and a skinned head. Poor Bill, the other engineer, was hurt so that he died. in a few days. His fireman was killed as he jumped. Bill had forgotten all about his orders to meet me on that siding. You see, I was pulling an 'extra', that night. "When Bill Zimmerman was dead, the boys wished to see him taken back to Texas where his family lived, and we had quite a time getting him there. You see it costs a hundred dollars to carry a dead body across the line into United States. That was the law, and we didn't want to pay that hundred dollars, unless obliged to. "The crew had gotten his fireman's. body across all right, and by a funny scheme, too. When they had got up here to Juarez, two of them hired a hack and sat him up between them. Then they got out some whiskey, and pretended that both were tipsy, and that he was dead drunk. That worked all right, but we dared not try the same game so soon after. "Just then, Bill's conductor said: 'I don't think Zimmerman's spirit would. feel hurt if we put him in the water-tank of the engine.' We talked it up with the division superintendent, and he sent a special locomotive across the line with our dead comrade. No questions were asked, and we turned poor Bill over to his wife and children, a jolly fellow and would appreciate such a thing." From this account, the conversation drifted to the emergencies of an engineer's life. "I have got through jumping", said my new friend. "I jumped once, and that was the only time I was ever badly hurt. It laid me up for six months. If you see that a collision is coming, the safest place you can get is on the running-board, that little walk that goes around the boiler. If you stand there, the shock will throw you away from the train. If you jump, you will land near the track and the cars are liable to pile on top of you. "In some cases, it is better to jump, however. If you have time enough to swing down on the step the way Jimmy did, you may be able to keep on your feet and run away from the track before the smash-up occurs. It takes as much nerve to jump as to stay on your seat. A man has to make up his mind and act all in a moment. Look out of the car window when the train is trotting along at a forty or fifty mile rate, and imagine how you would feel if you were about to leap to the ground. It takes considerable nerve to jump, and it is often safer to remain on the engine." Permission Sweetly Granted. "The same scheme was once followed THE ever-to-be admired Walt Whit in Arkansas. A railroad there had offered a reward of seven hundred and fifty dollars and a suit of clothes to any man who could steal a ride from a certain station to Hot Springs. A great many had tried to win the prize, but failed. At last, a fellow got into the water-tank of the engine, and stood with his head just below the lid of the manhole. He got the reward, but the entire crew of the train was discharged. We thought that if a live man could stand it, a dead one could, especially as Bill was man had such a pure, sweet, luminous egotism, as to disarm censure. One night, at a reception, he was sitting in an arm-chair, cheerfully appreciating himself, when he noticed that a young man was gazing at him with an expression of countenance not so very many mileposts from adoration. Finally he smiled beamingly on his worshipper, and said, sweetly and benignantly: "You may speak to me, it you want to, my young friend?" Of course he spoke. Old-Fashioned Money. IN these times, when politics and money are mingled so closely together, and both are occupying the attention of the whole country, a glance at the old-fashioned currencies will not be uninteresting. Greenbacks, silver certificates, national bank notes, gold, silver, copper, and nickel, are more or less familiar acquaintances of the present generation; although there are a great many quite thrifty and intelligent people, to whom the sight of a hundred dollars in yellow would be something of an event. During the war of '61, not only gold but silver was a practically unknown currency; and people were "put to it" for change in the small business transactions of daily life. American ingenuity, however, was equal to the test; and postage-stamps of different denominations became as current as pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters are at present. From this circumstance rose the habit of referring to money as "stamps", which with some people still exists. It also became the fashion for firms to make small medals containing their business cards, and launch them into circulation as one-cent coins; and considerable advertising was thus done at the expense of the general public, until the Government forbade it. Postal notes were soon issued representing different fractions of a dollar; and it must be admitted that these proved just as safe as specie, and much. more easy to carry. There was a general burst of enthusiasm when metal crept back into circulation; but it soon became an old and rather heavy story, and more than one suffering disk-car rier would have welcomed the paper dimes, quarters, and half-dollars once more. Before the war, while change was about the same as now, a hundred dollars in small bills might represent banks in every state then in the Union-all with varying value and degree of security. Many of them were subject to discount; every now and then the company issuing some one of them would fail and make its issues worthless; bank notes were counterfeited much more frequently than at present, and any one but. an expert felt upon receiving a "bill", that it might be money, or merely a piece of strongly-woven paper, with various words and pictures printed upon it. Indeed, in 1857 nearly all the banks. in the country suspended payment, for a time, and business came nearly to a standstill not for lack of money, but for fear that the money was not good. If any of our readers at that time possessed bills resembling those here depicted, they might be sure that they had at least ten dollars as good as gold. Wooster Sherman, who had issued these bills from his own private bank in Watertown, N. Y., was one of the financial predecessors of Henry Keep, as Keep was of the present famous and wealthy Roswell P. Flower. He was a descendant of the same common ancestor as were the Shermans of Ohio; and seems to have had a great deal of their firmness and sagacity in dealing with a situation. When the trouble above mentioned occurred in 1857, Sherman promptly advertised that every one of his bills would be redeemed in gold upon presentation. This announcement was like a breath of fresh and bracing air upon hot and enervating weather; and a few people met it by immediately taking him at his word. To their mingled gratification and disappointment, they found that the yellow coin was ready for them; people generally decided that if the bills were as good as gold they might in some nobody wished other pay for anything he had to sell, than the bills of which EVERY WHERE this month contains specimens. Mr. Sherman gathered the fruit of the great orchard of confidence which he planted during this ordeal. He "woke up and found himself famous" for reliability; he was for a long while the only man in his section who could procure OLD-FASHIONED MONEY. accommodate large financial ventures; and the result was that his business became more extensive and lucrative than ever before. A few years ago the late brilliant and erratic Kate Field wrote an article with which she wished to point some moral, and in it mentioned having disbursed a three-dollar bill. "But there are no three-dollar American bills", wrote a critic. But this was a Canadian one", 211 retorted Kate, driven fairly across the international boundary line in her vexation. If it had been a few years earlier, Mr. Sherman could have come to her aid with the second one of these very interesting and well-engraved notes. No one knows what the future different forms of money will be: different requirements must be met, and the public taste must be pleased. Also ambitious artists will arise, who will want to exploit their talent. But all kinds of money look good to most people. "Nearer, My God, to Thee." BY BERTHA JOHNSTON. WHEN the "Titanic" sank so quietly, so irrevocably, beneath the icy waters of the wintry ocean, rumor had it that her victim-passengers sustained their courage and faith by singing Mrs. Adams' familiar, uplifting hymn. Although many of the survivors reported that the air then sung was "Autumn", a study of the former hymn, the history of both poet and composer, has been found most interesting, and is not untimely. One of those fated to go down with the "Titanic" was William T. Stead, the well-known author, editor, and peace advocate. Some years ago Mr. Stead published a collection of "Hymns that Have Helped" secured by asking many known and unknown people to name such as they would wish included in a compilation of the kind. We quote from his preface, italicising a sentence which, looking backward, hints, almost like a premonition, of the manner of his passing away: "There is a curious and not a very creditable shrinking on the part of many to testify as to their experience in the deeper matters of the soul. It is an inverted egotism-selfishness masquerading in disguise of reluctance to speak of self. Wanderers across the wilderness of Life ought not to be chary of telling their fellow-travelers where they found the green oasis. . It is not regarded as egotism when the passing steamer signals across the Atlantic wave news of her escape from perils of iceberg or fog, or welcome news of good cheer. ""Hymns that Have Helped Me.' What hymns have helped you? And if they have helped you, how can you better repay the debt you owe to your helper than by setting them forth, stamped with the tribute of your gratitude, to help other mortals in like straits to yourself? All of us have moments when we are near to the mood of the hero and the saint, and it is something to know what hymns help most to take us there and keep us at that higher pitch." "Nearer, My God, to Thee", must surely hold a high place in any such classification, and we find that when The Sunday at Home invited its readers to send lists of one hundred of their favorite English hymns, out of 3,500 replies, this hymn stood number seven. In his notes, Mr. Stead quotes King Edward VII., then Prince of Wales, (1895) as saying of it, "There is none more touching nor one that goes more directly to the heart." When we come to study the life of the lovely, gifted author, we find highminded, courageous patriotism, romance. and happy domesticity, all having their share in the prologue. Benjamin Flower was a brilliant young Englishman, who, crossing the Channel a number of times, found himself greatly stirred by the spirit of the French Revolution. Settling in England, he edited The Cambridge Intelligencer, expressing boldly his sympathies with the struggle of the people across the water, and criticising, rash man, the political conduct of a certain |