last decade commercial enterprise and ability were unknown qualities in this section. There were heroes before Agamemnon, however, and the truth is that long before the New South existed in phrase or fact, the Old South was holding its own in wealth-producing industries with other sections of the country.

In a pamphlet, published some years ago, Mr. Richard H. Edmonds, of Baltimore, first drew attention to these facts, and in so doing performed a unique and important service to historic truth, no less than to sectional pride. “Facts about the South” is the title of Mr. Edmond’s brochure and he prefaces his summary of present prosperity and prophecy of future development by a somewhat novel presentation of Southern industrial conditions previous to 1860. He boldly challenges the assumption that the South during that period was not fully abreast of the times in all business interests and quotes indubitable statistics and historic records to prove his case. In the decade between 1850 and 1860 the growth in Southern railroad and manufacturing interests was especially marked, the government reports showing a greater percentage of gain in the South than in New England and the Middle States, or, indeed, the whole country at large. Moreover, the popular idea crediting the Old South with producing only cotton, rice and sugar, is clearly disproved by Mr. Edmonds, who gives the figures of Southern crop production for 1860, showing a condition of agricultural diversity and prosperity unsurpassed in any part of the country.

This vigorous protest against a prevailing delusion should be read in its entirety by every Southerner who, as he reads of the thrift and energy of the Old South, will be inspired with a firmer faith in the growth and strength of the New, recognizing in the industrial development of to-day, as Mr. Edmonds expresses it, “not a novel creation” in this section, but “the result of evolution.”

Mr. Editor:

After all the flowery speeches and kind words that have been showered uponBob Taylor’s Magazine, all of which I heartily endorse, I am afraid you will not appreciate what I am going to say, but I’ll say it, nevertheless; it will be as good as a corrective; too much sweets are always cloying.

I have read the magazine through from cover to cover, even to the advertisements, and found everything good, better, best, yet I was disappointed and will tell you why. There was no smallest fraction thereof devoted to women. Why is this thus? It cannot be that you do not think women of enough importance as to be worthy some part of it especially fitted for her eye alone. I know our editor-in-chief doesn’t feel that way, at least he does not talk that way, as every woman knows who ever talked to him for five minutes by the clock. I don’t mean a page devoted to Housewives, Motherhood, Cooking Recipes, or Fancy Work, altogether. These are all good, every one of them, and we are all more or less interested in them, but a page, pure and simple, devoted to things that women are specially interested in. Will you rise and explain, and satisfy several women?

E. A. C.

The above communication is self-explanatory and is published for what it is worth. Possibly others of our friends may have something to say along this line. At any rate, whatever is worthy of space, pertaining to women, can, at least for a time, find expression in this department.

(Dedicated to Our Descriptive Writers.)

The tale told thrillingly of lemon skies,Of salmon hills beneath a blue sunrise;It feelingly described a cerise fieldWhere purple rabbits ate pink onions, peeled.The color card passed to another pen,And lightning changes awed our common ken;For lo, we’re told those hills are palest mauve,—Like molten gold the fiery sun above.The lemon sky has veered to cherry red,—Maroon, the field where purple rabbits fed;Has Nature cursed us with a spotted land?Nay, “highly colored” tales are in demand.Hester Grey.

The tale told thrillingly of lemon skies,Of salmon hills beneath a blue sunrise;It feelingly described a cerise fieldWhere purple rabbits ate pink onions, peeled.

The tale told thrillingly of lemon skies,

Of salmon hills beneath a blue sunrise;

It feelingly described a cerise field

Where purple rabbits ate pink onions, peeled.

The color card passed to another pen,And lightning changes awed our common ken;For lo, we’re told those hills are palest mauve,—Like molten gold the fiery sun above.

The color card passed to another pen,

And lightning changes awed our common ken;

For lo, we’re told those hills are palest mauve,—

Like molten gold the fiery sun above.

The lemon sky has veered to cherry red,—Maroon, the field where purple rabbits fed;Has Nature cursed us with a spotted land?Nay, “highly colored” tales are in demand.

The lemon sky has veered to cherry red,—

Maroon, the field where purple rabbits fed;

Has Nature cursed us with a spotted land?

Nay, “highly colored” tales are in demand.

Hester Grey.

Where the Mississippi washesRound the shores of Tennessee,There’s a large and stately forest,And it’s very dear to me.There I roamed in days of boyhoodWith companions free from care,As the tree tops sway ed above usWith the west wind playing there.There we hunted ducks and turkeys;Or as leaves came drifting down,Sat and watched the graceful squirrel—Heard the distant deep-mouthed hound.I can see the old tent standing,Scent the fragrant coffee pot,And can see the fish a-fryingOn the coals so red and hot.We could hear the steamboat whistle,Coming to us from afar;And the wild geese loudly callingFar out on the sandy bar.As the darkness gathered round us,The tree tops bare and highSeemed to touch with inky fingersThe azure autumn sky.And the shadows in beneath them,Where the firelight did not go,Made a background for dream picturesIn those days of long ago.Ah, those faces in the firelightGlowed with ruddy health and joy,As I pictured golden futuresRound the camp fire as a boy.I have walked the crowded city,With restless, weary feet—In search of praise and pleasure—But neither seemed complete.For the wine the city offersMust be drunk in little sips,Or like the Dead Sea apples’Twill be ashes on the lips.So I’m going back a-camping,’Neath the sunset’s mellow glow,There to dream the dreams of boyhoodAs in days of long ago.G. W. Browder.Clinton, Ky.

Where the Mississippi washesRound the shores of Tennessee,There’s a large and stately forest,And it’s very dear to me.

Where the Mississippi washes

Round the shores of Tennessee,

There’s a large and stately forest,

And it’s very dear to me.

There I roamed in days of boyhoodWith companions free from care,As the tree tops sway ed above usWith the west wind playing there.

There I roamed in days of boyhood

With companions free from care,

As the tree tops sway ed above us

With the west wind playing there.

There we hunted ducks and turkeys;Or as leaves came drifting down,Sat and watched the graceful squirrel—Heard the distant deep-mouthed hound.

There we hunted ducks and turkeys;

Or as leaves came drifting down,

Sat and watched the graceful squirrel—

Heard the distant deep-mouthed hound.

I can see the old tent standing,Scent the fragrant coffee pot,And can see the fish a-fryingOn the coals so red and hot.

I can see the old tent standing,

Scent the fragrant coffee pot,

And can see the fish a-frying

On the coals so red and hot.

We could hear the steamboat whistle,Coming to us from afar;And the wild geese loudly callingFar out on the sandy bar.

We could hear the steamboat whistle,

Coming to us from afar;

And the wild geese loudly calling

Far out on the sandy bar.

As the darkness gathered round us,The tree tops bare and highSeemed to touch with inky fingersThe azure autumn sky.

As the darkness gathered round us,

The tree tops bare and high

Seemed to touch with inky fingers

The azure autumn sky.

And the shadows in beneath them,Where the firelight did not go,Made a background for dream picturesIn those days of long ago.

And the shadows in beneath them,

Where the firelight did not go,

Made a background for dream pictures

In those days of long ago.

Ah, those faces in the firelightGlowed with ruddy health and joy,As I pictured golden futuresRound the camp fire as a boy.

Ah, those faces in the firelight

Glowed with ruddy health and joy,

As I pictured golden futures

Round the camp fire as a boy.

I have walked the crowded city,With restless, weary feet—In search of praise and pleasure—But neither seemed complete.

I have walked the crowded city,

With restless, weary feet—

In search of praise and pleasure—

But neither seemed complete.

For the wine the city offersMust be drunk in little sips,Or like the Dead Sea apples’Twill be ashes on the lips.

For the wine the city offers

Must be drunk in little sips,

Or like the Dead Sea apples

’Twill be ashes on the lips.

So I’m going back a-camping,’Neath the sunset’s mellow glow,There to dream the dreams of boyhoodAs in days of long ago.

So I’m going back a-camping,

’Neath the sunset’s mellow glow,

There to dream the dreams of boyhood

As in days of long ago.

G. W. Browder.

Clinton, Ky.

Twenty years or more ago, riding through the flat, palmetto-fringed pine woods of east Florida, before Standard Oil Flagler built his coast railroad to Miami, sundry lean, swarthy, active people of both sexes, were frequently to be met with, more especially in and about St. Augustine, and to the southward towards New Smyrna. They are doubtless to be found there yet, though the great influx of miscellaneous strangers renders their racial traits less noticeable than formerly.

Ask one of the large-framed Swedes, Germans, or other scions of a more pronounced North-of-Europe type, who and what these Latin looking peasantry are, the chance is you will be answered, or at least would have been at the time I alluded to above:

“When folks want to be civil they call them Minorcans; when they don’t they are mighty apt to say something about Doc. Turnbull’s niggers. So, there you are—take your choice.”

As a matter of fact, they are a really worthy and industrious element of our composite population, not unlike the descendants of Longfellow’s Acadians, the “Cajuns” of southern Louisiana. Though of a hybrid sort of Spanish ancestry, from the Balearic Isles in the Mediterranean Sea, they have Americanized themselves through several generations of quiet usefulness in an humble, unobtrusive way.

What is their history? How came they here?

That takes us back to the year 1767. The Floridas had only recently beenceded by Spain to England, when some fifteen hundred colonists, mostly from Minorca, one of the Balearic group, were landed at Musquito Inlet, one hundred miles south of St. Augustine.

Many think that the only people held as slaves in the South prior to the Civil War, were negroes, or possibly in very early colonial times, a few spiritless tribes of Indians. Yet these colonists (ancestors of the present Minorcans now strung along the lagoons and bayous of the east coast, intermittently for many leagues) were made, willy-nilly, for nine long, weary years, to toil amid the swamps and hammocks of what is now Volusia County, as the virtual slaves of a British Trading Company of that era, headed by Sir Wm. Duncan and a Dr. Andrew Turnbull, shrewd Scotchmen of wealth and social position, who operated their scheme from London; Sir William being the resident manager there, and a financial magnate on the Stock Exchange himself.

Turnbull, the immediate head of the colony in Florida, was hard-hearted, energetic, indomitable and persevering—one of that unconscionable, never-give-up sort of task masters, who worked the helpless peasants mercilessly in the malarious swamps embraced within the area of the immense land grant held by the Company’s charter.

Tradition avers that he founded the original town of New Smyrna, dug drainage canals, built stone warehouses, cleared several thousand acres of dense forest, and began to raise indigo on a large scale.

The contracts of the colonists, under which they were to receive allotments of land, proper wages and maintenance, were ruthlessly and systematically violated. The region was then remote and inaccessible, and the poor, ignorant peasantry, helpless to a degree hard to realize, in our own day, outside of, perhaps, Siberia, or Tibet, in far-off Asia.

So isolated was that section from all connection with the outside world that this sort of thing went on for years without its being known, even at St. Augustine. The lands were not divided, nor the wages paid. Instead the Minorcans were compelled to work like the Israelites in Egypt, under harsh overseers, amid all the discomforts of a semi-tropic wilderness, environed by savage tribes to the west and south, trailed by bloodhounds to prevent escape, punished like convicts, and wretchedly housed and fed. Guarded also by armed men, their condition was, indeed, most forlorn and miserable.

It was said that our own Revolution against Great Britain had been going on for a year or more, before these long suffering Minorcans heard that such a thing had been even considered by the more northerly colonies. Then, however, the worm turned. There was a great uprising, for such a life, now tinged with a ray of hope, was unendurable.

Harsh measures were resorted to by Turnbull, who also evoked the aid of the civil law, claiming that the Minorcans had violated their contracts as a sort of “Redemptioners,” bound to serve for a stipulated period, etc. Some of the ring leaders were taken to St. Augustine by soldiers, and five actually condemned to death. Of these, two were pardoned; one was reprieved, on condition that he act as executioner of the remaining two; a number of others were, for a time, imprisoned.

The wretched colonists, however, continued to run away in larger numbers, either defying or defeating recapture, so that Turnbull eventually found himself without labor. The town, the plantations, and the various public works were deserted, and the vast enterprises thus despotically inaugurated, were at last stranded.

In vain did he, in the name of the now semi-defunct London Trading Company, make most liberal offers of land and wages to his recalcitrant and vanishing slaves. They wanted no more of Turnbull, his methods, or his works. The entire scheme fell through; Dr. Andrew Turnbull went back to England a ruined man; the town crumbled into ruins, the indigo plantations lapsed into a second forest growth; the labyrinth of ditches filledup, until only the remains of the old canal, some crumbling coquina ruins, and the name of the chief despot himself, now given to the ancient land grant which was the scene of his cruelties, and known generally as Turnbull Hammock, are left as mementoes of one of the gloomiest pages of our by no means untroubled colonial annals.

Instead of a natural increase in numbers during ten years of bondage and escape, not more than seven or eight hundred of the immigrants were left. But they were naturally thrifty and economical. Once scattered out and doing for themselves, unburdened by the incubus of Turnbullism, their numbers and resources gradually increased. Probably several thousand of their descendants, more or less intermixed with alien blood, still occupy the land of their forefathers’ adoption. These are small farmers (engaged in truck, and semi-tropic fruit growing), fishermen, boat sailors, and petty traders. A few have risen to social and political eminence as well as wealth. But these cases are rather exceptional.

As a whole, they are patriotic American citizens. The late war with Spain, for the relief of Cuba, proved that. Many of the younger men volunteered for service. Some even went to the Philippines.

“Free America vur beeg contree,” said a returned soldier to one of his home folks who had never seen a hill higher than some of the great shell mounds on the eastern shore of the Matanzas River. “Mountains higher than clouds, lakes wide like sea. Minorcans vur small people. Room for ever’one here. Home best place after all.”

And so it is, even for the posterity of those so woefully misused by the British Trading Company’s George the Third methods, as to be miscalled five generations later by local detractors, “Turnbull’s slaves.”

Wm. Perry Brown.

There are more than three hundred and fifty tribes belonging to the mosquito race. These have been classified by the detectives of science into twenty-two families, and all placed in the same category with gnats, which are looked upon by most people as suspicious characters. These families are known by names of such “learned length and thundering sound” that it is thought safest to abstain from giving a list of them here; but like man, they may be known better by their color, habits and eccentricities than by name.

The mosquito is cosmopolitan, for he has explored and settled many parts of the arctic regions, including Alaska, Greenland and Iceland, and established his home on the continents of Europe, Asia and Africa, and in the remotest islands of the sea. He had very probably discovered America before Christopher Columbus set sail for the new world, and it is now pretty certain that he first colonized New Jersey.

He has figured extensively in the history of the world, yet he wears no laurel wreath of glory for valor in war. All martial victories and renown of his race belong to the gentler (?) sex of the family. She is a kind of Joan of Arc, of a fierce, restless and war-like spirit; but it is consoling to know that she is less savage in the temperate than in the torrid zone; for, we are informed by travelers that in the tropics she often leads her legions in a charge with fixed bayonets directly upon a sleeping man’s face, when they fall upon him in myriads, like pelting hailstones out of a storm-cloud.

There are instances of record in which her furious armies have filled the air for many miles, darkening the heavens like dense columns of flying cloud, and attacking man and beast like blood-thirsty demons. A Greek historian relates that such an army once swooped down upon ancient Greece and drove the inhabitants from their homes.

Besides being thus famous as a soldier, she enjoys the unique distinction of being a queen of song. Strange to say, in this gift she has a complete monopoly, while the male has been left to regret the sad fate of being forever songless and silent. However, he has been well compensated for this privation. Some tribesof his race have less musical talent than others; but those who have studied his anatomy, habits and genius declare that in tribes in which there are queens of song, he is, without doubt, the king of listeners, since nature has provided him with many hundreds of ears, no doubt to enhance his pleasure from vocal music. These curious ears are small hairs located on his antennæ, or feelers, which, like the strings of harp or violin under the touch of a virtuoso, tremble in unison with the harmony that flows from the living melodion of his queen, until his soul is on fire with melody. Not one of these delicately attuned ears ever seems to be shocked by a falsetto note from the vocal chords of his charmer. To him her song, like that of Wynomoinen, the magical singer, or the sirens of mythical story, is full of the power of enchantment; and the eavesdroppers of science who watch him and listen, tell us that he draws near her whenever she pours out her soul in song. The manner in which she produces her buzzing tones is very wonderful: The lower or contralto note is the result of the rapid vibration of her wings at the rate of three thousand per minute. It is not remarkable, then, that her flight is so swift from her enraged human pursuer. But when she trills and yodles and sings her high soprano, her fantastic music flows from stridulating organs which resemble tiny drums at the openings of minute air tubes. These higher runs thrill Monsignor Mosquito into ecstacies of pure delight. His ravished soul is borne out upon the silver sea of song as he sits on a honeysuckle sipping nectar, listening the while to the wooing voices of his divine inamoratas—the Pattis, Nilssons and Nordicas of his race. But not so with the human auditor of the mosquito prima donna who lies peacefully on his bed at night under the hypnotic spell of sweet sleep. Perchance it is midnight’s holy hour when he is suddenly awakened by a still small voice more pricking than the voice of conscience. He springs up and lights the gas or lamp and tries to draw nigh unto lady mosquito as did her enchanted knight with wings; he is thirsting for her life while she is thirsting for his blood.

But not only is our heroine celebrated in history as a warrior and a vocalist, but as a most dangerous enemy of mankind. Nature has seen fit to give her a long nose, or proboscis, which, according to the Darwinian theory, might prove her to be related to the elephant. She does not hesitate “to stick her nose into other people’s business,” and this is precisely the thing which, in the case of mosquitoes as of men, leads her into irreparable injury to humanity and very frequently to her own instant demise.

Those versed in the origin and evolution of the Culex (a nickname for the mosquito) teach us that his ancient grandmothers did not have the blood-sucking habit, but acquired it in later ages. Whether in acquiring this habit she was beset, like Mother Eve in Eden, by the power of a mighty temptation through the wily arts of his Satanic majesty, we are unable to say with certainty; but we are informed by her anatomists that alongside her formidable proboscis with its suction pump fixtures, are from two to six keen lances or spears, admirably adapted for making the necessary incisions in the skin of man and beast. Armed with such weapons for drawing blood, it is easy to guess how, during some of her nightly wanderings as a minstrel, temptation might have won an easy victory over her by giving her a taste of blood. It is probable that while on one of these lonely serenades she became enamored of some sleeping Apollo, and, stooping down to snatch a sweet warm kiss from his lordly brow, accidentally stuck her bill through the rosy cuticle and drew blood—taking another sip she said it was good, and thus she contracted the blood-sucking habit.

It is interesting to note that as with many other nations of the air so with this one, there is a sort of national anthem to which the Culex patriots seem more devotedly attached than human patriots are to theirs. Its divine strain, to the chivalrous male,is the very keynote of love, and he is charmed by its resistless power and drawn toward it as a beetle to a beacon light, or a boat to a whirlpool; for when its clarion note is sounded, like the weird, wild melody of Orpheus of old that thrilled dumb brutes and drew them in myriads around him, he is caught up and borne onward by its powerful pull to the spot whence the music comes.

While experimenting with harmonic telegraphy, a scientist of the South who resides at Jackson, Miss., happened to strike this key, and he reports that the mosquito came toward the “sounder” in great swarms. He soon afterwards devised a machine for electrocuting every mosquito that should respond to the magical note. Upon the very first trial they came teeming to the “sounder,” and when he turned on the electric current by pressing a button, they fell dead by the scores at his feet.

What a boon to humanity this novel application of electricity is destined to be. With such an instrument having a “sounder” attached, the disturbed sleeper of the future, who is not overly fond of mosquito song, can touch a button, by his bedside, to set the “sounder” to going, and then press another button to turn on the deadly current, and thus instantly electrocute every mosquito that disturbs his slumbers without ever moving from his pillow. Now, it has been urged by some that only the male mosquitoes will answer to the note made by the “sounder,” and thus only they would suffer death by the device. But this is by no means established, and even if shown to be true, it is evident that upon the males being thus dispatched the females would soon all withdraw or pine away with grief.

How vastly different and superior is the male Culex to the female from an ethical standpoint. He is opposed to war and is a harmless vegetarian and honey-sucker, while the female is a dangerous savage. He does not find his happiness in sucking the blood of his human or other neighbor, but in the contemplation of the beautiful. He may well be called the poet of his race; for he ever lives among the nectar drips and the paradises of color and perfume of the waiting flowers. He soars aloft into the sweeter, purer air to bathe his pinions in seas of radiant sunshine. He roams among the beauties of nature, seeking its sweets from every bud and leaf. All thoughts that flit across his microscopic brain are free from blood and war. He loves the beautiful wherever he finds it in the visible and tangible world and even in the fascinating buzz of his mosquito prima donna. But as ideally good as he seems to be, he, like man, has his faults and frailties. He is fond of travel and has been caught with many of his female companions stealing long rides on Pullman palace cars and ocean steamers. He is also very fond of beer, wine and whisky, and has been found “dead drunk” on sundry occasions. In this taste for intoxicants the female Culex does not indulge.

The mosquito has been recently charged with murder, arrested and brought to trial before a competent tribunal composed of medical men and others, and convicted. They have proved that his spouse is the principal and he the accomplice. The evidence shows that they belong to a family of mosquitoes, known by the infamous name ofAnopheles, and they have used malaria, yellow fever and several other diseases with which to slay man; that the female is the entertainer of a very small creature, a kind of Jonah, whom she swallows, and after a time he gets down from her stomach into her proboscis, and when she bites her human victim he leaps into the wound where he remains and eats red-blood corpuscles, and when grown he breaks up into from six to ten pieces, each piece making a new animal life like the original; that they go on multiplying in this way into millions in the blood upon which they feast, and thus produce these dreadful maladies and consequent death.

Watauga.

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