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STEPHEN C. FOSTER.

music festivals and of much pork; the Alleghany Valley, winding north along the beautiful river, and taking passengers through by daylight" to Buffalo; the Pittsburgh, Virginia, and Charleston, young and growing southwardly up the Monongahela; the Southwest Pennsylvania, leaving the main line of the Pennsylvania at Greensburg, and leading southwardly toward the border of the State; the Cleveland and Pittsburgh, leading west through Northern Ohio to the Forest City; and the Erie and Pittsburgh, leading north to Erie at the remote northwestern corner of the commonwealtheight busy roads that bring into and take out of Union Dépôt 144 passenger trains daily. At another dépôt is the terminus of the Pittsburgh division of the Baltimore and Ohio road, joining the main line at Cumberland, Maryland, by way of the Monongahela and Youghiogheny valleys. At the base of Mount Washington, or Coal Hill, three more dépôts are found. Chief among this trio is the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie, leading west along the south bank of the Ohio River, and into the State of that name, a "missing link" recently found, and none too soon, as its construction gave Pittsburgh

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in their tripartite nature to a big irregular Y. But no such simile would hold good in considering her appearance on a railway map. Given an evil-minded boy, a small round stone, and a plateglass window, and the natural result would be a counterpart of such a map. The hole in the pane would, big or little, represent the City of Smoke, and each diverging crack would stand for a railway that is loading or unloading its traffic within her gates. At Union Dépôt-the building recently erected over the ashes left by the terrible railroad riots of three summers agothe following lines come to a focus: the main line of the perfectly appointed Pennsylvania Central; the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne, and Chicago, leading westwardly to the city by the lake; the queerly named

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Pan-Handle," or Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and St. Louis, leading across the "handle" of West Virginia, and so toward the set ad the city of

GRAVE OF STEPHEN C. FOSTER.

S.C.F.

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comes a narrow-gauge with bright hopes, the Pittsburgh Southern,

leading southwardly. The Castle Shannon, narrowgauge, brief but busy, completes the list in this quarter. In Allegheny is the terminus of the West Penn road, tributary to the great Pennsylvania Central, and leading up the Alleghany Valley. The Pittsburgh and Western completes the list; it is narrow-gauge and flourishing, with very bright prospects. In all, fourteen busy railroads-fourteen arms that reach far and wide, fattening Pittsburgh, and growing the while in length, value, and importance.

Of Pittsburghers it may be said that their industry is only equalled by their demand for daily news, warm from the wires and press. To gratify this worthy craving they support more newspapers, daily and weekly, than are printed in any city of its population in the coun

try. Ten daily papers, six morning and four evening, appear upon her streets every twenty-four hours, and their combined circulation is something wonderful in its

way.

Far

THE ARSENAL.

died in New York January 13, 1864, at the early age of thirty-seven years. The popularity attained by his compositions may best be judged by noting the following figures. Of "Old Folks at Home" there have been sold 300,000 copies; "My Old Kentucky Home," 200,000 copies; "Willie, we have missed you," 150,000; "Massa's in the cold, cold ground," and "Ellen Bayne," 100,000 each; "Old Dog Tray"

This epitome of the Smoky City's attributes would be in a measure incomplete without a reference to one quiet spot in Allegheny Cemetery, and without a passing tribute to the memory of the Pittsburgher whose body reposes in this green and shad--in six months-75,000 copies. Of "Old ed nook in the city of the dead. reaching as are the industries of the busy city that surrounds the spot with endless flame and ceaseless turmoil, and widespread as is the fame of her handiwork, yet here slumbers one whose brief life had a subtler potency, and whose melodies won for their young composer a worldwide fame.

Stephen C. Foster was born, in what is now a part of Pittsburgh, July 4, 1826, and

Uncle Ned," "Oh! Susannah," and other equally popular works by this young Pittsburgher it is difficult to give the number printed, as Foster did not copyright them. The brain that conceived and the hand that wrote these melodies have long been crumbling to dust, but their work is found in thousands of American and European homes. There is today not a music house in the country that does not regularly order of Foster's pub

And to

lishers in this city one of the compositions | to the six-pounder or field-piece.
named, "Old Folks at Home," "Willie, we
have missed you," and the beautiful quar-
tette, "Come where my love lies dream-
ing," seeming to have the most lasting hold
upon the popular fancy. All these songs
were born under practical Pittsburgh's
canopy of smoke, and in the very heart of
her roar and tumult.

complete the grim list, these works cast
10,000,000 pounds of shot and shell be-
tween the years 1861 and 1864.

The visitor who would most enjoy the City of Smoke must keep his eyes open. And if he uses well his eyes he will note a hundred objects of interest that are beyond the scope of this article even to consider: great cotton mills that are humming hives of whirling spindles; a firmament of lights flashing on the swift water of three rivers; great bridges of iron and wood thrown across these storied streams. Other streams there are whose currents and eddies are humanity. They are the streets of the city on some pleasant Saturday evening. An army of ten thou

Near the beautiful cemetery where lies the dead composer is noted the arched portals of the Allegheny Arsenal, flanked with flag-stones worn into hollows by the tread of succeeding generations of sentries. Within the low wall great Columbiads bask in pleasant sunshine, and pyramids of solid shot show their grim outlines among apple blossoms and neat flower beds. From these gates there is-sand men, whose individual earnings vary sued in the month of December, 1860, a shipment of cannon in compliance with an order from the then Secretary of War, Floyd.

A few minutes' drive from the arsenal there looms up a great, many-windowed building at the edge of the Alleghany. This, during the civil war, was to the Union what the Tredegar Iron - Works were to the Confederacy. The Fort Pitt Cannon Foundry-now no more as such -cast guns that spoke victory on Lake Erie in 1812, that a generation later thundered before the gates of Mexico, and furnished, during the civil war, two thousand cannon, from the twenty-inch Columbiad

from five dollars to five hundred dollars per week, is abroad in the narrow gas-lit thoroughfare. They are seeking amusement, and, generally speaking, find it. In the concert saloon, the billiard hall, the bowling-alley or drinking saloon, are found these workers in iron and steel and glass. They are supremely content, orderly, generally sober and thrifty. They form one of the sights of the city.

In fact, to the intelligent observer, Pittsburgh is a great kaleidoscope, showing new attractions at every turn. The place is a big, many-leaved volume of such scope that a tithe only of its contents can be given in these glances at some of its most salient features.

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W

THE SIXTH YEAR OF QWONG SEE.

HILE gratifying my curiosity, and experiencing the pleasure of studying the habits and customs of a strange people during the recent Chinese civil and religious festival of the new year, it occurred to me that a short article giving the result of these observations might be of interest to readers, many of whom never have had, and possibly never will have, the opportunity to examine for themselves any of the peculiarities of this alien Asiatic race at present sojourning on the shores of the Pacific, apparently unaffected by contact with our Anglo-Saxon civilization, and which, while submitting respectfully to our laws when they touch its interests, or where its outward life comes in contact with our ordinances, still retains in the land of its present residence unswerving allegiance to the customs and traditions of its fathers, and recognizes with loyal and orderly obedience the fiats of tribunals of its own organization.

Within the confines of the Chinese quarter in San Francisco is presented probably the most curious phase of life to be seen on this broad continent. Within a circle whose radius is half a mile, in the heart of an intensely Western American city, itself the growth of little more than a quarter of a century, is found what we might call an Asiatic colony, and a colony bringing with it and retaining in its new home all the characteristics of its Chinese parentage. Traverse but a few feet, and the dividing line between a Mongolian and a Caucasian civilization, usually measured by an ocean, is crossed. Features, language, costume, merchandise, the exterior individuality of houses, and the hurried glimpses of interiors revealed by the passing glance, all proclaim what might be a quarter in some Chinese city. Strangers and visitors to San Francisco in many cases see more of the life of this curious people than residents of the city. The strong local prejudice against our Asiatic immigrants, and the proverbial procrastination of those who can avail of an interesting experience at their convenience, unite to keep "Chinatown" practically a sealed book to the better-class denizens of the "Queen City of the Pacific.”

Availing ourselves of the invitation of a Chinese friend to visit him on NewYear's Day-February 9 of our calendar

through his kind attentions we were able to receive on the camera of our mental experience impressions which, in spite of their meagreness of outline, are herewith offered for the benefit of those interested in the festival customs of all divisions and types of the great human family.

As an initial consideration, a word of explanation in regard to the Chinese manner of computing time and recording events may not be amiss.

Forty-five centuries ago this Oriental people had constructed astronomical instruments analogous to the quadrant and armillary sphere, which enabled them to make observations remarkable for their accuracy, and making possible, even at that remote period, the formation of a useful calendar.

Their present system is a very complicated one, but, like every arrangement of this ingenious people, works with absolute accuracy, once the principle of its procedure is understood.

Like that of the Hindoos, the Chinese civil year is regulated by the moon, and from the time of the Han dynasty, two centuries before Christ, has begun with the first day of that moon during the course of which the sun enters their sign of the zodiac corresponding to our sign Pisces. They have also an astronomical year which is solar, and for the adjustment of these solar and lunar years employ a system similar to our leap-year plan, except that instead of an intercalary day every fourth year, as in the Gregorian calendar, they insert an intercalary month, occurring alternately every third and second year in periods of nineteen. For instance, last year had an intercalary month; the next one will come in 1882, again in 1884, then in 1887, etc.—two intercalary months in five years, or seven in nineteen years. The year, therefore, contains thirteen or twelve months according as it has or has not an intercalary one. A month has either twenty-nine or thirty days, the number of days being intended to correspond to the number of days which the moon takes to make the revolution around the earth. A month. indeed, means one moon, the same Chinese character being used to indicate both. So, too, the number used to indicate the age of the moon at any time denotes also the day of the month; thus there is al

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