Ste. Genevieve Herald Ste. Genevieve, Mo. Saturday, June 16, 1883 ATTENTION FARMERS! Chas. BURGERT is the sole agent for the celebrated Deering Twine Binder, on Ste. Genevieve Co. He will sell you as good and cheap a selfbinder as any one. Come, see and be convinced. FAREWELL PICNIC! Not being able to pay for the coming high license, unless I am allowed to carry on my business on Sundays without being fleeced by a prosecuting attorney, I have con- cluded to give all my friends and acquaintances a farewell picnic, near my place at Zell on the com- ing 4th of July, and then shut up. I shall take care that nothing is wanting that will conduce to a first class celebration and a good time generally. Come one, come all! Chas. OBERMILLER HAVE WE A WEATHER PROPHET AMONG US? Since the days of the late lamented Noah, the weather prophet has been a well established institution, alike amongst the most highly civilized nations as amongst the rudest savages. This we regard as the most singular phenomenon in the world's history. Everything animate and inanimate, seems destined to change. Continents are said to have existed and faded away, until only a faint tradition of their former existance remains. Great nations have arisen, conquered the world, decayed and past away. Immense areas of land, that once were the most populous and fertile portions of the globe have become waste, barren deserts of sand. Cities that once were the seats of mighty empires, have been destroyed, so that only their names alone exist. Man himself, it is said, is but the highest form of animal life, gradually developed from the tadpole or the monkey. Change seems to be the immutable, universal law of nature. Yet amidst all this the weather prophet remained the same. From the first specimen known to history, who assurred Noah that "it was not going to be much of a shower after all" down to the immortal Wiggins, the race has continued to exist and flourish without perceptible variation. This well-established fact seems to have been completely overlooked by Darwin and his desciples, and is a complete answer, and refutation of this theory, according to which the gradual evolution of man from the lowest order of animal life, has been brought about by the use and disuse of certain physical features of the human body, some parts of the human frame, by the necessities and changing conditions of man, being strengthened and enlarged or lessened and changed. According to this theory, there should be an abnormal increase of cheek - as it is universally conceded from the remotest dawn of history that it is by the use of Cheek that weather prophets have gained their fame - of the genius weather prophet, yet we believe a careful examination of several distinguished members of that species, fails to show any remarkable difference from ordinary mortals. But we wander from the subject which is "Have We a Weather Prophet Amongst Us?" We are reliably informed that we have, and that his name is Joseph THOMURE, familiarly known, as "Truthful Jo." For many years past, he has been looked upon by his immediate neighbors as a weather prophet of the utmost reliability and only his excessive modesty has prevented his name from being noised abroad in the great world, but then true genius was ever modest and unassuming. Mr. THOMURE, unlike a majority of the the would-be weather prophets, does not base his calculations on the uncertain signs of the moon, or the deceptive ground-hog, but by some occult science known onlu to himself, he has discovered that by observing the direction of the wind on Good Friday the forecast of the weather may be made for the whole season. Now, we are imformed by one of our subscribers that Mr. THOMURE immediately after Good Friday said that the wind being in the North on that day, we would have wet weather until after harvest and after that we would have a long dry spell. That his prediction has been fulfilled so far our farmers know to their sorrow, and we call their attention to the future, and stake the reputation of our weather prophet upon the strict fulfillment of the prophecy.