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A lOXSTAJrr RC.iDKB.
BY PARMKNAS NIX.
The overworked scriln: of the “ Mudville Ga- i
zette,”
Sat wondering—moneyless wight—
If his office wouhL’evcr lie cleared of its debt, j
With the times so deplorably tight—
When the train pof old leather was heard on
the stair,
And a stranger stepped into the room,
Who asked, with the “don’t let me bother
yon” air
Which the bore is so apt to assume—
“ How arc ye ?” The editor rose with a smile
And pleasantly yielded his chair —
Placed the visitor’s sadly unbeautiful tile
(Which exhibited symptoms of wear)
On the top of the desk, alongside of his own
(A shocking old plug, by the way),
And then asked in a rather obsequious tone,
“ Can we do anything for you to-day ?”
“ No—l jest called to see ye”—the visitor said;
“ I’m a friend to the newspaper man.”
Here he ran a red handkerchief over his head,
And accepted the editor’s fan—
“l hev read all the pieces you’ve writ for
your sheet,
And they are straight to the pint I confess :
That ar slap you gin Keyser was sartinly
neat —
You’re any ornyment, sir, to the press!”
“ I am glad you are pleased,” said the writer,
“indeed,
But you praise me too highly, by far —
Just select an exchange that you’re anxious
to read,
And while reading it try this cigar.
By the way, I’ve a melon laid up for a treat,
I’ve been keeping it nestled in ice,
It’s a beauty, sir, fit for an angel to eat—
Now, perhaps, you will relish a slice?”
Then the stranger rolled up half a dozen or
more
Of the choicest exchanges of all
Helped himself to the fruit, threw the rinds
on the floor,
Or flung them at flies on the wall.
He assured his new friend that his “pieces
were wrote
In a manner uncommonly able”—
As he wiped his red hands over the editor’s
coat
That hung at the side of the table.
“ >y the way, I neglected to ask you your
name,”
Said the scribe as the stranger arose ;
“That’s a fact,” he replied, “ Abimalcch
Bame,
You have heard o’ that name, I suppose ?
I’m a-livin’out here on the Fiddletown Creek
Where I own a good house and a lot;
The Gazette gets around to me once every
week —
I’m the constantest reader you’ve got!”
“ Abimalech Bame,” mused the editor,
“ B-a-m-e—”
(Here his guest begged a chew of his twist)
“ I’m sorry to say your mellifluous name
Doesn’t happen to honor iny list!”
“ ’Sposc not,” was the answer—“ no reason it
should,
For you see I jine lots w h Bill Prim—
He’s a reg’lar subscriber and pays ye in wood,
And I hurry your paper o’ him !”
■+ eam
Playing Horse.
Little Charley Van Anden, who is not
quite three years old, resides in San Fran
cisco, and is occasionally brought to
Pacheco on a visit. He betrays an extra
ordinary fondness for horses, and when
at home can hardly be kept away from
the horses, where he plays with a pet
horse without fear, and, as it seems,
without danger. He delights in crawl
ing beneath the horse and between his
feet, while the animal moves only his
head, and extends his ears as he watches
the child’s gambols. Charley was in
town the other day, and toddled off sur
reptitiously. When his absence was dis
covered he was sought for in alarm, and
was finally found in a stable stall with an
unbroken and unruly colt. The child
had fastened a short rope around a hind
leg of the colt, and when found was
“ playing boss” with the utmost glee.
“ I wouldn't have tried that trick for
said the hostler. “If it wasn’t a
baby that done it, he'd have been kicked
to death, sure.” Well, now, it doe* seem
as if horses, like dogs and good-hearted
men, are fond of children.
Weather ilasims.
“ Old Probabilities” has formulated
the results of his observations for New
England as follows:
1. Asa rule, if the wind touches north
east or east for two or three days, it is sure
indication of rain*.
2. Dense smoke and haze in early
morning portend falling weather.
3. Summer showers of light character
often follow two or three days of smoke
or haze.
4. Fog, frost, and dew precede rain
twenty-four to forty-eight hours, except
fog at close of storm.
5. "Wind veering from north or west to
south and southeast preceeds falling
weather.
G. Halos, lunar and solar, also fairly
defined and brilliant auroras, precede
rain twenty-four to sixty hours.
7. Barometer rising or falling consid
erably away from its mean forebodes fall
ing weather, subject to the modifying
influences of the neighboring ranges of
mountains and hills.
8. Precipitation generally follows a
rapid influx or efflux of atmosphere.
9. If wind is in southwest and rain sets
in, the rain is of short duration and light
yield.
10. Banks of watery clouds or heavy
haze on south or southeastern horizon in
dicates rain.
11. An area of low barometer at or
near Fort Monroe, and running up the
coast, surely reaches here a a north
easter.
<T!)i (Ogldl)orpc Cel)©.
BY T. L. GANTT.
A STRANGE STORY.
TIIE OUTRAGE AXB MIRDER <JU
TWO SISTERS.
a Hair-Breadth Escape from the Gal
lows--The Capture Under a Bridge--
A VleMtage that Brought Im Bearer to
the Scaffold.
On the 2d of June, 1855, an atrocious
crime was perpetrated near *he small
village of Urpctli, in Northumberland,
England. Two girls, named Mary and
Lizzie Turnbull, aged respectively twelve
and sixteen, left their home, a mile dis
tant, to attend school at Urpeth. As
they had not returned home by 6 o’clock
in the evening, their father and a farm
laborer went in search of them. Find
ing that they had departed for home at
3 o’clock, the two men made inquiries,
and ascertained Trom 'afTbTd woman who
lived on the outskirts of the village that
she had seen and spoken to them, and
they had passed down the road toward
home. Mr. Turnbull and his man star
ted at once in the same direction, and ex
amined the road carefully for any traces
of the missing children. About a quar
ter of a mile out the highway turned at
right angles, and then after two or three
hundred yards again turned, and followed
its previous course. At the first angle
there was a stile and a footpath that ran
through the field diagonally, thus cutting
off the corner, and affording a short cut
to the main road. The children had
been forbidden to take this path, as they
had been once pursued there by a wild
bull Mr. Turnbull resolved to go
tKough this short cut, fearing that his
girls might have disobeyed him, and met
with an accident, or perhaps be held
pifsoners by the infuriated amimal al
ready spoken of.
Passing down into a hollow, where was
a stream covered by a small bridge, the
farm servant observed something red
among the brushes near the water. He
directed Turnbull's attention to it, and
the two men walked down the bank and
among the bushes. An awful spectacle
was presented. On the ground lay the
body of the eldest girl, Lizzie ; her cloth
ing almost torn off her,and her head bat
tered in. Two feet from her was the
corpse of the younger sister, the tongue
protruding, the eyes starting from their
sockets, and her throat bearing the
mark of a murderous hand. Both girls
were dead, and the bodies were still
warm. The agonized father gazed on
the awful scene with horror, and when
further examination showed that both
the girls had been outraged, his frantic
grief was beyond control. The servant
man urged him to subdue his anguish
and to take measures at once for the dis
covery of the perpetrator or perpetrators
of the crime. But it was in vain, and
leaving the wretched parent prostrated
beside his murdered offspring, the man
started for Urpeth, and notified the mag
istrate and village authorities.
In an hour’s time a hundred strong
men and youths were scouring the coun
try in pursuit of the murderer. Several
persons were arrested under 'suspicion,
but when midnight came it was clear
that the real criminal was still at liberty.
In the meantime the bodies had been
moved and an inquest held. Next morn
ing the spot where they were"discovered
was carefully axamined. Just below,
close by the margin of the stream, the
girl’s school-books were found, and it
was supposed that they had been plaving
in the water when their assailant first
came upon them. The impression was
that one man only had done the deed, as
there was no foot-prints to indicate the
presence of any one except the two chil
dren and another person. It seems clear
that the younger girl had just been
choked, and that the murderer had then
pursued the elder, as the foot-prints
showed, along the soft margin of the
stream toward the bridge.
He had then draged her back to the
spot among the bushes, and after a pro
tracted struggle—for her clothes were
torn in shreds—thrown her down and
ravished her. Close by lay a boulder,all
bloody and covered with hair, with it the
wretch had smashed in the poor child’s
skull, whether before or after the outrage
was uncertain. It was supposed that af
ter he accomplished his object on his
first victim, he had sought to revive the
younger girl by throwing water over her
face, as the upper part of her clothing
was saturated. Having satisfied his lust
on the half-dead victim, he completed
the catalogue of his crimes by grasping
her throat with his accursed hand and
strangling her.
Officers from Newcastle were on the
spot the morning after the murder, and
made a thorough investigation into all
the facts connected with it. Their theo
ry was fhat the perpetrator was a tramp,
whom chance bad brought to the spot,
and who was, perhaps, resting near by
when the girls strolled down to the water
to play. Inquiries were made all around
and every place was searched where a
fugative from jnstice would be likely to
hide.
Late in the evening of June 31, as a
farmer was passing down the road near
by the scene of the murder, he heard the
scratching and saw the flash of a match
under the stone bridge which crossed the
stream on the main road. At first he
supposed that it must be the officers, who
were still searching around for some clew
to the perpetrator of the recent tragedy,
but a second thought showed him that it
was not likely that they would be around
for such an object in the darkness. On
CRAWFORD, GEORGIA, FRIDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 3, 1875.
reaching Urpeth, the man mentioned the j
circumstance, and it soon reached the
ears of the detectives who were staying
in the village. Three officers were speed
ily on their way to the bridge, which
one of them crossed. The other two de
scended to the stream and passed within
the buttress, in which there was a deep
recess. The officer made a signal from
the opposite side of the water. At the
same moment, he threw the light of his
bull’s-eye across the stream, and simul
taneously the other two officers flung the
light of their lanterns full on the buttress
so that the recess under the bridge was
completely illuminated. On the ground
lay a man apparently fast asleep, wrap
ped in a soldier’s overcoat. The officers,
after regarding him for a few seconds,
stood one on each side and aroused him.
He started up, and, on seeing two men
standing over him with revolvers,
gave a cry of alarm, and crouched like a
He proved to be a traveling gla
zier,and had with him his tools and stock
in-trade. He at first thought the men
wanted to rob him, but was soon reas
sured on that score. When informed
that he was in the custody of the officers
of the law, he became greatly alarmed.
On reaching the village he was searched,
and there was found on him a leather
belt, which was identified as having be
longed to one of the murdered girls. His
clothes were stained with fresh blood,
and his right fingers were crushed and
the flesh was torn. He denied all knowl
edge of the dreadful deed that had
been done near the spot where he was
found concealed, but the general feeling
was that the guilty perpetrator had been
secured. The bruises on his hand were
supposed to have been received while
beating the head of liis unfortunate vic
tim with the boulder. The man gave
his name as Smalley, and said that he
received the bruises from which the
blood on his clothes came, by the falling
of a sash, where he put in a pane of
glass at a farm-house, the location of
which, however, he could not
As far as he could say it was about four
mites away, and lay on a - cross-road.
He came from Alnwick, he said, on the
day of the murder, and put in the glass
at a farm-house on tlie afternoon of that
day. His hand, he said, caused him
much pain, and shortly .before dusk, on
reaching the bridge he took refuge in the
buttress, and bad remained there ever
since, having been too unwell from tlie
effects of liis accident to travel. His sto
ry was regarded as a pure invention, and
his statement that he had found the belt
in the recess where he took refuge, was
regarded as utterly absurd.
Smalley was examined and committed
for trial. He was too poor to employ
council, and a neighboring attorney out
of charity undertook his defense. This
gentleman searched the entire district to
find the farm-house where Smalley said
he put in a window, and caused every
residence for mites around to be visited.
All was in vain, and the council himself
began to doubt the man’s story. Affairs
remained in this state until within a week
of the Assizes at which Smalley was to
be tried.
It now becomes necessary to relate a
very remarkable story. Mr. Maydon, the
gluzier’s council, w'as a bachelor. His
only domestic was an elderly woman.
One night he returned to his roonTearly,
and sat at the open window smoking a
ci gar.
It was a moonlight night, and the law r
yer could see everything 'in the garden
which lay between his house and the
road. Shortly after 10 o’clock he was
startled by hearing his name called below
the window. On looking out, he saw a
man standing on the garden walk, look
ing toward the window. As the lawyer
put out his head the stranger said :
“ Are you Mr. Maydon?”
“ That is my name,” was the reply.
You are wanted down at the Ferry
House (a hotel near the ferry over the
river Alne) immediately,” the man said.
“ A gentleman there is desirous of seeing
you about the story told by the man
Smalley.”
“ I’ll come at once,” the lawyer said,
and he put on a coat, saddled a horse,
and brought it rouud to the front. He
looked around for the messenger, but he
was gone.
Mr. Maydon rode to the Ferry House,
and found there a stranger to supper.
Mr. Maydon introduced himself, and
said he supposed the stranger knew why
he came. The stranger laughed, and
said:
“ Glad to see you, Mr. Maydon, but I
have no more idea what you can want
with me than Noah.”
Mr. Maydon was, in his turn,surprised,
and explained to the gentleman, the cause
of his being there.
“ I have heard of the horrible crime,”
the gentleman said, “ and I know it was
committed on the very day I quitted this
neighborhood last summer, where I had
been on a fishing trip ; but beyond the
mere fact of the crime, I know nothing.”
“ The messenger said you could give
information respecting the story told by
the accused man,” the lawyer said in be
wilderment.
“ I don’t know anything about his sto
ry,” was the reply, “ but if you will sit
down and join me in a glass of wine, I
shall be glad to hear it.”
The lawyer related the particulars of
the outrage and murder, the arrest of
Smalley, and the story told by him.
When*the lawyer reached that part of it
which related to the glazier's having
received his bruises when putting in R
pane of glass at a farm-house in the
neighborhood, the stranger became sud
denly interested, and at length exclaim
ed :
“ Good God ! why that is the truth, as
sure as you live. I staid at Mr. El
liot’s farm (where I am going now for the
shooting) fora fortnight during the sum
mer, for the purpose of fishing in the
Alne, and the very day I quitted the
place I accidentally broke a pane in the
parlor window. None of the family were
about at the time, and by what I consid
ered luck a glazier came up to the house,
and seeing me in the window called for a
job. I remembered the broken pane,
and directed him to put it in. lie did
so, but when he was putting back the
sash it dropped on his hand and
crushed his fingers severely. I took him
int the kitchen, but everybody was in
the hay-field. So I got him some water,
and a piece of cloth to bind up his hand.
Then I gave him a crown piece, and he
left the place.
The astonishment of the lawyer cannot
be described. The stranger was equally
surprised. Who was the mysterious mes
senger ?
When the trial came on, the court
room was crowded. The prosecution
made a very strong ease, and council em
ployed by Mr. Maydon opened for the
defense. Mr. Curzon, tlie gentleman to
whom Mr. Maydon had been so mysteri
ously introduced, gave his testimony.
The court, the bar and the audience were
astonished. The case went to the jury,
and the prisoner was acquitted without
the jury leaving their seats.
After the trial, the prisoner’s counsel,
Mr. Curzen and the Judge conversed to
gether on the remarkable evidence dis
closed. Mr. Curzon said that no one at
the farm,Jso far as he knew, was aware
that a window had been broken or anew
pane put in ; hence the vain search for
evidence to corroborate theglazer’s story.
The conversation then turned on Mr.
Maydon’s mysterious visitor, who invited
him to the interview at the river with
Mr. Curzon.
“ There have been cases,” said the
Judge, “in which the guilty man has
performed a similar office, and saved the
life of a man wrongly convicted of a
crime.”
“ That is true,” was the response from
the lawyer, “but who was there that
could possibly know anything of the bro
ken pane or the glazier’s employment?”
“ Mr. Curzon,” asked the Judge, “was
there any one near you at the time that
could possibly know of the glazier’s be
ing employed by you to put in that bro
ken pane?”
“ Now I think of it,” Mr. Curzon re
plied, “ when I returned to the parlor af
ter binding up the glazier’s hand ano’dis
missing him, I found a helper from the
stables of the Ferry House waiting to
carry down my valice and tackle. The
window sash had not been replaced, tnd
I related to the helper the circumstance
of my breaking the glass and finding a
glazier almost at my elbow, and of his
having received a bad hurt by the fall
ing of the sash. Then I asked him to
replace the sash, which he did.”
“ That, Mr. Maydon,” the Judge slid,
“is a very important statement. It may
turn out that the helper is your mysteri
ous messenger, and the man who ought
to have stood where the glazier did—in
the fellon’s dock.”
The circumstance was too remarkable al
together to be overlooked, and the same
night the helper, whose name was Waller
Herries, was arrested at his mother's
house in Urpeth. When asked to ic
count for his whereabouts on the day of
the murder, he did so down to 2 o’clotk
on the day when he placed Mr, Curzoi’s
luggage on the ferryboat. He first sad
he was at the Ferry House until late n
the evening, but that was satisfactorily
disproved. Then he said he was at hone
with his mother ; but it was shown thit
his mother went that afternoon to a
neighboring village, and left the key f
her little cottage with a neighbo 1 ,
and that she did not return till after i.
Herries, though little over nineteen, had
already been in prison for theft, and wts
regarded as a bad youth. His mothers
cottage was searched, and concealed ii
the thatch were found a jacket and shir,
stained with blood. His shoes also ex
actly corresponded with the foot-print;
on the margin of the stream, the dimen
sions of winch had been taken. Tin
young man stoutly asserted his innocence,
but he was indicted, tried, found guilty,
and sentenced to death. Before the ex
ecution of the last sentence of the law,
Herries admitted his guilt. On return
ing home, after having carried Mr. Cur
zon’s baggage to the ferry, he took a bv-
path up the stream. As it was a close
afternoon he resolved to bathe, and went
to a pool about twenty yards above the
spot where the girls’ bodies w’ere found.
When he was in tne water ne heard the
girls’ voices, and by glancing throughj
the foliage could see their forms. His !
passions were inflamed, and quitting the
water he hastily dressed himself and
passed unperceived to where his victims
were. When they first saw him they
were very much alarmed, and the elder
fled toward the bridge. He seized the
younger by the throat and threw her to
the ground, senseless. Then he followed
the elder, who ran round the buttress of
the bridge into the recess already de
scribed. There he captured her, and im
the struggle her belt was torn off. la
this spot, by threats and he
forced the girl to submit to his embraces.
Then he led her up toward where her sis
ter was. The latter had recovered, and
was making an effort to rise. Herries
struck her with his fist and knocked her
over. The elder sister struggled to get
free, and uttered heartrending shrieks.
There was a terrible struggle between
them, and Herries seized the boulder and
battered in the girl’s skull. By means
of water copiously sprinkled on her face,
the young girl was restored to concious
ness, only to be subjected to outrage.
She struggled and fought bravely, and
the wretch Herries seized her by the
throat and strangled her.
Herries, after perpetrating this four
fold crime, took off his coat, the sleeve
of which was bloody, and flung it care
lessly over his shoulder, hiding the bloody
sleeve and the bloody shirt at the same
time. Then he walked up to the bridge
and climbed to the main road. He had
no fear of detection, for the road, both
ways, was open to his inspection during
the whole of the time occupied in perpe
trating his atrocities. He walked leis
urely into the village, no one taking any
notice of him, as it had been bis custom
to come home at about that time every
day for two years. Herries was hanged
at Alnwick, in May, 1856.
Houston Fifty Years Ago.
The Houston Home Journal of last
week, publishes the following reminiscen
ces of the first and second Superior
Courts held in that county:
The first Superior Court met at the
black-smith shop of Mr. James Everett,
one of the earliest settlers of the county,
and a large Indian trader, who resided at
“ Fox Valley,” a name which was lately
converted into Fort Valley, lion.
Thomas W. Harris presided. After draw
ing jurors for next term Court adjourned.
Judge Hiram Warner, now Chief Justice
of the Supreme Court of Georgia, was one
of the lawyers in attendance upon the
second session of the Superior Court of
Houston county, on the 25th of Novem
ber, 1822, and is said to give substantially
the following account £of it: The court
was held by Judge Eli S. Shorter of the
Ocmulgee Circuit, at the house of one
Little, some seven or eight miles from
Perry (on the plantation now owned by
J. M. Davis). Little was known by the
fact that he was a Justice of the Peace
and always, even when subscribing a note
of hand or a letter, attached those cabalis
tic initials to the end of his name. His
office “ magnified” him, and holding the
court at his house was the grandest event
of his life. He was most obsequious in
his attention to Judge Shorter, while not
neglectful of the members of the Bar,
some eighteen in number. The dwelling
of Little was a two-roomed or “ double
pen” log house—connected by a hall or
passage, open at both ends. One room
was covered with boards, contained but
one bed, and was occupi dby the J. P.
and his spouse, neither “ fair” nor “ fat”,
but decidedly unfascinatingjin heqappear
ance ; indeed, hard-favored. The court
sat in the other room of the house, which
was uncovered, except by the blue sky.
In one corner of this chamber was a bar*
rel of whiskey, with faucet inserted ready
for drawing. Judge Shorter took his seat
in front of this barrel and leaned his chair
against it, intending thereby to stop the
drinking, at least while the court was sit
ting. The business of the court was not
finished the first day, and owing to the
sparseness of the population, the Judge
and Par were compelled to spend the
night there, and share the simple room of
the family with Mr. and Mrs. Little.
The evening was spent around the huge
log fire, and was enlivened by the wit and
humor, anecdote and reminiscences,
which the legal gentry know so well
how to employ. At bed time Mrs. Little
began to “ make down” pallets on the
floor in the room to supply the place of
beds. This duty was nearly completed
when Mr. Little approaching Judge Shor
ter, and rubbing his hands in apologeti
cal style, remarked, “ Judge, we have
but one bed, as you see. The lawyers can
sleep on the pallets. You can occupy
the bed with the old lady and turning
to Mrs. Little said ; “ Nevermind, honey,
the Judge won’t hurt you ; you can just
turn your back to the Judge.” Where
upon the Judge looked serious, and all
the Bar except Warner rushed out of the
room to indulge their risibility with free
dom. Judge Shorter, with dignified com
posure, first cast a look at the bed, then
scrutinized closely the form and features
of Mrs. Little, and finally, with great
suavity, replied: “ Mr. Little, don’t
trouble yourself; I believe I’ll try it on
the floor with the boys.” Warner rapidly
joined the rest of the bar outside. Judge
Shorter had “ caved,” and for the first
time in his life had failed to show his ap
preciation of the charms of femininity.
The Chief Justice was much younger than
now, and his features are said to have
been much more pleasing on that occasion
than they are fifty years since when read
ing his dissenting opinions on homestead
and relief laws.
—The report that young Bennett is to
marry a Spanish beauty, Miss Yznaga
del Valle, has been pretty well authen
ticated, and seven or eight European
princesses are crying their eye3 out. The
sister of King Alfonso was at one time
negotiating for an alliance with the
house of Bennett, and Princess Thyra,
sister of the Princess of Wales, had her
hopes, but James was always caouspirci.
VOL II—NO. 9.
BRIEFLETS.
The World In a Xut .Shell-Latest \m.
—A girl in South Carolina has four
legs.
A 9-year old M isconsin girl weighs
165£ pounds.
—By January Ist, trains will run to
Hot Springs, Ark.
—Brick Pomeroy, that red-hot Demo
crat, is “ busted.”
—There will be forty-seven farmers in
the next Ohio Legislature.
—Ohio proposes sending a youth of
117 summers to the Centennial.
—A Kansas editor has been shown a
squash that weighed 149 pounds.
—Sergeant Bates is now on a tramp
through Canada with more flag than
money.
—Apropos to Poe’s monument a poet
wrote, “He asked for bread and he re
ceived a stone.”
—Between this time and January 1
there are to be twenty-three men hanged
in various parts of the country.
—At a theatre in Montreal a play has
been produced which is a dramatization
f the Passion and the Crucifixion.
—Fighting the rebellion over again—-
one George B. McClellan has been arres
ted in Philadelphia for an assault on J.
Davis.
—Rats that live in granaries are said
by professional rat-catchers not to be
poisonous, while those which feed on re
fuse meat inflict painful wounds.
—Some brute in human form sent a
Louisville man a letter containing small
pox scabs, which pestilential missive was
opened in the presence of his family.
—One of the causes for a recent rail
road “accident” in South Carolina was
the fact that both the conductor and en
gineer of one of the trains were drunk.
—The proposed tunnel from England
to France, work upon which has com
menced at the French end, will be 1G
miles long and 250 feet below the bed of
thesca.
—A high Uhlan officer of the Prussian
guards has been sentenced to a year and
a half imprisonment in a military fortress
for being married to a young lady who
was not of noble birth.
—The champion pie-eater of America
has been discovered at Molirsville, Pa.
He contracted to eat an apple pie, thirty
inches in circumference, in ten bites, and
actually devoured it in eight.
—The maddest man in Wisconsin is
John Leigh. He was a candidate for
member of the Assembly, and being a
conscientious man, voted for his oppo
nent, who was elected by one majority.
—A water-spout at Harker’s Island,
N. C., struck the dwelling of Mrs. Gas
kill, a widow, totally destroying it, kill
ing four of her children, wounding an
other, and swept the sixth—a baby—
away.
—Some wonderful vegetable produc
tions have lately been brought to light
in Michigan, among others a buttonwood
tree measuring twelve feet, an elm four
teen feet, and a grape-vine fifteen inches
in diameter.
-—Thirty-eight male adults were re
cently converted to the Jewish religion
in New York. They were converted by
ladies, who immediately embraced in
matrimonial fashion the men who em
braced their views.
—A picture of Gilbert Hunt, the color
ed black-smith, who saved the lives of a
number of persons at the burning of the
Biehmond Theater, December 215, 1811,
has been placed in the State Library of
Virginia.
The Show of Hands.
In his volume on the “ Mysteries of the
Hand,” M. Desbarrolles divides hands
into three sorts—the first sort having fin
gers with pointed tops ; the second, fin
gers with spade-shaped tops—by “ spade
shape” is meant fingers that are thick at
the end, having a little pad of flesh at
each side of the nail. The first type of
fingers belongs to characters possessed of
rapid insight into things—to extra-sen
sitive people ; too pious people, whose
piety is of the contemplative kind ; to the
impulsive, and to all poets and artists,
whose ideality is a prominent trait. The
second type belongs to scientific people;
to sensible, self-contained characters, to
most of our professional men, who steer
between the whollow practical course
that they of the spade-shaped fingers
take, and the too visionary bent of the
people with pointed fingers. The third
type pertains to those whose instincts are
material; to the people who have a genius
for commerce, and a high appreciation of
everything that tends to bodily ease and
comfort; also to people of great activity.
Each finger, no matter what the kind of
hand, has one joint representing each of
these. Thus, the division of the finger
which is nearest the palm stands for the
body (and corresponds with the spade
shaped type), the middle division repre
sents mind (the square-topped), the top,
soul (the pointed). If the top joint of the
finger be long, it denotes a character with
much imagination or ideality, and a lean
ing toward the theoretical rather than the
practical. The middle part of the finger,
if large, promises a logical calculating
mind—a common sense person. The re
maining joint, if long and thick, denotes
a nature that clings more to the luxuries
than the refinements oflife.
THE OGLETHORPE ECHO
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DEVILTRIES.
The Bacfcat, I.nte*t itnd Beet Wltfelsm*.
—Fashionable ladies' resemble a pen
cil covered with raiment.
—“ Let’s retire thirty centa of the re
deemable,” is the way they *ask a friend
to drink now.
—A New England paper aays : When
you kill a printer you make an angel.
Suppose he should be the devil ?
—At one of the colored churches In
Columbus, the other night, a woman
screamed, “ Glory ! Ise jest like soda wa
ter! Iso b’ilin’over I”
—“My native city has treated me bad
ly,” said a drunken vagabond, “but I
love her still.” “ Ihrobably,” replied a
gentleman, “ her still is all that you do>
love.”
—“ Sixteen drams make one drunk,”
mused an Athens clerk as he tried to
open the store door with his watch key.
“ But hang me if I remember the rest of
the table."
— “ Cheap China ware, but warranted
to wash,” is the way a Western paper
speaks of the Chinese women who were
recently sold in San Francisce at ten
cents a head.
— One of the things that will always
be a mystery is a woman’s ability to hold
a pound of pins in her moftth when that
receptacle can’t hold a piece of cake
larger than a thimble.
—Bearded ladies arc becoming numer
ous ; but no young lady should have a
beard on her face unless the roots of said
beard belong to a young man—and then
only in rare instances.
— “Say, Johnny,” remarked rfNew
Jersey boy, “ we’re going to have bread
puddin’ most all next week. Father’s
an elder and has all the bread that’s left
over after Communion Sunday.”
— A lightning-rod man proposed to
Superintendent Johnson that he allow
him to place rods on the passenger coach
es on the Georgia road, as they were the
best and most honest conductors yet dis
covered.
— You cat’n depend on Kansas flour.
A loaf of bread passed into Leavenworth
jail contained two files, a knife, a bottle
of acid and a roll of money. A country
that grows such wheat as that cannot
expect to get aheud very fast.
—A St. Louis editor says of a'coi*
temporary: “If Colonel Grosvenor had
been editing a newspaper some eighteen
centuries back, he would have stolen the
manuscript of the Sermon on the Mount
and suppressed it, in the interest of Pon
tius Pilate, for a dollar.”
-—The headquarters for literature just
now are the drug stores. The boy who
doesn’t bring home at least ten medical
almanacs, and read aloud marvelous
cures of fever sores to his father who is
eating supper, is not much of a boy, al'
though safe from a cuffing.
—Two lovers of Wilmington, 111.,
have fallen out. The girl was about to
marry another young man, when the'
former suitor replevined a sewing ma
chine he had given her. She responded
by suing him for the value of meals eat
en at her house, and now he has sued
her for the time occupied in courting
her.
—“ I never took much to poetry,” said
a young physician, as he lounged back
in his chair, “until I started to see that
Johnson girl, and now I’ll be doggoned
if I don’t turn even my anatomy into the
heart-softening stuff, and find a charm
in every line of rhyme I see.” He fur
ther informed us that he intended to fos
ter and cultivate this newly acquired
taste. even after marriage.
—A Texas editor dreampt he went to
hell and had lots of fun. In an extra
division, ten times hotter than the main
part, a lot of editors had old Hannibal
Hamlin tied to a stake, and were danc
ing around him with large bundles of
paper containing the postal law for extra
payment on newspapers, with which
they kept feeding the flames. In anoth
er apartment, ten times hotter than old
Hannibal’s, a crowd of slave-owners had
old Abe Lincoln brought up to a whiter
heat with emancipation proclamations.
—A drag, driven by an elegantly at
tired lady, with a trim and neatly dress
ed colored boy perched on the footman’s
scat, was passing through the streets,
when it was espied by an old negre wo
man. “ Bress de fjord,” she exclaimed,
raising her hands as she spoke, “ Bresa
de Lord, I never ’spected to see dat.
Wonder what dat culled young gemman
pays dat young white ’oman fur drivin,
dat kerridge ? I know’d it’d come, but
never spected to lib to see it. Dis nigga’s
ready to go ’way now.”
—A good story is told on Wallpole, a
Mississippi editor, who was a candidate
for office at the recent election in that
State, lie was most assiduous in his at
tentions, on his electioneering tours, to
the ladies, and made it his bounden du
ty to fondle and compliment all babiecu
His . opponent, who was also traveling
with him, seeing the ground that the
editor wa3 gaining by this manoeuvre,
took this plan of curing him: When
Wallpole would take a child from its
mother, his opponent would quietly re
mark, “ Hurry up, old fellow, I want to
electioneer with the little dear awhile
and then he would recount to the mother
how many children the candidates had
worn out during the campaign by mere
ly handling them.