If hell had broke loose, the new minister could not have been more astonished. He stepped back, grasped his manuscript, and was just about to jump from the pulpit, when a deacon on the front seat said, "It's all right, brother; he has only _been down below to see about the fire_." The sexton came up and shut down the trap door, the color came back to the face of the minister, and he went on, though the incident seemed to take the tuck all out of him. A traveling man who happened to be at the church tells us that he knows the minister was scared, for he sweat so that the perspiration run right down on the carpet and made a puddle as though a dipper of water had been tipped over there. The minister says he was not scared, but we don't see how he could help it. FISH HATCHING IN WISCONSIN. I would suggest that you permit the subject of the artificial hatching of fish to engage your attention, and that you appropriate several dollars to purchase whale's eggs, vegetable oysters and mock turtle seeds. The hatching of fish is easy, and any man can soon learn it; and it is a branch of industry that many who are now out of employment, owing to circumstances beyond their control, will be glad to avail themselves of. How, I ask you, could means better be adapted to the ends than for the retiring officers of our State to go to setting on fish eggs? TRAINS WITHOUT CONDUCTORS. Since the introduction of the patent air brake on passenger trains, by which brakemen have been dispensed with, a number of patent right men have been studying up some contrivance to do away with conductors. All have failed except one, and that fortunate inventor is Col. Johnson, of the Railroad Eating House, Milwaukee. He has been engaged for two years on this patent, and has got it so near completed that he has filed a caveat at the Patent Office, and as his rights are secured, it can do no harm to describe the invention, as it is destined to work quite a revolution in the railroad business. It has been Col. Johnson's idea that an arrangement could be made so that an engineer of a train could have the whole train under his charge, to stop it, start it, collect fares, and bounce impecunious passengers, from his position on the engine, and do it all by steam, wind and water. A series of pneumatic tubes run from the door of each car to the engine, with speaking tubes. A passenger gets on the platform, and through the speaking tube asks the engineer what the fare is to such a place. The answer is returned, the fare is put in the hopper of the pneumatic tube, it goes to the engineer, he pulls a string, the door flies open and the passenger enters. Not the least important part of the machinery is the patent "æolian bouncer," as it is called. A pair of ice tongs are placed so as to grasp the passenger by the seat of the pants or the polonaise, as the case may be, when he or she gets on the platform. These tongs are connected with the air brakes, in such a manner that by