is the first mark that is struck in every collision. There he stands at his post, by day and by night, in summer's heat and winter's cold, unheeded and unthanked by the passengers, whose lives he bas in his custody. Seldom named, and never spoken to by them, until they see his gory, mangled corpse lying in some station house or coffin, a martyr to the traveling public. Clear the track! All aboard! Time and tide wait for no man. Not even for a brave engineer, fallen at his post. Others must bear the blow. The little group at home will weep and wail, when the kind husband and father is borne to their door. This accident brings us to Cincinnati, a half a day after time. Whither shall we wander this dark cold night, in this great city? A venerable D. D., who was a missionary in this city, twenty-two years ago, leads the weary procession. Hither and thither, we roamed hill and down, over a road that seemed three or four miles long, in reality about two miles. All roads seem longer the first time we travel them-especially when the first time is at night. Large cities are a great inconvenience, in that you must usually travel miles if you wish to visit a neighbor. In the country village you have him in the next square. up "Every road tends to the world's end," says a certain writer; and every clerical journey finds its goal in some church. This journey is to end in a meeting of the General Synod in Cincinnati. The vice President of the Synod, from Louisville, Kentucky, was just at the application of the opening sermon, when we reached the church. There the Synod held its sessions for more than a week. In 1788 the first white men settled on the site of Cincinnati. In 1800 it was a village of 400 inhabitants. In 1820, it had less than 10,000. It now has from 250,000 to 300,000. Some parts of the city have irregular streets, somewhat after the style of Boston, short, crooked, and crossing each other at all angles. It has a . large German population, composed of an industrious, thrifty class of people. To such an extent do they retain the habits, customs, and religious forms of the fatherland, that a large part of Cincinnati, seems very much like a city of Germany. Immense breweries, covering well nigh whole squares, German theatres, little stores tightly crammed with a world of merchandize, shops in a front room of the dwelling-these and many other things give the city a German cast. A large number of daily and weekly German papers are published. Large German churches invite the people to worship God in the German tongue. The favorable and the unfavorable side of German social life can here be seen. Cincinnati with its suburbs, can boast of the finest private residences found in this country. It seems to be a well governed city. Its hospitals, Asylums, House of Refuge, and other institutions of Charity, are built and conducted on the most approved and liberal plans. As in all large cities, the prevailing horse disease has made an embarrassing impression on Cincinnati. Never have the people had so high an appreciation of the horse as now. As a make shift, for the time being, the ox has taken his place. The streets are full of ox and cow teams. From the little milk wagon with one, to the pork teams with six oxen, his slow plodding services are seen. Many are harnessed the same as horses, with the collar inverted to suit the ox's neck. I saw a man cheerily riding down one of the principal streets, ox back. On the broad space between the hips he seemed to sit comfortably. All these cattle have been brought into use since the prevalence of the horse disease. They have been brought to the city from the neighboring States. Many are just being broken to work for the emergency. And some of the drivers are as raw as the oxen-neither one understanding the other. Now they become entangled with some street car, then with a wagon. On every hand, you see an ox team locked on the curb stones, or among the wheels of some vehicle. The cruel driver's only mode of speech seems to be his long lash or club. The sad, sullen, blinking eyes of the poor animal but faintly tell his grief. An extensive pork dealer hitched a locomotive to his wagons. The outer surface of the broad tires is covered with teeth to prevent them from slipping. The engineer has his hand on a small wheel with which he steers his train wherever he wishes. The success of his experiment shows that the locomotive may yet take the place of horses on ordinary roads. The extensive slaughter houses and pork trade of this city have given it the name of Porcopolis (Pork city). To the herds of swine thronging some of the streets, there seems to be no end. The poor beasts all seem to have a sort of nervous restless gait, evidently showing a knowledge of their coming fate. "Allow me to show you some of their slaughter houses," said a friend. แ Certainly, they are one of the sights of your city." From an elevated platform, we see the process, from the grunting bristly hog to the hams, and almost to the sausages. All the while they are driven through a narrow gangway into an elevated pen. Where a man with a heavy hammer gives each a stunning blow, a few men drag them out into another pen, where another sticks them. Four men tumble them into a trough twenty to thirty feet in length, full of hot water. Half a dozen men on each side of the trough, rub and roll them to the other end. They float on a lifter, like the inverted wires of a hay rake, which raises them on a platform, as long as the trough. Here a dozen men stand on each side, with scrapers and sharp knives. Over the platform hang tubes from which hot water falls on the animal. In a few moments, the hog reaches the farthest men, thoroughly cleansed, not a bristle remaining. In an instant it hangs on the circumference of a wheel, whose edge is made to turn a few feet above the end of the platform. On the wheel are places for twelve hogs, which hang on it as tallow candles used to hang on the oldfashioned candle-dippers. The wheel is made to turn slowly. Twelve men give each one a finishing touch. One slits it open. Another scroops out the entrails. Another turns water on it. The twelfth man bears it away, and hangs it up for cooling. All this is done in half the time it takes me to tell it. Meanwhile, others work at the entrails, render the lard, &c. In the evening the vast building is hung full of hogs. In another apartment, the hogs are cut up. A strong man, with an axe, whose edge is about two feet long, keeps a half å dozen men busy in bringing and taking away the meat. With one stroke he cuts off the head, and with a single stroke he cleaves a hog clear through the whole thickness of the body. In from one to two minutes, it lies before him completely dissected-hams, shoulders, sides, &c. On another block a few men trim the parts. "Come this afternoon, and I will show you how we make our sausages," said one of the proprietors, which I was unable to do. "How many hogs do you kill on an average?" I inquired. "When we are in complete running order, from eight thousand to ten thousand a day." People in the East seldom appreciate the value of anthracite or hard coal. It is well known that in the West the beds yield only bituminous coal. This fills the air of large cities with a sooty. smoke, that hangs dreary clouds overhead. Cincinnati has in this respect become as smoky as Pittsburg. Its sooty particles are as ubiquitous as the frogs in the plagues of Pharaoh. And yet, soft coal has its advantages. It gives these people the cheerful fire on the open hearth. It crackles and burns like dry wood. The best stoves and heaters can never take the place of the genial glowing hearth-fire of our forefathers. "Die alte Dichter lowe schmärt Ihr Schreiwes heemelt unser eem- For seller Platz trag ich im Herz Dort gehne mei' Gedanke hin. Es bleibt m'r immer lieb un werth Der alte, warme Feierheerd." Or, perhaps, our readers prefer the English rendering of these verses from "Harbaugh's Feierheerd," by himself. "The poets praise in touching rhyme I ever feel for that dear spot, A home sick love that ceases not; My heart returns to that hearth-home ;- Of that old hearth without a tear. When I that hearth in fancy see, Long shall I remember a certain hearth-fire of this city. cold night, after ten o'clock, a little boy led me to a beautiful mansion, in the West End. "This is the place," he said, in broken English. Weary, way-worn, a sense of dreary desolation made me feel the impropriety of a stranger disturbing a home like this, at this time of night. Yet, perhaps the family expect me. Reluctantly I rang the bell. Promptly it was answered by the lady of the house, who received me with all the open, warm cordiality of an old friend. This heartsome hospitality at once made me feel at home. I thought of the command to entertain strangers, in Hebrews xiii. 2, and devoutly wished, that in this case the "stranger" might prove the bearer of angelic blessings to this kind home. A "sweet home" it was, in sooth, with three merry little girls. The dear cherubs covered the stranger with fond caresses, and could not go to sleep without his. good-night kiss, and going to school and returning from it the ceremony had to be repeated. No wonder that the rites of hospitality were invested with a sacred meaning by the ancients. To admit a guest into the inner sanctuary of your house, makes him a bosom friend, and forms ties not easily sundered. Thus was I served by this estimable gentleman and his wife. I entered their home as a stranger, and left it with feelings akin to that of a natural brother. Our homeward journey was made in a Pullman palace car. A blessing on Pullman. Again we encounter a wreck along the track. Two trains collided the day previous, one running through several cars of the other. Telescoping them, as it is called in railroad parlance. Killing five persons outright, and wounding quite a number. But for the merciful hand of God, it might have hit our train. Strange company one meets on these Pullman cars, as indeed on all cars. Across the way sits a prominent official from Washington, a prominent, active Christian, too. Evidently a man of much work, for he runs over piles of manuscripts, and writes for successive hours. His flaxen-haired little boy meanwhile blessing him with a world of questions, about things he sees along the road, which the father patiently answers without stopping his pencil. One gentleman occasionally opens a pocket Testament, and reads, or asks a question about a verse. In an adjoining section one of the conductors places a card table, where he and three others gamble for hours. An ex-member of Congress from Arkansas, maintains a dignified silence. He is on his way to New York to attend the marriage feast of his daughter. He comes on a long journey to a feast in the East; a father and two children killed by the above collision are taken to the funeral in their far west Wisconsin home. How gay and joyful the one home! How sombre and heartrending the other! THE BOYS. BY S. M. W. There come the boys! Oh dear, the noise! But never mind, if eyes keep bright, And limbs grow straight and limber; Now hear the tops and marbles roll! |