pledge.

Joseph Henry was the first to construct electro-magnets in a useful form.
In 1832, at the Albany Academy, he succeeded in ringing a bell over a mile
of wire.

Wire was first beaten out by a hammer, but the artisans of Nuremberg, in
1350, began to draw it, which was the great step forward in that art.

The first camera-obscura was invented by Giambattista della Porta, an
Italian philosopher, during the latter half of the sixteenth century.

The first cologne was called Hungary water, from the country of its
invention. It was made from spirits of wine distilled upon rosemary.

Colored glass came from Egypt. The Egyptians carried the art to great
perfection apparently before history begins to tell of it.

Buckwheat began to be cultivated in England in 1597. It had been brought
into Europe from Asia one hundred years before.

Wall paper, with fancy colored figures, began to be used in 1620. The art
was developed thereafter largely by the French.

A RESCUED POEM.

The Scrap Book Resurrects from Distressing Obscurity a Gem
That Might Otherwise Have Been Lost to Posterity.

History records that in 1895 Langdon Smith, at that time connected with
the Sunday edition of the New York _Herald_, wrote the first few stanzas
of the following poem. They were printed in the _Herald_. Four years
later, having joined the staff of the New York _Journal_ in the interim,
Mr. Smith came across the verses among his papers, and, reading them over,
was struck with a sense of their incompleteness. He added a stanza or two,
and laid the poem aside. Later he wrote more stanzas, and finally
completed it and sent it in to Arthur Brisbane, editor of the _Evening
Journal_. Mr. Brisbane, being unable to use it, turned it over to Charles
E. Russell, of the _Morning Journal_. It appeared in the _Morning
Journal_--in the middle of a page of want "ads"! How it came to be buried
thus some compositor may know. Perhaps a "make-up" man was inspired with a
glimmer of editorial intelligence to "lighten up" the page.

But even a deep border of "ads" could not smother the poem. Mr. Smith
received letters of congratulation from all parts of the world, along with
requests for copies. The poem has been in constant demand; and it has been
almost unobtainable. Here for the first time it is given to the public in
a suitable position, with proper recognition--proof once more that the
true spark cannot long remain hid under a bu