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The Cartersville Express. Established Twenty Years, Kates am> tjkkms. BVBBCBIPTIONB. One copy one year *- <JO One copy blx un*nt,l)> 1 ( n* One copy three months 50 CI.UB KA77,8. wive copies one year ** To Ten copies one year 15 00 Payments invariably iu advance. * AI>V£KTSIIN<i KATES. Advertisements will be in.-erted ni tlie rates ot One Dollar per inch tor the first insertion, and Fifty Cents for each additional insertion. Address S. A. Cl NNINGFAM. Poetical Selections. WE IIAD SEVER MET! BY H. tr. If we had never met, Our fond, delusive hopes we had not known, Like spring time blossoms, blooming and half blown By some rough gust of wind on greensword throw* In May’s young loveliness. If we had never met, I had not felt that Joy almost divine, To clasp you to my breast and call you mine, To feel this heart responsive beat to thine, In love’s first ecstasy. If we had never met, That sun which brightens life’s long, weary da , Casting o’er throne and hovel each a ray, Had left my soul ’mid darkened shadows gray, Unlit by radiance. If we 3 sad never met, Far more than t his, ray life, my love, my queen, This heart f mine had never broken been, The sorrow ui a parting had not seen, Nor lifelong loneliness. Stories and Sketches. THE FLOWER GIRL. BY MINNIK HOLBROOK. u Millicent, Millicent, where is sup per?” 1 “ God only knows, child.” There she sat staring into the little fire on which their last atom of wood was burning, and seeing in the red ashes into which the light wood dropped so quickly, pictures of the past. They had never been rich people, but always com fortable. Her father was a seafaring man—first mate of an ocean vessel—and her mother a tidy housewife, who made everything bright and cozy. How he used to sit telling his adventures to them when he was at home. He would not have been a sailor bad there not been sea-serpents and mermaids in them, but nothing was wonderful for those loving folk at home to credit; and indeed be probably believed them him self. The rooms had been pretty with shells and coral branches, and bright parrots in swinging cages and pictures of ships upon the wall. It had been so different from this wretched place in which the two girls now lived. That was not all; the love was gone, the tender care that parents have for their children. The mother lay in her green grave in a far-off cemetery; and who can point the place of a shipwrecked sailor’s grave? She remembered so well how he sailed away that last time—how she looked after him, her mother and herself—how they waited for news, and waited in vain, until at last there came to them a sailor, saved from the wreck of the “ Flying Scud,” who told how she went down in mid-seas at the dead of the night, ablaze from one end to the other; and how Roger Blair, the first mate, was among the missing. After that, poverty and sorrow; de parture from that dear old home; toil and a strange city, sickness, friendless ness, and the crowning woe of all, the mother’s death. The girl had done her best for her little sister ever since, but she was not a skillful needlewoman, and could rot earn as much as some others;, and now work had given out altogether, and she, pretty and sweet and good, and help ful in a daughterly way about the house, was not quite sure that she could win bread for two in any way —bread and shelter and fire. She was only seventeen, and a frail little creature, with very little strength in her small body, and now that matters were so bad, who can wonder that she almost despaired? “I suppose it isn’t quite supper time yet?” said little Jane aga ; n. “What shall I do?” said Millicent to herself, as she looked about the room. “I have sold everything—the clock, the books, even mother’s work-box and the parrot. There is nothing left. The child will starve before morning. Oh, what shall I do ?” She arose and went to the window, and looked down into the street. It was dirty and narrow, and swarmed with filthy children. Opposite was a little drinking shop, about which a blind man with a fiddle drew a profitless audience. Nothing sweet, or fresh, or pure met her eye there, butbetween that scene and herself a sudden breeze blew a beautiful screen, and there was wafted to her through the broken glass an exquisite perfume. On the sill without stood a rose in a broken tea-pot: She bad picked up the slip among the rubbish cast out by a neighboring gardener, and it bad grown well in its andful of earth. To-day it had bloomed; a perfect rose, exquisite in shape, perfume and color, drooped from one stem, and beside it a naif-blown bud gave promise of Mother flower ns lovely. Until this moment Millicent, in her arixiety, had forgotten her one treasure. But for a gentle shower that had fallen that morning it might have withered where it stood, for she had not even watered it. Now a bright thought flitted through her mind. She had often seen children selling flowers in the street, and ladies and gentlemen seemed glad to buy them. She would force herself to be courageous. She would go out into the street with this rose and its bud, and some one would give her enough to buy a loaf of bread, or at least a roll for little Jane. She would do it—she would. She tied on her hood and rapped her shawl about her, and plucking the flower and a leaf or two, and that bright bud, that seemed perhaps the fairer of the two, bade Jane be good and wait for her, and went down stairs and out from the dingy cross street into Broadway. There every one save herself seemed gay and happy, and well dressed. She seemed to be a thing apart —a black blot in all this brightness. She stood at a corner and held out her flowers, but it seemed that no one heeded her. At last she gathered courage to touch one of the ladies that passed, and say: “ Buy a rose, lady—buy a rose! Please buy a rose.” But the woman hurried by as the rest did. It would not do to stand still. She walked on slowly. Whenever she caught a pleasant eye, she held out her tiny bouquet and repeated her prayer. “ Buy a rose! buy a rose!” But the sun was setting, and she was opposite the City Hall Park, and still no one had bought her flowers. She was growing desperate. Some one should buy it. Jane should have bread that night. “Buy a rose! See! Look at it! See how pretty it is!” she cried, in a voice sharpened by hunger and sorrow. “ Look! You don’t look at it, or you’d buy.” “ These street-beggars should be sup pressed,” said a stout man she had ad dressed. “Young woman, I’ll give you in charge if you don’t behave yourself.” “He don’t know; he don’t know,” said Millicent to herself. “ Nobody could guess how poor we are. Oh, what a hard, hard world!” Then she went on, not daring to speak again, and her rose drooped a little in her fingers, and still no one seemed dis posed to buy it. In her excitement, she had walked further than she knew. She was far down Broadway, and before her was Bowling Green, with its newly-trimmed grass plot and its silvery fountain. A little further on the Battery, newly restored to its pristine glory, and on its benches some blue-bloused emigrants, with round, Dutch faces, and tlieir bare headed wives with woolen petticoats and little shawls crossed over their bosoms and knotted at their waist. As they stared about them, it struck the girl that they, fresh from the sea, might be tempted by the fresh, sweet rose she held in her hand, to spend a few pennies; but when she offered it to them, she saw they were more prudent. They only shook their heads solemnly, and looked away from her. And this last hope gone, despair seized upon Millicent. She sank down upon a bench and began to weep bitterly. The twilight was deepening. She was far from home and little Jane. She was faint with weariness and hunger. Be yond the present moment all seemed an utter blank to her. She covered her face with her hands; the rose dropped from her lap unheeded. She cared for it no more. Fate was against her, that no one would even buy a beautiful flower like that from her. There were steps. She heeded them not. There were voices. It mattered not to her. Suddenly some one said: “What a beautiful rose!” And the words caught her ear. She looked up. Three or four seafaring men, with bundles in their bands, were pass ing by, fresh from tho ocean evidently, embrowned with the sun and wind, and the ship’s roll still in their gait. Sailors were always generous. One of thjese would buy the flower. She held it out. “Buy it, please?” she whispered, faintly. “Please buy this rose?” “J’m glad to get it,” said a stout elderly man stepping forward. “What’s the price, my lass? Will that do?” He tossed three or four foreign-looking silver pieces into her lap, and took the flower. Then looking at her very closely, he spoke again: “What’s the trouble, lass? Don’t be afraid to tell me. I had a little girl of my own once. She’s dead now. Tell me, can I help you?” Millicent looked up. The man’s face was half hidden by his hat, and he was stouter and grayer than her father had been, but she fancied a likeness. “You have helped me, sir,” she said, by buying the rose. Thank you very much. My father was a sailor too; and he was ship-wrecked.” “It’s a sailor’s fate,” said the man. “It’s time you was getting home, lass. This city is no place for ayoung girl to Ibe out in after night. But just wait. A sailor’s orphan has a claim on a sailor, and my poor little Millicent would have been about your age if slie bad lived.” “Millicent!” screamed the girl. “Oh, my name is Milligent. I’m frightened. I don’t know what to think. You look like him—you. I’m Millicent Blair. My father was Roger Blair. Is it a dream? It can’t be true. It can’t be father!” But the next instant he had her in his arms, and she knew that the sea had given him back to her. Wrecked with the vessel, but not lost. He had been cast upon a desert island, vhence he escaped, after three weary years, only to find his little home empty. The widow had left her little cottage to earn her living in the city, and news of her death had been brought back to old home by some one who had been in New York died, and who had either heard or imagined that her chil dren were dead also. And the news was told to Roger Blair bv kindly people who believed it thor oughly, and had borne it as best he could, and had sailed the sea again, a weary, heart-broken man. He had not found all his treasures, bu t that some were spared was more than he had ever hoped; and the meeting be tween father and daughter was like that between two arisen from the dead. And so the rose bush had done more for Millicent than she could have dreamt; and to this day it is the most cherished treasure in the little home where the old man lives with his two daughters; and when once a month, its blossoms fill the air with their fragrance, they crowd about it as about the shrine of some sainted thing, and whisper: “But for this we should still be parted.” _____ Cultivation of Wheat. [Detroit Free Press.] A communication has reached this office over the signature of A. B. Travis, of Oakland County, which gives some interesting statements concerning wheat culture. Samples of wheat in the sheaf were sent to illustrate the points made. He says: “My rotation is wheat, corn, oats, clover two years and summer fallow. The sheaf of wheat w r as grown in a field drilled on September 16th, 1878. Each alternate tooth in the drill was closed up thus throwing the rows of wheat fourteen inches apart. About four pecks of seed was used per acre and the crop was given a thorough cultiva tion, once in the autumn and twice in the spring with a horse wheat hoe, the work being done at the rate of one acre per hour. I am satisfied from my ex perience that the crop cn ordinary soil may be tlius increased from five to twenty bushels per acre. “Pursuing this method I would always put my seed upon a summer fallow. Last year a confmittee was selected to gather, weigh and pass judgment upon wheat managed differently upon my place. The soil was similar in two pieces, but in the one the drills were eight inches apart and ninety pounds of wheat sown per acre and no inter-cul ture employed; while in the other the drills were sixteen inches apart and sixty-four pounds of seed sown per acre, and the grain was cultivated between the fall and spring. Three samples of each were taken, equal spaces being measured off, with the following results: Weight. Test No. 1,16-inch space, cultivated ...S lbs. 4 oz. Test No. 1, 8-inch space, not cultivated... 2 lbs. Test No. 2, 16-inch space, cultivated 3 lbs. 2 oz. Test No. 2, 8-inch space, not cultivated,.l lb. 9 oz. Test No. 3, 16-inch space, cultivated 2 lbs. 10 oz. Test No. 3, S-inch space, not cultivated...l lb. 10 oz. “The committee found that there was a difference in favor of the broad culti vated drills, having less seed of sixty nine and one-third per cent. “Again, another difference was noted: In the three samples without culture the number of heads of wheat was to the three samples with culture a3 1039 is to 1541, showing that the tilling in the lat ter case produced more heads than the increased seed in the former. lam sat isfied al'O that by cultivating wheat and thus increasing the number and strength of the shoots we are doing all we can to help grain to overcome tne ravages of the Hessian fly. On strong soils, too, the stand will be stronger from cultivation and not so apt to lodge. My experience has all been in favor of thin sowing and inter-culture.” A Well Governed City. Paris is the last place a runaway criminal would wish to go to. Such is the vigilance of that city’s government that no rogue can possibly hide there and no honest man lack protection. The population, floating or permanent, of every arondissement or ward in Paris is counted officially every month. Be your abode at hotel, boarding-kcuse or private residence, within forty-eight hours you are required to sign a register, giving your name, age, occupation, and former residence. This, within the time mentioned, is copied by an official ever traveling from house to house with the big blue book under his arm. The register gives, also, the leading characteristics of your per sonal appearance. Penalty attaches itself to host or land lord who fails to get and give to the offi cial such registration of his guests. There are no unmarked skulking holes in Paris. Every house, every room, is known, and under police surveillance, every stranger is known and described at police headquarters within a few days of his arrival. Once within the walls of Paris, and historically, so to speak, your identity is always there. In case of injury to any person the sufferer is not dependent on the nearest drug store for a tempo rary hospital, as with us. In every arondissement may be seen the prominent sign, “Assistance for the wounded, asphyxiated or poisoned.” Above always hangs the official tri-color. I say, “official” because a certain slender prolongation of the flag-staff denotes that the establishment is under govern ment supervision, and no private party may adopt this fashion. The French flag is not flung to the breeze like the Stars and Stripes, so that none can tell whether it indicates a United States government station or a beer saloon. . “ Long Metre ” inquires “ How do you cure hams?” Dear Metre, it de pends on what ails the hams. If they have a slight cold, soak their feet in hot water and feed them composition tea. If there are symptoms.of consumption slice thin and fry and the consumption is assured. If you wish to prevent the consumption, hang the ham out doors where tne sun can strike it for a week or two. A REIGN OF SNAKES. 4 Railroad Blockaded wltli Then, and • Train Conpelled to Halt. [Communication in St. Louia aiobe-Dmocrat.J In Northwest Missouri, where ex-Gov. R. M. Stewart resided years before and after his political career, up to the time of his death, many old citizens love to tell of bis brilliant conversational pow ers and inexhaustible fund of anecdotes. The Governor often told of the difficul ties which he hau to surmount, and in one of his happiest moods he related a snake story which I have never seen in print. In those days, said the Gov ernor, snakes were not only uncommonly numerous, but infested certain portions of the State to such an extent that farmers would often pack up their house hold wares and remove elsewhere. Dur ing the building of the road I have seen them so troublesome and numerous that the hands would sometimes stop work and inaugurate a short campaign against them with shovels, axes and crowbars. The serpents were not vicious, the men being hardly ever bitten, but the great vexation consisted in their so ciability and perfect indifference to danger. They apparently were utterly devoid of that instinct of self-preserva tion 'with which the Almighty endowed every creature. At night they would sometimes make sleep impossible by hissing and squirming in and about the tents, and during the day they would vex the men almost beyond endurance by running between their legs and otherwise annoying them. They were not considered dangerous, being of that species known as prairie bissers. It was only now and then that a rattler was dis covered among them, and death was sure to follow', for the men would alway stop and find time to chase one until be was overtaken and his head chopped off. The men always dreaded a shower, for then the snakes were the worst. They would literally swarm out on the prairies and travel in schools. On one occasion of this kind, when the road was in course of construction in Livingstone County, the construction engine with three flat cars was at the last camping place, about ten miles in the rear of the track builders. I was there awaiting the landing of some tools and spikes, which it was intended to convey to the end of the road. it had been raining all morning, but cleared up about noon, and when we pulled out after dinner the weather was pleasant but a little hazy. We had traveled about half the distance when the engineer—l was riding on the engine - called my attention to the hun dreds of snakes crossing several hundred yards in front of us, the track for a short distance being black with them and en tirely lost to sight. The engine-driver opened the throttle and in a few mo ments we were crushing through them. The drivers had not made more than two or three revolutions when they began to fly around at lightning rapidity, and the speed of ihe train was slackened. The wheels of the engine were almost clogged with crushed snakes, and still the track was actually buried beneath them for one hundred yards In front Of us. We did not succeed in getting much more headway, when the train came to a standstill. We were unable to make our way through them, and amused by knocking them off the engine. We were detained nearly an hour before the grand march of the serpents had crossed and we were en abled to proceed. * They seemed to be moving that day, and the earth seemed to be alive with them; indeed they seemed to cover the earth. A Cool Letter from a Husband. [London World.] I have become accidently possessed oJE the following letter, which is a correct copy of one lately addressed by a Cor poral of Marines to bis wife, from a ves sel which is at present stationed off the west coast of Africa. “ Wife—l was greatly surprised to hear from you (through my Captain;. I had forgotten that I was married, and to tell you the truth, I had entirely forgot ten you. I should have thought that a handsome young woman like you would have been above applying to a poor marine for help. I think you have been guided by your mother in this matter, as you have in all others. Well, I should like you to act upon my advice for once; that is to take no notice, of your mother, do the best you can for yourself, and, if possible, get married again. It might be better for you. I can assure you that I never will trouble you as long as I live. lam very comfortable in the service, and there is no doubt but that I shall stay in the service for the next 16 years. My Captain said that he would not interfere with my private affairs, and if 1 Had any trouble with you to take no notice of it. I must now conclude, and I don't think I shall ever see you or Man chester again, for I have greater attrac tions in Portsmouth than any other part of Eugland. “ I remain, etc. “P. S.—l cannot return your letter as it is lost.” In this letter the sternness of the war rior and the inconstancy of the sailor are fearfully and wonderfully combined. Changing the Color of the Eyes. The strangest news coming to us from Germany—even stranger than that the effeminate Viennese should welcome the man who conquered them at Koniggratz —is that a learned doctor has discovered a means of dying human eyes any color he likes, not only without injury to the delicate orbs, but, as he asserts, with positive advantage to the powers of sight. He can not only give fair ladies eyes black as night or blue as orient skies by day, but he can turn them out in hue of silver or gold. He says golden eyes are extremely becoming. Nothing goes down without a grand name; therefore the German doctor calls his discovery “ Oecular Transmutation.” He declares himself quite ready to guarantee success and harmlessness in the operation. OOD-HHT. Good-night 1 T hare to sny good-night To such a host of peerless things 1 Good-nicht unto the frugi’e hand All queenly with its weight of ring*; Good-night to fond uplifted ores, Good-night to chestnut braids of hair. Good-night auto the perfect mouth, And all the sweetness nestled there— The snowy hand detains me, then I’ll have to say good-night again ! But there will come a time, my love, When, il I read your stars aright, I shall not linger by the porch With my adieus. Till then good-night! You wish the time vere now ? And I. You do not blush to wish it so ? You would have blushed yourself to death To own so much a year ago— ~ What? both these snowy hands? Ah, then. I’ll have to sav good-night again! Clipped Paragraphs. A BARBER generally dyes by over* work. Mary had a little lamb. It was roasted and she wanted more. Even criminals like paragiaphs—that is to say, they prefer a short sentence. It is a rule of the penitentiary to cut the locks off before turning the locks on a prisoner. The boy who is well-spanked fully realizes the deep meaning of sterna juitice. “Be careful how you punctuate the stove,” is the latest. It means not ta put too much colon. It’s not onlv hard work to pop the question, but it is equally hard to quea tion the pop about it afterwards. A lame farmer was asked if he had a corn on hi3 toe. “No,” he said, but I’ve got lots on the ear. ’ Cervantes has said, “ Every one is son of his own works.” This makes the great Krupp a son of a gun. A man may have a Boston look in his eye simply by letting his imagination dwell on the things that have bean. Just as soon as ladies’ belts are made to look like surcingles horses will de mand a change of fashion for them selves. Don’t judge a man by his clothes. Can you tell Avhat the circus is going to be like by looking at the Italian sunset pictures on the fence?” Job has been marked down in history as the patient man. The fact is that at one time he was just boiling over with impatience to die. If the surrounding circumstances are congenial, it is fair to conclude that the position preferred by lovers is juxtaposi tion which suits them. A projectile weighing 1,700 pounds, shot from a cannon charged with 425- pounds of powder, is the latest. Why not use the earth for a cannon ball? An Irishman should patronize the concrete pavement, because every time they look upon it they will see their country’s emblem —sbam-rock. Kansas school-teacher: “Where does our grain go to?” “ Into the hopper.” “What hopper?” “Grasshopper,” tri umphantly shouted a scholar.” Full many a flower was bom To blush unseen, And many a man takes his corn Behind the screen. “ I am glad that painted belts are in style,” said a frisky fellow, as he artis tically decorated the one he received ever the eye the previous day. A correspondent wants to ""know what is an affinity. An affinity, my dear sir, is something that exists be tween a small boy and bis neighbor’s grape vine. A man’s clothes are not always indi cative of his character; for a fellow may wear the loudest kind of garments and yet be as mild and quiet as an autumn sunset. Fashion understands that a lady is in a full dress when the trail of her garments cover her form, the spittoon and three squares of Brussels carpet ai the same time. A rather gaily dressed young lady asked her Sunday-school class what war “meant by the pomp and vanity of the world.” The answer was honest but rather unexpected: “ Them flowers on your hat.” He stole along the edge of the patch, Till an object his keen eyes fell on; He snatched it up and waltzed away— ’Twas a squash instead of a melon. —Joaquin Miller. “How came you to be lost?” asked a sympathetic gentleman of a little boy ho found crying in the street for his mother. “I aint lost,” indignantly exclaimed tho little three-year-old; “but m-m-m-y mother is, and I ca-ca-can’t find her.” The other day, an old toper, recover ing from a prolonged spree, sat reading the morning paper. Soon he looked up and exclaimed, “ Why, bless my soul, the rebels have been firing on Fort Sumter!”— Oincinnati Saturday JVight. “Johnnie, what is a noun?” “Nam© of a person, place or thing.” “ Very good; give an example.” “Hand-organ grinder.” “And why i3 a hand-organ grinder a noun?” “ Because he’s a per son plays a thing.” He is a fruiter's factotum; and when he writes letters for his employer, and signs them “John Smith, per Simmons,” he instinctively puckers up his lips. It is seasonably suggestive, and he can’t help it. A story in an exchange is entitled ‘7 n Two Halves.” Will the author kindly inform a suffering public, blindly groping about in the misty avenues of ignorance, in how many more halves it would have been possible to have had that storv? The author of “Grandfather’s Clock ’ is at last meeting his punishment. One of his daughters, not able to stand tho tick any longer, recently stopped short before a clergyman with a runaway young man, promised never to go single any more, and the old man nearly died.