In the fall of 1865 the narrator, Mr. George Northrup, at that time a young Chicago business man, still living in that city, believing that vast fortunes could be made in the oil regions, caught the fever, and ascertaining that new fields were being developed in Glasgow, Ky., went there with $5,000 capital, intending to invest it, fancying that amount would be sufficient to buy oil land and develop the same. Arriving at Cave City, on the L. & N. Railway, he was lucky enough to get a seat on the stage coach that ran to Glasgow. The only public inn was filled to overflowing, and he was obliged, with others, to sleep on the office floor of the hotel. Two miles before reaching the town the odor from the wells in operation affected him to such a degree that he confesses that no bouquet of flowers ever seemed to him sweeter. After dining at the hotel he was approached by a score of speculators who inquired of him whether he desired to invest in oil territory, which was held at from $25,000 to $200,000 an acre. He said that he would investigate the next day, became disgusted and immediately disappeared. The principal objection to the territory was the absolute absence of transportation. It was then that he suggested the use of a trough for the transportation of the oil to Glasgow, a distance of twelve miles, since which time it has been carried by pipe from the oil fields of Pennsylvania to the Atlantic Ocean. THE BADGE OF CRUELTY. CELIA THAXTER. Is it not possible to persuade the women of Boston--the city we are proud to consider a centre of refinement, reason and intelligence--to take a decided stand in the matter of the slaughter of birds, and protect them by refusing to wear them? We are fostering a grievous wrong out of pure thoughtlessness. A bit of ribbon, or a bunch of flowers, or any of the endless variety of materials used by the milliner would answer every purpose of decoration, without involving the sacrifice of bright and beautiful lives. But women do not know what they are doing when they buy and wear birds and feathers, or they never would do it. How should people brought up in cities know anything of the sacred lives of birds? What woman, whose head is bristling with their feathers, knows, for instance, the hymn of the song-sparrows, the sweet jargon of the blackbirds, the fairy fluting of the oriole, the lonely, lovely wooing-call of the sandpiper, the cheerful challenge of the chickadee, the wild, clear whistle of the curfew, the twittering of the swallows as they go circling in long curves through summer air, filling earth and heaven with tones of pure gladness, each bird a marvel of grace, beauty, and joy? God gave us these exquisite creatures for delight and solace, and we suffer them to be slain by thousands for our "adornment." When I take note of the head-gear of my sex a kind of despair overwhelms me. I go mourning at heart in an endless funeral procession of slaughtered birds, many of whom are like dear friends to me.