THE NEWS. At Home. Thr prairies are on lite from Fort Totten to the Missouri, a distance of one bundled and thirty-five miles. The spoke and hub factory of Keuon on. fift\ convict aat Sing Sing prison took th propel lor Hugh Rattan, belong" to contractor A. Walker, and trie 1 to escape, but Captain Ward let go lus an bor and stopped (iio boat. The guards fired ah ut Unity shots, but it'd no harm. Officers from the pi Don went out in small boats m i brought tb< m all ha i-, and they are now locked up. Asa portion of the bridge being constructed over the Verdigris river, near Port Gibson, In dian Territory, on the Missouri, Kansas and i’exas Railroad, was l< dug raise I on Sunday, tlie false work settled, an I (be brid te fell, car rying withe a large number of men. two of whom were drowned, one killed, and sixteen seriously injured eight o* (on of whom it is feared, fatally. The brideo was bein.; built R Boomer A Cos., of Chicago. A Sunderland steamer with seven hands and an Italian brig w i‘l< nine persons on board foundered off the mouth of the Hmubei in the last gale Dispatches from Great Grimsby give harrowit g details of the shipwrecks in full sight of the people on shore. 'be master of the American ship Bertha Thaw wa swept from the dock during the gale and drowned, off Randy Me. the Berth i I’iiavet put back to Renarth Hoads. The terifiie gale experience lat Yarmouth occasioned great dam age to property along the s c :i coast and on the rivci Yarn to shipping in the roads. At Wheeling, Virginia, on Sunday, one ol the cables of the old suspension bridge lead ing from the foot of Sixth street to the Cres cent iron-mill, across Wheeling Creek, broke with nine persons on it. live of whom fell to the creek bottom, a distance of ah nit thirtv teet. two men. Thomas Callahan and James Kline, were l-illcd outright, and Charles Covie has since died. Libert Elliott. Joseph Hague and George Akers were badly hurt. One”or more ol the.-e will probably die. The other three fortunately caught to'the other able and sot off. Foiei^n. JrAiiiZ liais majority i t ciyiitecu in tlic Mexican Confess. rendering his election cei tiiu. The Japanese merchants threaten to bum half the stock of silk-worms eg;_s and force the market. Spain is to hat e i in, n ith the over throw of the present Government, before tlie mouth is ended. The shipwrights of the Clyde, who have jorned the Nine-hour League. lia\e been locked out by their employees. I’ouEXGX letters report the conipleti-ui of the alliance between Germany, Austria and Italy, with an army of 2.250.000 men for the instil mice of European peace. I'm: municipality of Paris has voted (wo million francs for the r pair of the monuments and public buildings damaged dutiiu flic siege find reign of the Commune. The submarine cable between Shanghai and Nagasaki is in successful operation. The nn toria 1 for a line between Nagasaki and Yoko hama has been ordered, and the line will be in working order within a year. A thief entered the Ranking House of E. rickson. Jennings A Mumford. in Rochester. N. Y.. on Wednesday, and snatched a package containing s-h.t!>o in Canada money from J. T. Briggs as he was about to depo-it it. The thief escaped. In New York, on Wednesday, I>aac Davis was arraigned for a misdemeanor and pleaded not guilty. Tie was admitted to bail in *30,- 000. Davis is said to have offered medical as sistance to females through the medium of business cards thrust under the doors of on erous houses in the city. Two Huttons. We eat under the porch on a bright autumn ked very poor and neglected. So 1 laughingly said to my foe on the board— She was best of all lair and all true ones— Won’t you lend me your buttons? They'll both be restored Just as soon as I purchase me new ones. From her own wiist she b)ok them and pu them on mine. And I wore them two proud da>s elated But our paths then diverged, and her loan to resign I was forced, by my destiny fated. In the light of the moon, as we walked arm in arm, T gave buck the two buttons forever But although they are gone, th-y have still kit a charm 1 On m; wrist (hat shall part from it never. T 'i the soft baud of kindness, the boon of good deeds, flow the heart loves llu ir mem'ry to cherish I How it turns to them still, as the time still recedae, And allows not their mtlu’uce to perish. So in checkers I won, and to w in in the game Of kind deeds too I tried, but won never So in bntt’niug my wristband, she buttoned Der name Pn my heart and my mem'ry for ever. y. V. Commercial Advertiser. THE HOME OF THE REPTILES. A \cw Departure of SnaKes—sir tliou saiid Five llmulit-il Munghti rcil in is Port ui girt. The hallowing marvelous snake story is from an lowa paper, which guaran tees the truth of every word, and gives the names of a number of distinguish ed public men of the State as addition al vouchers. It appears that a certain Mr. Cummins owns a gypsum quarry near Fort Dodge, and employs a force of some twenty-live men in the stone. He Ims worked it only a year or two, but ever since he opened every spring and fall his men have suffered serious inconvenience and annoyance from the myriads of snakes that have a deu in the crevices, and swarm in during the fal'and out in the spring. The quarry has a northern exposure, the kind that is always chosen by snakes as a den, for tlie season that it ts not affected by th° premature thawing and freezing of rarlv spring, as a southern slope would be. As soon as the weather gets settled in the spring and the effects of the April sun is felt, the serpents begin to slinw them, elves and the battle begins. From out of the crevices and the nooks of the rocks the reptiles swarm, crawl ing up the slope ol the bluff’, basking in the sun, or hastening away over the prairie to their summer haunts. Now comes the tug of war. The foreman of the quarry is compelled to detail two men to tight the hideous things, that the men may work, and one is kept carrying away the dead in a wheelbar row and hurrying them, to that the numberless festering bodies will not breed disease. And from all the sur rounding country the snake hunters throng to enjoy the sport of killing snakes, and among them they go slash ing and striking until the poisonous odor compels them to beat a retreat. Twenty five snakes in fifteen minutes is a common haul. The editor of the paper in question, in company with a number of other gentlemen, recently paid a visit to the ,500, while it is supposed that ten times that number escaped. On the 1 Uh of October the snakes commence to return and enhr their dens for win ter, when the slaughter is repeated.— The ledge of the quarry is twenty-two hit in height, and nearly perpendicu lar, and down that distance they crawl, e and hing on a crag, end. with a twist of the tail, they disappear in the dark crevices for their long sleep. Last fall the 14th day of October came unnoticed by the men they were bu-y with then toil in the rock below. The foreman was half stooping, drill ing a rock preparatory fora blast, when suddenly across his neck dropped a monstrous spotted adder hanging and hissing, half his length on either side. <>n looking up they saw fifty cr more snakes pouring over the edge of the cliff, and crawling down the ledge. Thou it occurred to them that the 14th day of October had come, and for the next two weeks swamis of snakes kept pouring in. 'This q< ..rrv, with its den r detained in harbor b\ the blockade and about 20,000,000 thalers j have to go to the inhabitants of Alsace -and Lorraine for damages sustained i and provisions supplied both, to I'Tence and Genitalis in the campaign. Add to this 5,000,000 thalers required for re pairs and rollingstock of the Alsace Lor i mine railways, and we have a total of 12,000,000 thalers consume* I in real cess ing some of the evils wrought by the war. Of the remaining 271,000,000 thalers, government would, under new act of Parliament, be entitled to appro priate 210,000,000 thalers as a pension for invalids; but as the whole sum is not required at once, and as the Indi- i vidual states are anxious to have a por tion of their war expenditure reim bursed. it is assumed that only 31,000,- 000 will revert to the pension list for the present, and the remaining 240,- 000,000 be distributed. The division is made according to the number of men supplied by each state. In other words, Prussia, or rather the late North Ger man Confederacy, receives five sixths I of the while, the remaining sixth be ing portioned out between Bavaria, Wnrtemberg, Baden, and the southern half of Hesse, which before the war had I a separate contingent. The 200,000,000 thalers thus accruing to North Ger- i many will be employed in replenishing the war treasury, and cancelling a por tion of the war debt. The war treas- ury amounts, it is well known, to 30,- 000,000 thalers. As to the war debt, treasury bonds to the amount of 35,- 000,000 thalers were n deemed in the last few weeks, (is,000,0(K) thalers more fell due before the Ist of February, and 17,000,000 paper money are to be with drawn from circulation in the course of the present year. An old Chinaman Tilled a voting one a few days ago in Sun Francisco, be cause lie was correcting him for treat ing his joss irreverently. Ah Chew was smoking opium in tiie houseof Ah Wall, ami persisted in dropping the ashes on the toss's head, which Ah Wall didn't like. So he gave him a sound reproff by striking him on the head with a heavy cudgel. All Chew returned the action by drawing a knife and dropping Ah Wall on the spot. THE NEW IRISH LEADER. Isaac liiiil. Hie Coming Ilanirl (l’( im nt-11. Justin McCarthy writes to the New York Mail, of the man who is now dis tinguishing himself as the great advo cate, in Britain, of Fenian prisoners, and the leader of the Irish liberals Long years ago, when most of ns were boys, Butt distinguished himself as an opponent of O’Couuell’s. He was a professor of political economy and a lawyer. Then he suddenly flashed into a genuine renown as the defender of Thomas Francis Meagher' in the Irish State trials of three-and twenty years ago. and since then, 1 heard him often and 1 think, allowing for all the detects arising from an impulsive and irregular nature, and an exuberant physique, he was one of the most eloquent and persuasives peak ers I have ever heard. He had a mag nificent voice, none the worse for its rich depth of sonorious Irish accent, and has flashing eyes that reminded you of the description of Robert Burns. He was any thing but a handsome man; his face looked like that of a negro blanched; but his eyes, his voice, and his power ful frame lent him dignity and some thing like grandeur. I think in Ids best days lie must have somewhat re sembled Mirabeau. He was at this time, although he defended the Irish prisoners, a Tory and a Protectionist. He was taken up by the English Pro-j tectionists and became the pet oratoi of their great meetings. Through thisj interest he entered the Hofise of Com mons ns the representative of an Eng lish Tory borough. Gradually he re nounced Toryism and became a Liber al. But meanwhile he was falling fast into ruin. He lost his practice at tin. bar, because no one could trust him to keep his engagements. He became renowned in London as a gambler, a spendthrift, a scapegrace of every kind. I shrink from saying to what depth of degredation sank tins richly gifted, generous man. At last ho disappeared from Parliament and from society. He was past the prime of life, and every one regarded him as gone forever But after some years he turned up again, resumed the practice of his profession in Dublin, and was said to have put aside v, holly the errors —not of his youth, but of his well matured years. Ho became the must conspicuous advocate of (he F'liian prisoners, and. unlike most vary elo quent pleaders, Butt is a profound and a wily lawyer, as well as a persuasive, powerful orator. He soon recovered his forfeited popularity, and has, I be lieve, well-nigh regained his place in society. If he goes into Parliament again, and becomes the leader of the Irish nationalist party there, h** will lend to that party a foieeand a subtlety which it now badly wants. Setting aside Gladestone and John Bright, of course, 1 know of no man among the English liberals t<> be com pared for eloquence and capacity with big Isaac Butt. If lie really does set out in anew career, every one will wish him well. The man, never, I think, had an enemy, even among the credit ors whom he neglected and the cabmen whose fares he sometimes would not pay. After all, he still has time to make a name, for although lie was a dis tinguished man five and thirty years ago, his not sixty years old now. lie I began life soon and lived many lives. 1 Perhaps he will find his real career now I at last. The Colliery Disaster at Wigan More Lives Sacrificed. The explosion at Messrs. Pearson ,V 1 Knowles’ Moss Pits, luce, near Wigan, bids fair to rival, in the sensational character of its incidents, il nol in th*> number of lives sacrificed, the terrible catastrophe at Luudhill. On the ‘ditth nit., iit the very outset of the op* ration; begun for the recovery of the bodies of colliers now entombed in the Wigan nine feet seam, several more were added to the number of the slain, and il is marvellous that this list does not in clude Hu* names of the government in spector for the district, and many of the most eminent mining engineers in South Lancashire. In the morning the l engineers, who have hitherto directed I the operations at the colliery, not to i consult as to the desirability <>f reopen ing the shafts. It was their unan- I imous decision to proceed with tin* opening ot the shafts, as the state of the temperature was thought to la* a sufficient indication that the tuv had been extinguished. The resolution ol the engineers was not made public, a it was certain to attract a large crowd to the pit; but the work of uncovering both shafts was proceeded with shortly after three o’clock. Mr. Jac<*b Higson was looking over the mouth ot the up cast, which bad been partially opened I for at neither shaft had ii been consid ered advisable to remove the whole oi I the covering—when he remarked to Mr. Knowles that all seemed so quiet below that a descent might be attempt ed very shortly. He had scarcely com pleted his sentence, and was still lock ing over the shaft, when he heard make an attempt to drown out the lire without delay. The laying of the pipes was commenced. Viuoinia is re-establishing her whip ping-posts. AN ISLAND ON FIRE. Startling Volcanic Eruption on one ol ilic Mimhvifh IhlumU. From Scribner’s Magazine for Octol**r. The sources of volcanic eruptions in Hawaii sire i wo. First, the crater of Ki-huise-:;, situated upon the eastern slope of this mountain, and about mid way between the summit and the sea. It is a vast pit, nine miles in circum ference, sunk in the Hank of the moun tain, and varying in depth, indifferent j years, from a thousand to fifteen hun dred feel, according as the sea of mol ten lava beneath its floor is athigh tide or at ebb. For years this floor will be j slowly raised by the accumulating lavas below; and when the lateral pressure becomes at last too great to lie resist ed, the molten torrent, rending its way with irte istibleforce through roek and j earth, and shaking the whole island with j the throes ol its progress, finally breaks j I t the surface, ten or twenty miles from i the crater. The river of fire leaps from j the ground, a mighty fountain that sometimes plays a thousand feet high, i with a jet that is several hundred feet in diameter, and pours down the Hank j of the mountain toward the sea. This it often reaches, enlarging the area of I the island by pushing out new capes I and promontories ot lava into the wa- ter. The lava thus ejected may re main, in many places, warm and srnok-1 mg for months after the eruption has I •eased yet I have seen spots where i the natives, pulverizing the cooled lava, and mixing it with a few dead leaves before planting it, had obtained good crops of sweet potatoes from what was a year before a torrent of liquid tire. Nature thus renews the soil, furnishing a bran new article at each eruption, white hot from her chemical laboruto rics in the ••(‘litre of the earth. With each eruption “the bottom is knocked out,” so to speak, of the great crater of Kilau-e-a. The flood of mol i.-ij lava upon winch it rests rapidly drained away, and the vast Hour of in durated lava, an area of six square miles at the bottom of the pit, goes crashing still farther downward, three, four, live hundred feet towards the central fires; as when the water—to compare great things with small—is let •jH from a frozen mill pond, and the ice settles down upon the bottom. The mountain wall is probably not en i tiiely solid and compact, as the lavas are extremely fluid, and in running off honeycomb its structure, leaving nu merous caverns behind them, through j them, through which subsequent erup tions force their way. Yet the pressure of lava required to rend the mountain wail is estimated at not less than five hundred pounds to the square inch, or a million pounds for a stream two feet deep and seven foot broad. When the breadth <*t the lava stream is measured by miles instead of feet, force enough 1 is exerted to shake the island to its verv foundations. T 1 e grand eruptions of Ki-lau-e a oc cur, wath some approach to regularity, at intervals of about eight years. But the volcano does not, like Vesuvius, cEtna, or Slrombolt, confine its activ ity to special occasions. The fire rages continually in the southern end ot the great crater, where a lake of melted lava tosses its red surges and and pours forth its sulphurous vapors without ceasing. This lake, the “Hale Maiiman,*’ or House of Everlasting Fire” of the old heathen mythology, may be safely approached by the trav eler at almost any time. The appearance of this lake varies greatly, however, at different times. Sometimes the lava is so far sunken below its hanks that the traveller can not roach it, and comes away quite dis- I appointed with what he has seen. j Ami iu, in tiiuen of reut activity, ' lamps which a student forgets to trim The beetle forgot to wind his horn The crickets were still in tb“ meadow and bill. Wit ami Wisdom. Notes of Admiration—Love letters. The best band to accompany a lady vocalist—a husband. When is a voting lady “very like a whale When site’s panting. Some lawyers can’t sleep. They lie on one side, and turn over and lie on the other. Motto for sewing machine As you sew, so shall you rip. Is not muslin in the open air “played out?” An Ohio young man had a girl, whom he was courting, arrested for biting bis lips. The fool! couldn't he bite back “What would make a good leading article for me to-morrow?” asked a wicked editor of a wit. A halter,” was the sententious reply. A companion-piece to the Battle of Dorking” has just been published in one of the India papers, styled, “How we lost India.” A sensible lady of mature years says that it does not look well for a young j lawyer to put his arm around a girl at a circus and comb her hair with his fingers. Here is a Saratoga epitaph Here lies the wife of Robert llicular, lie walked the way of bod perpendicular.” A young gentleman speaking of a young beauty’s fashionable yellowish hair called it pure gold. “It ought to be,” said a bystander, “it looks like 1 twenty-four carrots.” Good remedies for corns, easy I shoes; for bile, exercise: for rheumat ism, new flannel and patience; for gout, toast aud water; for the toothache, a ‘dentist: for debt, industry; for love, matrimony. A little four year-old while combing her father’s hair last Sabbath was asked if she saw any white hairs? “Yes,” was the reply, “it looks just as if it had been snowing in your upper story. A Summer boarder (a very close cal culator), recently astonished the land lord by asking him how much he was going to deduct from his board bill be cause he had had two teeth extracted. Next! Moke revenge for the Union.—Saxon tourist at Irish railway station —-“What time does the half past eleven train start, Paddy?” Porter, “At thirty minutes to twelve, sharmp, sor. An Ohio paper asserts that Mr. Per ry Culberston died in Zanesville, on Saturday last, from the effects of I over exertion at a lire in that place in 1811.” They have at last discovered a mon ster at Narragansett. Instead of a sea monster it is a she monster -a tooth less old maid, who goes about talking gossip and slander and creating trouble generally. A Montreal boatman believes that lie has caught a veritable sea serpent, nine feet long, with neither fins nor feet, amt having scales and know, sir,” asked the child, “where the seed came from Greeley's recipe for preserving peaches -Cut in strips not less than fifteen inches long; spread them out on the grass to bleach for three *ays, and finally sprinkle with cinnamon, and pack in air tight jars tilled with sawdust—JV. 1. Commercial. Newport has grown to be a very ex pensive and almost exclusive resort. In the eyes of the aristocratic “cot tagers" the hotel “people” are of little account, the former being owners of places which elsewhere might be called villas, and cost from ten to fifty thou sand a year to maintain. Among the Sunday-school children of a certain church was a poor little fel low. He could not tell the number of the house in which he lived, and he was charged wlu n he next came to school to bring it. The next time he app aretl he was asked ii he brought the number. No, sir,” said he “it was nailed so tight on the door that I couldn’t get it oil.” Sitllebs, the comraedian, being one evening behind the scenes, fomented with a violent toothache, the barber of the theatre offered to relieve him by pulling it. “No, my good friend,” re plied he, no, 1 can not spare a tooth now, but on the 10th day of Juno the house closes, and yon may then draw every tooth I have, for I am sure, after that, I shall have nothing to eat.” An elderly lady of Norwich who was handling a set of false teeth in a dent al office and admiring the fluency with which the doctor described them, ask ed him, “Can a body eat with these things?” “My dear madam, tion can be performed with a facility scarcely equaled by nature herself,” re sponded the doctor. “Yes, I know, but can a body eat with them A woman recently went into an apothecary store in Fairhaven and asked for a plaster. The pharmaceutist inquired what kind of a plaster was wanted, but the woman was unable to give any description. Hoping, to get some idea of what was required, the man of drugs then asked; “Where is the plaster to go “Oh answer ed the woman, to the head of the riv ar.” Barbers should frequently wasli their hands. A stranger whose nose had been gripped for the eighth time by the offensive fingers of his tousoral manager, Saturday evening, blew the soap from his mouth and suddenly in quired, “was the body identified? What body asked the startled sha ver. “What body?” repeated the stranger in surprise. “Why, haven t you been on a coroner’s jury i Jlnrt tord Timex.