agents and to every firm wanting agents. Mr. Smith also wants the permanent addresses of men, women and youths in all parts of the country to distribute circulars at $2.00 per thousand. THE ANNUAL REPORT OF THE POSTMASTER GENERAL gives a vast deal of information regarding our postal system. The Dead Letter office is of itself a curiosity. The number of letters received there the past year exceeded six and a half million. Of these 319,000 contained valuable inclosures, including $40,000 in money, and over $1,400,000 of negotiable paper, whilst 11,000 contained lottery tickets and nearly 200,000 pictures and papers unfit for circulation. OUR thanks are due to D. H. Goodwillie, M. D., for the following illustrated treatises, reprinted from the New York Medical Journal: 1. DEAFNESS AS A RESULT OF NASAL AND DENTAL DISEASES. 2. NASAL INTUBATION. Both of these theses are of value to the profession. Also to the author forTHE FRANKLINIC INTERRUPTED CURRENT.-A new system of Therapeutic Electricity; by Wm. James Morton, M. D., Professor of Diseases of the Mind and Nervous System, etc., etc., New York, freely illustrated. MODERN COOK BOOK, ILLUSTRATED, Mast, Crowell & Kirkpatrick, Springfield, Ohio. This is a duo. of 320 pp., containing more than a thousand recipes and practical suggestions to housekeepers. Compiled by Mrs. T. J. Kirkpatrick, and completely indexed. We know of no better book of the kind extant. Read in our advertising columns the extraordinary offer of this book, with HALL'S JOURNAL OF HEALTH, and THE LADIES HOME COMPANION, for twelve months, on receipt of One dollar at this office. Either one of them is worth the money. HERBA VITA -Physicians are using this remedy with their patients, As either a tonic or a laxative it is without a peer. See advertisement and send 10 cents for sample. NOW AND THEN I QUESTION ME. From the German of Friedrick Bodenstedt. Now and then I question me, What hath drawn me so to thee: It is not your form nor beauty, Nor your glance of love and duty, Nor your voice, though sweetest ever,- JOURNAL OF HEALTH TRUTH DEMANDS NO SACRIFICE; ERROR CAN MAKE NONE. Vol. 38. APRIL, 1891. No. 4. THE HYGIENE OF THE HOME. The first consideration of the home should be in reference to its healthfulness. It is only by a due attention to particulars, that the household is maintained at its best, and this includes not only the indoor arrangements, but the immediate outdoor surroundings. That "order is heaven's first law" has passed into a proverb, and order embraces fitness, arrangement, simplicity and above all neatness. It should begin with the cellar and end nowhere. Too often is it the case that certain unfrequented rooms, especially those below ground and under roof, are quite overlooked on the occasion of periodical house-cleanings, and yet the air of the living rooms is made foul by emanations of decayed vegetables from below, and the accumulated dust of the lumber garret is a standing invitation to the pestiferous microbe. In populous cities the drain pipes and sewers are a prolific source of disease, to repel which, even the most efficient safeguards are incomplete, but much is gained to health by keeping the run clear of obstruction, with an occasional flushing, with the addition of lime, soda, or salt, to hot water. The back yard, however ample or contracted, should never be used as the depository of rubbish. On moving or clearing out days, we look upon the dusty pile of worn out and utterly useless truck brought to light, and wonder where it all came from. Not one thing of all is worth saving or carrying away, and the whole obtruding collection of good-for-nothings should have been long before discarded from the family storehouse. We are apt to be too indifferent in respect to the environments of our country homes, which are not accessible to any general system of sewage. All waste water should be carried a considerable distance from the house, and never suffered to stagnate in the open air. For want of better means it is customary to lead it in drain pipes to a covered cess-pool, but this method, oftentimes the most convenient and economical, is a continual menace to healthfulness, for the neighboring earth soon becoming saturated, sends off its inordinate moisture, in poisonous exhalations from the surface. If the water supply is from a well, it should be located beyond the possible impregnation of objectionable deposits. We have in mind the corruption of well water-in one instance by a cow yard and in another by a petroleum refinery, located at a distance of a hundred feet or more. The trouble may be years in manifesting itself, but it is sure to come in time. Open wells in frequent use are preferable to closed ones, inasmuch as they have the advantage of continual fresh air purification. The needful appurtenances of a country home are a series of out buildings, including a stable, cow shed, hen house, etc. Whilst these should be conveniently accessible from the dwelling, they should never be suffered to encroach upon its sanitary requirements. Good health is the foremost consideration, and nothing should be allowed to stand in the way of it. In this regard a great responsibility rests upon parents, which the exercise of prudence and sound common sense will wisely meet, and gratefully fulfill. A FACT STRANGER THAN FICTION. This story of a lost man rescued, and a starving baby saved, is told by a Texas traveller: I checked my horse and after one long, straining look around owned to myself that I was lost. I had suspected the fact some time, but had stubbornly fought down the suspicion, though my horse evidently realized it. With patient endurance he plodded along, resignation plainly expressed in the droop of his tail and ears. In place of the ranch, the hearty welcome, pleasant words, bed, supper, and fire I had expected to reach by sunset, there was nothing to be seen before, behind, on either hand, but the dead level of the plain. There were paths in plenty; in fact, the trouble was there were too many - all narrow and winding, for whose meandering there seemed not the slightest excuse, except the general tendency to crookedness most things, animate and inanimate alike possess. But it would have taken the instinct of a bloodhound or a trailing Indian to have said which paths had been made by horses' feet or those of cattle. Now that the sun was gone, I found my knowledge of the point of the compass gone with it. As I sat perplexed and worried, the gloom of twilight gathered fast and the chill of coming rain smote me through and through, while in the distance there was the roll of thunder. Glancing up I saw that the masses of cloud had closed together in a curtain of gray mist. My horse strode on of his own accord, and hoping that his instinct would lead us to some house, I let him have his will. Presently it began to rain, a sort of heart-broken passionless weeping, but with a steady determination to persevere all night, that awoke graver apprehension in my bosom than any amount of blustering, showery downpour could have done. This fine, still rain was accompanied by a low, soughing wind that added its desolate note to the general dreariness of the hour. Of course, I did not mind a little rain, but the prospect of spending the entire night exposed to it was any thing but agreeable, and I grew really violent in denunciation of the folly which had led me, an utter stranger in the country, to attempt to find any thing less than a volcano in active eruption on a bald prairie. The Texans are a fine people, in many respects the most admirable of hosts-but individually and collectively they lack any appreciation of distance. This is due, of course, to their having so much space around them; but to a stranger ignorant of the extent to which the phrases "a little piece out," and "just outside o' town," can be stretched, this contemptuous regard of miles is a little misleading. But in the face of that dreary, monotonous moaning of rain and wind, even my anger at my own folly could not burn long, and though chilled to the bone and tired and hungry, I plodded on dully, grateful that no night, even the longest, could last forever. It was now quite dark, and very dark at that, though at short intervals close to the horizon a faint gleam of lightning showed, too distant to cast brightness on my path and only sufficient to intensify the blackness about me. All at once I saw a man walking about fifteen feet in front of me. Yes, I know I said it was intensely dark, but all the same, I repeat it, I saw a man walking in front of me, and furthermore I could see that he was a large man, dressed in rough, but well-fitting clothes; that he wore a heavy red beard, and that he looked back at me from time to time with an expression of keen anxiety on his otherwise rather fixed features. "Hallo!" I cried, but as he did not halt, I concluded he did not hear As a second hail produced no result I spurred my weary horse me. up to overtake the stranger. But, though the gray responded with an alacrity most commendable under the circumstances, I soon found that this strange pedestrian did not intend to let me catch up with him. Not that he hurried himself. He seemed without any exertion to keep a good fifteen feet between us. Then I began to wonder how, with the intense darkness shutting me in as four black walls, I was yet able to see my strange companion so clearly, to take in the details of his dress, and even the expression of his face, and that at a distance more than twice my horse's length, when I could hardly see his head before me. I am not given to superstitious fancies, and my only feeling was of curiosity. We went on in silence for nearly half an hour, when, as suddenly as he had appeared, he was gone. I looked around for him, half afraid, from his instant and complete disappearance, that I had been dreaming, when I perceived that I was close to a small, low building of some sort. I reined in and shouted several times, but not the slightest response could I hear, and at last I rode boldly up and tapped on the wall with the butt of my riding whip. Then, as this elicited no sign of life, I concluded that I had stumbled on some deserted house, or that it was the abode of my eccentric friend; so, dismounting and tying the gray, I resolved to spend the rest of the night under a roof or to find some good reason for continuing my journey. I felt my way along the wall till I reached a door, and, trying this and finding that it yielded to me, I stepped inside, striking a match as I did so. Fortunately, I carried my matches in an air-tight case, and as it was dry the one I struck gave me a light at once. I found myself in a large room close to a fireplace, over which a rude shelf was placed, and on this mantel I saw an oil lamp, to which I applied my match. On the hearth was heaped a quantity of ashes and over these crouched a child, a little girl of 5 or 6. At the other end of the room which was plainly and scantily furnished, lay a man across a bed, and as I raised the lamp I saw that he was the same I had been following, but there was something in his attitude and face that struck me as peculiar, and I was about to go forward and look at him, when the child who had at first seemed dazed at the light fairly threw herself upon me. "Have you any thing for Nelly to eat?" she said, and then : "Oh, Nelly so hungry!" I ran my hand into my pocket and drew forth what had been a paper |