Wl VOLUME III. EDITORIAL OFFICE, ROCK ISLAND, ILL. MAY, 1902. PUBLICATION OFFICE, } LINCOLN, NEB. § NUMBER 5. Animals Are Fond of Mirrors IT saw a performing monkey the other day. He went through many tricks very successfully. Toward the end of the performance he was ordered to put on his cocked hat before a hand mir- ror—which he did. He was next told to set it straight and he tried on his general’s headgear repeatedly, at dif- ferent angles, causing much laughter. When all was over and the organ man and his helpers and the two monkeys were preparing to depart I saw that “the general” had possessed himself of the little mirror and was studying his own countenance with great de- light! He had placed the glass on top of the barrel organ and he bent over it again and again, grimacjng ener- getically. He afterward picked up his mirror and contemplated himself earn- estly and contentedly at different angles. His face had been profoundly sad—like the faces of most monkeys I have seen—but now the wrinkles smoothed themselves out and he nearly smiled! Why is it that dogs hardly ever re- gard a picture as anything but a flat surface with patches, of color dotted over it? Im all my large canine ac- quaintance I know but one dog who sees that portraits are likenesses of people! As for his own reflection in a glass, a dog generally mistakes it for an enemy and “goes” for it! Later, when knocks on the nose and absence of scent have done their part in con- vincing him of his mistake, a dog will look coldly, not to say despitefully, at the mirror. Sometimes it is as if dogs resented their reflections as carica- tures of themselves. Unlike the dogs, Cocoro was a Greek cock, to whom a devoted owner dedi- cated fourteen years of affection. One of his pastimes was to contemplate his reflection for hours at a time and quite demurely. He placed himself op- posite a looking glass above a chest of drawers for this express purpose. He died this summer and his owner was utterly disconsolate. Cocoro knew his name, came when called and was the joy of his Greek mistress. Perhaps London society or the diplo- matic world not forgotten the canary that belonged to the daughters of a minister to the court of St. James. The bird woke the young ladies daily by pecking their lips! This was one way of “kissing good-morning.”—Lon- has don News. make two meals a day on chestnuts. They are steamed and eaten with salt or milk, and physicians say they are wholesome, hearty, nutritious and fat- tening. In some parts of France wal- nuts also are losing ground as an ar- ticle of food because of their compar- ative scarcity. Walnuts are also used to make oil, and the convicts in some prisons are employed cracking the nuts and picking out the kernals, from which the oil is pressed. Almonds grow well in the middle and southern parts of France, and while the shell is soft, green and ten- der, the nut is sold largely as a table article. The meat is white and creamy. Hazelnuts are always high priced and A FAMILY GROUP—E. JANSEN, PHOTOGRAPHER, BELOIT, WIS. Nuts as Food We have little idea in this country to what a considerable extent the nut is used for food in a few foreign lands. Our consuls have been sending infor- mation on this subject from far and wide, and the facts here given are con- densed from a number of these re- ports. We are trying to teach foreign nations that Indian corn is an excel- lent article of food, but most of the European peasantry still velieve that maize is fit only to fatten hogs and beef cattle, says the New York Herald. Many of these same persons sit down to a dish of steamed chestnuts with much relish, and are content if they have nothing else, which shows that tastes differ. Throughout the center of France, from the Bay of Biscay to Switzerland, there are large plantations and almost forests of chestnut trees. The nuts are very large, resemble the American horse chestnut, and are extensively eaten by the peasantry and animals. In the fall and winter the poor often are a luxury. The peanut is rarely eaten in France, though the taste for it is growing. It is imported in enormous quantity for its oil. A few years ago there was a good deal of talk about the merits of bread made of peanut flour, and it was thoroughly tested in the German army, where, for a little while, it was a part of the ration issued to a number of regi- ments. It was declared to be a too highly concentrated and an irritating sort of food, and the soldiers didn’t like it. The use of peanut flour was accordingly discontinued. In Italy almonds are eaten while green or soft as dessert by the well to do, but the poor cannot afford them. Chestnuts are the only nuts that enter into the regular diet of the people. Almonds, filberts and walnuts more of a luxury and are served as dessert or with wine at social gather- ings. The chestnut almost takes the place in Korea that the potato occupies in the western world. It is used raw, are boiled, roasted, cooked with meat and in other ways. In Syria nuts are not a part of the regular diet, but enter into the composition of some popular native dishes. “Nuts in this country,” writes our consul at Alexandretta, “may be classed as a luxury, for use as a dessert and for consumption by the natives at night just before going to bed.” we Me Strange Playmates We have, always been led to suppose that a terrier and a rat were natural enemies, and that under no cireum- stances could they be induced to will- ingly suspend hostilities. Yet here we have a correspondent of the London Field upsetting our cherished belief in this wise: “T send you an account of an extra- ordinary circumstance that occurred to a fox-terrier pup of mine. A full- grown rat ran out from a hole in the kitchen where the pup was, and began to play with the dog, both of them rolling over and over one another for a space of nearly twenty minutes, at the end of which time the rat, which had never attempted to bite the dog, ran back to its hole with a piece of bread, of which it had deprived the pup. My dog then stood barking at the hole into which the rat had gone, evi- dently expecting it to reappear. The age of the fox-terrier was only three months.” we Me “T was never ashamed to ask what I did not know,” said Benjamin Frank- lin. Were this rule followed by the people in any particular degree there would be a greater demand for litera- ture of our fraterual institutions.