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golf-sticks going out to some country club grounds. They may have their thousands and live in the best houses on the avenue, but they are moral culls. These things are blemishes which show the character. (Text.)

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Watchfulness—See ;. WATCHFULNESS AGAINST ENEMIES The conscience and will ought to guard character against its destructive enemies as the Brazilians guard their houses, according to the following account:   Rats have multiplied to such a degree in Brazil that the inhabitants rear a certain kind of snake for destroying them. The Brazilian domestic serpent is the giboia, a small species of boa about twelve feet in length and of the diameter of a man's arm. This snake, which is entirely harmless and sluggish in its movements, passes the entire day asleep at the foot of the staircase of the house, scarcely deigning to raise its head at the approach of a visitor, or when a strange noise is heard in the vestibule. At nightfall the giboia begins to hunt, crawling along here and there, and even penetrating the space above the ceiling and beneath the flooring. Springing swiftly forward, it seizes the rat by the nape and crushes its cervical vertebrae. As serpents rarely eat, even when at liberty, the giboia kills only for the pleasure of killing. It becomes so accustomed to its master's house that if carried to a distance it escapes and finds its way back home. Every house in the warmest provinces where rats abound owns its giboia, a fixture by destination, and the owner of which praises its qualities when he wishes to sell or let his house. (Text.)—Scientific American.

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WATCHING THE KETTLE

There is a bit of proverbial philosophy afloat to the effect that "a watched kettle never boils." False philosophy this, whether taken literally or figuratively. In the one case it is an idiotic superstition; in the other, a stupid mistake; in either, a humbug and a cheat. Cease to watch your business kettle, and what comes of leaving it to take care of itself? It either becomes stone-cold or blows up. You don't want your enterprise over-done, and you don't want it under-done. Your object is to strike the golden mean between lukewarmness and the explosive point, represented, we will say, by 212 of Fahrenheit. How are you to stimulate the contents of your kettle up to the right mark—to make them ebullient without turning them into a dangerous element—unless you regulate the upward tendency judiciously? It is only the neglected business kettle that never boils to a good purpose. Suppose Lord Worcester, Marquis of Somerset, had not watched his kettle, and so had not observed the phenomenon of the flapping lid, forced into motion by the pressure of the escaping steam? If the marquis had not received that hint from his watched kettle as to the latent force of steam, who can tell what deprivation of motive power mankind would have undergone? Your moral kettle must be looked after, too, or it is more likely to freeze than boil. Morality without the warmth of feeling necessary to make it active, is not of much use. In fact, all the figurative kettles, individual and social, included within the range of human hopes and duties, require to be closely watched. The world is paved, as one may say, with the wrecks of kettles which would have been of incalculable utility if they had been properly managed—reformatory kettles, for example, which only require the fire of zeal to keep them going, and the guardianship of practical common sense to regulate them, in order to become valuable utensils in the kitchen of progress. To watch your kettle till it boils, and all the time that it is boiling, is the only sure way to provide against accidents.—New York Ledger.

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Water and Natives—See.

WATER OF LIFE

The briny waters of Great Salt Lake have been tried by the Southern Pacific Railway for a novel purpose and with remarkable success. Stored in tanks the fluid has been hauled over the line by water-trains and sprinkled upon the right of way. Under this treatment the weeds, the bane of the section-hands, have withered and died. After an experiment of sixteen months the scheme has now been permanently adopted. This briny water is a water which brings death to those things it touches.

There is a water we are told which brings life, higher than any material life, the water of life. It was