COQUELIN, BENOÎT CONSTANT (1841-1909), French actor, known as Coquelin aîné, was born at Boulogne on the 23rd of January 1841. He was originally intended to follow his father’s trade of baker (he was once called un boulanger manqué by a hostile critic), but his love of acting led him to the Conservatoire, where he entered Regnier’s class in 1859. He won the first prize for comedy within a year,... more...

WILD APPLES. THE HISTORY OF THE APPLE-TREE. It is remarkable how closely the history of the Apple-tree is connected with that of man. The geologist tells us that the order of the Rosaceae, which includes the Apple, also the true Grasses, and the Labiatae, or Mints, were introduced only a short time previous to the appearance of man on the globe. It appears that apples made a part of the food of that... more...

APRIL 29, 1914. Captain Fort, a French army airman from Chalons, flew over the German frontier, last week, by mistake, and alighted in Lorraine, but flew back again before the German police arrived. We think he should have waited. It is just little discourtesies such as this that accentuate ill-feeling between nations. Mr. H. W. Thornton, the new American manager of the Great Eastern Railway, says that... more...

THREADING THE NEEDLE. HERE is Lucy all this while?" asked Mrs. Ludlow of Anna, the maid."I left her five minutes ago, trying to thread a needle," replied Anna. "She is a long while about it," said Mrs. Ludlow. "Send her to me." When Lucy entered the room, her mother asked her what she had been about; and Lucy replied, "I have been teaching myself to thread a needle."... more...

REPORT. On the 13th of February, A.D. 1851, one John Caphart, of Norfolk, Va., came to Boston, in pursuit of one Shadrach, alleged to be a fugitive slave and the property of John Debree, a purser in the navy, and attended by Seth J. Thomas, Esq., as counsel, made his complaint, as agent and attorney of the said owner, before George T. Curtis, Esq., U. S. Commissioner. On the evening of the 14th, the... more...

MAN AND WIVES. A TRAVESTY. By MOSE SKINNER. CHAPTER FOURTH. THE HALF-WAY HOUSE he first person to discover that ANN BRUMMET had left the house, was Mrs. LADLE, Now, ever since the Hon. MICHAEL had asked ANN to go to the circus, Mrs. LADLE had hated her. But when he took ANN to the Agricultural Fair, and bought her a tin-type album and a box of initial note-paper, Mrs. LADLE was simply raving. Whether... more...

THE GREAT FAILURE. The crucial fact, in this epoch of commercial catastrophes, is not the stoppage of Smith, Jones, and Robinson,—nor the suspension of specie payments by a greater or less number of banks,—but the paralysis of the trade of the civilized globe. We have had presented to us, within the last quarter, the remarkable, though by no means novel, spectacle of a sudden overthrow of... more...

THEIR WORD OF HONOR The president of the Great B. railway system laid down the letter he had just reread three times, and turned about in his chair with an expression of extreme annoyance. "I wish it were possible," he said, slowly, "to find one boy or man in a thousand who would receive instructions and carry them out to the letter without a single variation from the course laid down.... more...

THE HOME OF LAFAYETTE. After General Lafayette's visit to the United States, in 1824, every American who went to France went with a firm conviction that he had a right to take as much as he chose of the old gentleman's time and hospitality, at his own estimate of their value. Fortunately, the number of travellers was not great in those days, although a week seldom passed without bringing two... more...

FOLK LORE IN THE REIGN OF KING JAMES I. In turning over the pages of an old book of controversial divinity, I stumbled upon the following illustrations of folk lore; which, as well from their antiquity as from their intrinsic curiosity, seem worthy of a place in your columns. They make us acquainted with some of the usages of our ancestors, who lived in the remoter districts of England early in the... more...