Newspaper Page Text
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THE MONROE ADVERTISER.
VOL XXXIX.
i-OVE.
To kiss the hnnds that smite,
To pray for them that perse*4t«V
To hoar tho voice of biativt
H*-ap uo'W'TvM shame,
And still be mate—
Is this not love?
To give for evil good,
To learn what sacrifice enn (earn,
To be tho scoffer’s sport,
Hor strive to make retort
To jinirry speech—
Is this not love?
To face the harsh world's harms,
To brave its bitterness for years,
To b<> an unthanked slave,
And gain at last a grave
Unwrt by tears—
I? tfcls not love?
y>. B it, in Philadelphia Ledger.
FAN.
«v J a. HAKJtont.
kWMT/TX f Sf t \ SLENDER girl
'/ / \ ” f a bout fifteen
VJ \ years, with jet
b VnUiV f \ markable Mark eyes bright- of re
-A; a
// ;• ” ness and a tangled
*{/ *■ K \ ‘ •#//, mass of shining
*s"r\ ,j 7 • $ f '.'«->* black hair falling
•; over ber brow
from beneath the
torn brim of a ragged straw hat, stood
at my mother’s door one morning in
November and asked :
“Can you just lend me a cup of eof
fee au* 1 ji <»itp of sugar mill flour enough
for a bakin’ of bread? I’ll pay it all
lw-k when I can.”
My mother hail never seen the girl
before. She was untidy in her dress;
her shoes were not mates, and they
were buttonless and full of holes.
“What is your name?” my mother
j&s>.ed.
t 1 Fan."
“And your other name?”
“Tracy. ”
“U liHTe do you live?”
“ () D, just a little way down the road,
tho fi.rst, house from hero, I believe
tb'iy call it the old Peters place.”
'Vo knew, the place very well. No
•one had lived there for years. The
house, which was in (lie woods a short
•distance from tho river, had been
shabby in its best days, and now was
lit 11 o belter than a hovel. Scarcely a
pane of glass was whole, and such of
t he doors ur remained were off their
Inugee. The flours were sunken, and
the plaster was falling from the walls.
I h« house was unfit for human habi
“Do your parents live there?” my
mother asked.
“I uiut got but one parent—my dad.
Me just come throe clays ago, and dad
was told he could live in the old Peters
honso rent frc'c, and if he can get work
ntf’il settle here.”
‘ 'How many arc- there of you?”
“.lust dad and me and my little
brother Carey; lie’s only six, and little
for his H'-e.
% mother gave the girl tho articles
lor which she asked, whereupon, she
mi) I, with a sudden outburst:
“I’ll tell you, honest now, that
inebbo 1 alia n t be able to pay you
Lack those things. Dad aint got work
_\ et, and mobbe he won’t got anything
to do; but if he docs and if I can, I’ll
pay you back. ”
Wo did not see tlie girl again for a
week, but in that time we learned a
id tic more about the Tracy family.
Mrs. Hornby came over to our house
one afternoon to “set awhile.” Mrs.
I lorn In was an elderly person of so
mueh leisure that she spent most of
her time m “setting awhile” in the
homes o! her neighbors; but she had
so much gossip to relate that she was
not, as a rule, unwelcome.
“You ve heard about a man named
1 1 ae> and 1 i is two children moving
into tlie old 1 eters place, haven’t you,
Mis’ Harley?” asked Mrs. Hornby.
es," replied my mother. “The
girl has been up hero to borrow some
things. ”
“Gh, I reckon so! I guess they
li\e mostly on what they can ‘borrow.’
1 lu y d bettor call it begging aud be
done with. it. Have thVv paid you
back?” “ ‘ *
“No; but the girl was honest enough
to toll me that- she couldn’t pay me
back if her father did not get work
here."
“Work!” ejaculated Mrs. Hornby,
•contemptuously. “I guess that all
the work that Tracy fellow does won’t
hurt him much nor do his family any
good. He spends most of his time
down to Jim Fifer’s saloon near the
Ferry. My! I’d lead the wav and
carry au ax if the women oi' this
neighborhood would go down there
some night and tear down that saloon
to the ground !
’linn the Fracys nre so poor be
cause tho father is a drinking man?"
“les; and you may well say poor
I was going by the old Peters place
yester lay, and 1 just thought I’d step
iu and see how the children were get
ting along in that old shell.
Have they made the old place at
ail habitable:
“M ell, the man has exerted himself
enough to hang a door or two and
patch the floor up some. r.w’r
- >"«... room.,
w indow m them are boarded up.
1 Su cupboard.^
table and an old
that s ev n stick of furniture
have excoptiug what that girl, Fan,
has made out of some old boxes. She s
a terror, that Jan is.
ue must allow a good deal for her
8 r^° KT l T g6and 5 he 8b e
probably been under all her life, , said
my mother.
“Well, she needn t be so sancy,
anyhow. She just as good as told me
that she didn’t thank me for coming
around, and I going there with the
FORSYTH, MONROE COUNTY, GA, TUESDAY MORNING, APRIL 24, 1894.
kindent motives'! And when I asked
her if she didn’t have * broom to kfeep
the place effian with, she had the im- i
pudence to ask me if I couldn't lend
her mine, as I probably had no nse
for it, or I wouldn’t have so much
time to attend to other folks’ door
yards—the saucy thing !*
“Did you see the little boy?”
•‘Yes, and he had better manners,
He sat back in a corner on a box and
kept as quiet as a mouse. Ht’s a pale,
sickly-looking little fellow, and he
walks a little lame. I’ve seen him out
in the timber picking Up sticks to
burn. I’ve heard of them ‘borrowing’
thing* all over the neighborhood, but
I haven’t heard of their paying any
thing back.”
However, the next day Fan came up
to our house and returned the sugar
she had borrowed the week before,
and asked for some more flour. My
mother, who was frying doughnuts,
gave Fan three or four of those, in ad
dition to the flour, to carry home to
bar little brother ;
“Oh, PVP so muc h obliged,
Mis’ Harley!” Fan exclaimed, with
tears in her eyes. “Carey’U be so
pleased ! I was trying to make up my
mind to ask you for one of them, but
I was ashamed. Dad don’t earn
scarcely anything, but he’s husking
corn now for a farmer, and I hope
he'll have steady work for h while.”
But the next evening we heard that
“dad” had been at Jim J'ifer’s saloon
all day, and we knew that Fan’s hopes
bad come to naught. At ton o’clock
that same evening my father, as he
was preparing to go to bod, heard
what seemed to him a light, timid
kiiook on the front door.
Itwasadark, cold and stormy night;
the wind blew with such forco that
my father could not be sure that what
he heard was a knock at the door. He
listened, and when the knock was re¬
peated he opened the door. Fan and
Carey Tracy stood there in the cold,
bareheaded and without wraps. They
had been crying, and Carey’s lips were
quivering still.
“Will you let us come in out of the
storm, Mr. Harley,” said Fan, with
bitterness in her voice. “We’ve no
place to go, and I wouldn’t ask for any
place for myself—I’d crawl into a hay
stack or stay in tlie woods all night;
but I don’t dare to with Carey. He
isn’t strong, and I wish you’d please
take him iu, anyhow.”
“Come in, both of yoti,” replied my
father. “Why are you out this time
of the
' Fan hesitated.
“I’ll have ,.tho honest
truth,” she said, presently
erne home from that Ferry »aloo.i
about an hour ago and turned us out.
He never would have done it if he
hadn’t been drinking. He isn’t mean
to us when he’s sober. It’s the fault
of the saloon that he acts so, and I’ll
—I’ll tear down that saloon to the
ground! I just will!”
“But that would be breaking the
law, and another saloon would proba¬
bly be built in its place,” said father.
“Perhaps if you spoke to the saloon¬
keeper it might—”
“I have been to him,” interrupted
Fan. “I’ve coaxed and begged him
not to let father have drink, but what
good did it do? Not a bit.”
She put an arm around Carey pro
tectingly, and tlie little fellow clung
to her side. My mother rose and
prepared a bed for Fan and her little
brother. The next morning my father
went home with them to see if he
could not make some appeal to Tracy
in behalf of his helpless children.
The man was sober now and repent¬
ant. He promised earnestly that this
should be the last time that he would
drink rum.
“But he’s promised that so many
times," said Fan, wearily, following
my father a short distance from the
old house. “He promised it over and
over to mother before she died, and
he’d keep his promise if he could.
He can’t while there are saloons
around. But there’ll be one less
in this neighborhood some day, if this
happens again!”
It did happen again. It happened
three days later, but this time Tracy
did not at first turn his children out
of the house. He fell to the floor in
a drunken stupor the moment he
stumbled across his own threshold,
and lay there a helpless, degraded
creature, a shame aud a sorrow to his
children and to himself.
Fan had put little Carey to bed be
fore his father came home, Now she
S!l t alone iu the dim light of a smold
eriug fire iu the rusty stove at one
en ^ of the room. Her father lay,
breathing heavily, just where he had
fallen when he had stumbled into the
house, and Fan sat or crouched down
ou floor by the stove and looked at
him.
Finally she got up and touched the
sleeping man lightly ou the shoulder,
“Father,” she said.
He made no reply, and Fan bent
over him and shook him lightly,
“Father,” she said again, “don’t yoxi
want to go to bed?”
He struek at her in the darkness, and
sprang suddenly to his feet, raging and
cursing. Fan knew what might come.
She ran to the bed and dragged
Carey from it. His clothes were on a
»&
in her arms, a ragged old quilt wrapped
! eTis
amU-ryi^. tlUDg ^ ^ mgbteUed
“There, there; don t be afraid;
sister will take care of yon,” said Fan,
soothingly.
^ ^ down ou a fallen log, put on
j the child’s clothes and wrapped the
old quilt around him, saying to her
self as she did so:
“I ll do it : 1 11 do n ’ I’ve said
that I would aud I will! But I’ll give
, Jim JNfer fair warning first. I’ll go
' and tell him to his face.”
j ‘‘Where we going now. Fan?” asked
Cafey* trying as to Fan tie fumbled of the about little excitedly, fe’low * j
one
ragged shoes in the darkness. “Ar^f
we going up to Mr. Harley’s agaiD,
Fan?”
“I hate to go up there again Carey.”
“But it's raining now, Fan, and we
can’t stay oat here in the woods all
night, can we?”
“No, not if it rains* Carev j but wC
can—I know where sudden we’ll go, Carey!”
she said, With resolution. “It’s
where We've got the best right to go;
it’s where we’ve got a perfect right to
&o; come on.”
She sprang suddenly to her feet and
started down the road at such a rapid
rate, with the little boy’s hand clasjied
so tightly in hers, that he begged:
^ ^ an > wn ^ • you too fast,
an( ^ Y°} 1 hurt my hand,
“I didn’t mean to, Carey. III walk
slower now.
In half an hour the y came to Jira
UUer , s saloon down by the Jerry. The
little ons-roomed frame house was
dark, and Fan shook her list savageiy
toward H as she hurried by with Carey
clinging close to her side.
“ r11 do thl8 neighborhood a good
service by ridding it of yon. d do it
this minute if I didn t have Carey with
me ». sbe gasped.
I Jtni Fifer lived in a new house at
the edge of the timber a short distance
from his saloon. A bright light shone
* n two °^be front windows of the
bouse.
; 1 bey ^ re up, f> said Fan to herself,
*'L s a good thing they are, or I d get
em U P* father s earnings have
helped to pay for that house, and 1 ve
a right to stay iu it. 111 tell Jim Fifer
80 •
She rapped loudly at the door. Jim
Fifer opened it. Fan strode in boldly
with Carey’s hand in hers.
“I guess you know us, Jim Fifer,”
she said, w’hen she had closed the door
and was standing with her back against
it. She stood and looked fiercely at
him, while his wife, a sad-eyed, trou¬
bled-looking young woman stared at
the two children in wonder.
“I don’t have to tell you, Jim Fifer,
that we are Mr. Tracy’s children. He
came home from your saloon mad with
drii^ awhile ago and chased us out
into the cold and darkness; he’s done
it many a time when drink has made
him crazy. Weld no place to go, and
as your whisky made him drive us out,
I thought you’d feel that it was your
to take us iu. ”
She spoke fearlessly, with her big,
shining black eyes fixed on the man’s
face. One arm was thrown protect
ingly around her little brother, who
had his face in her skirts and was trem
bung ami- , crjmgw-tb . ... lerror , of , the
man whom h e regartft}&-flS.the cause of
a * their misfortune.
before the man could make any r'e
ply his wife uttered a cry, and ran 4°
him and hid her face on his breast.
a voice broken by sobs she cried c >u t
pitifully:
“O James! James! is it true? Dt >es
she tell me the truth?”
Fifer hung his head in silence,
Fan said in a lower and gentler
“It is true, every word of it, Mrs.
Fifer. We’ve often been turned out
at night into the cold and the wet, and
we go ragged and hungry because of
that saloon.”
“James ! James ! James !” cried Mrs.
Fifer, in an agony of shame and dis¬
tress.
There had been strange influences at
work in Jim Fifer’s heart for two or
three days; a slumbering conscience
had suddenly been quickened into life.
Several things had happened to trouble
him. Other cases of distress had come
to him, and his young wife had been
pleading with him that very evening
to forsake the business. He loved her,
and he loved his own two little boys
sleeping safely in their beds in the
next room.
He thought of them, and of the dis¬
grace that he was piling up for their
future, as he looked at the two wet,
ragged, pale and hungry-looking chil¬
dren of Joe Tracy.
His wife was thinking of them, too,
for she suddenly cried out in a sharper
note of pleading distress: “James,
James, think of our own two little
boys!”
“I am thinking of them, Martha,’
he said.
“Then I know what you will do :
James,” she said.
He nodded his head two or three
times without speaking, and suddenly
broke away from his wife’s embrace
and run hatless from the house.
His wife turned toward the twe
children, and took little Carey up into
her arms, crying over him and kissing
him.
Five minutes later a red glow illu¬
mined the woods down by the Ferry.
A sheet of flame shot up among th«
trees, making their black and leafless
branches stand out boldly in its light.
The flames rose higher and higher,
and Mrs. Fifer aud Fan could see ir
the brilliant firelight a bareheadec
man standing in the road with folded
arms looking at the destruction of his
casks of liquor. He had dragged
them out into the road and set fire tc
them.
The place at the Ferry was never
as a saloon. In the little
building Jim Fifer set up the business
q{ a shoem aker, to which he had been
" abe -
Mv father and eeveral others inter
ly ort^;
! °?IrTFHe“did muet'foi
the* children *
1 There gtiU ins of manli
wer e rema
* and honor in TrftcVf and
negs and’
the time C ame when Fan Care j
were ud to call him father, and
vh€n he was all that a father ought tc
, be t o his children.—Youth’s Com
panion. ___
| Since October 1, 1820, there havi
been 17,113,979 immigrants from for
ejgn countries to the United States.
$[[ ( S{{] AFl’LiTb ANIMAL^ j 1
INSTANCES OF THE FORMER'S POW¬
ER OVER THE RATTER. i
I
flow Harmonious Sounds Make I
an
Impression Upon Hogs, Kats, Tur¬
tles, Fish and Snakes. |
u D ON T you believe it,” said !
Stephen Mulvey* a New !
York dog fancier, in re
ply to the statement that j
the prolonged and peculiar howl ut
tered by some dogs at the sound of
music i3 evidence that it distresses
them. “Don’t you believe it. Their
souls are lifted up by it. That is their
way of expressing joy. I don’t think
music ever worried any dog. ”
“Are there not some breeds more
liable to be influence 1 than others?”
was asked by a News reporter.
“Breeding has nothing to do with
it,” was the reply. *‘You find some ;
people who don’t care a straw’ for !
music. And again there are others
who, without understanding a note, \
are passionately fond of it. It’s just j
so with dogs, it depends on the indi- |
vidual character of the animal. ”
“Is it not a fact that dogs of a high
nervous devlopment are most apt to
be affected?”
“You can’t lay down any rule as to
that. Iu my opinion it isn’t at all a
question of nerves. There are ner¬
vous people who are quite indifferent
to music, and there are phlegmatic
people who will go out of their way to
bear it. You seel compare dogs with
men, and draw my conclusion from
the comparison, because I have made
a long study of dogs and find that
dogs are more like a human beingthan
are any other animals.
“Look at that big white bulldog
yonder,” continued Mr. Mulvey.
“That’s Prince, wdio made such a rack¬
et at the bench show that they had to
chain him up in the cellar. His grand¬
father killed nearly a hundred dogs,
and Prince is like his grandfather, yet
if you pipe for him you’d find that
he’d just as lief dance as fight. ”
Mr. Montgomery, an amateur nat¬
uralist on West Fourty-seventh street,
confirmed Mr. Mulvey’s statement
that dogs are generally fond of music.
“I have known even fishes to mani
fest a very positive gratification at
musical sounds,” he said also. “You
have heard the story of the carp in the
waters at Fontainebleau that respond¬
ed regularly to the tinkling of a bell.
It is undoubtedly a true story. In my
aquarium there several iM fc gold fish which I
have had for ypv.’s. It knows
me as well as mytdog. Ui ien j whistle
to it it comes to ithe snrt'ac, anr v f eec ] s
:>ut of my hau^. i, Ad jft\Ting the room
in which the aquarium stands is a
piano. Let any one play on it and
this gold fish will dart about in the
liveliest possible fashion. ”
“You think it has a sense of har¬
mony then?”
“I know it has. That is shown by
the fact that mere thumping on the
piano, without producing any tune,
does not affect it. It will lie as still as
if the instrument were silent. The
other fish do not seem to have an ear
Y mj m usic.
“BuKsp ea ^i u g of dogs, there is a
cocker til Philadelphia, who
beats ties,” the the r'ecdffWQUjnusical speaker contiffTU’d. proclivi¬
belongs to a surgeon at one of
hospitals. merely, Not only is he quick to
recognize but his master has
actually taught him to turn a tune. It
sounds like a fairy story, I know, but
it is an authentic fact. He lifts his
chin, presses his ears close to his
head, like a dog in the act of howling,
and gives vent to a cry that has both
measure and melody.”
The following incident occurred at
the Brooklyn Academy of Music: It
was during a performance by the late
Hans von Bulow, the famous pianist.
He was playing one of Schubert’s
compositions a soft, pensive strain,
which he rendered with exquisite feel
ing and delicacy. Presently two rats
peeped from behind . the scenes and
cautiously approached the piano. In
a minute or so they were fol
lowed by three or four more. Finally
they all esconeed themselves under
the instrument and sat there upon
their haunches, listently intently, un
doubtedly charmed by the strains.
The player was unconscious of the
strange audience which his perform
ance attracted, but the extraordinary
spectacle was witness by nearly every
body in the nouse.
“►Some years ago, , ’ Mr. Montgomery
said further, ' I had a pet crow which
was as intelligent and mischievous as
pet crows usually are. I gave it as
present to the little daughter of
friend of mine.^ This friend was a fine
performer on the flute, and he often
employed his talent to beguile an old
rat that frequented his bacK yard. He
used to amuse callers by taking down
his flute and giving them proofs of its j
power over the susceptible rodent. On
one occasion, while the rat was sitting
listening to this performance, the pet
crow happened to be perched at an
open window on tne second story. It
was not a croiv that cared tor tnat sort
of thing. Indeed, I never heard of a
crow that did. Suddenly, while the
flute emitting . its most dulcet
was
notes, there was a flapping of wings
and the bird descended like a bolt
from its perch. Whether the rat was
too spellbotind to be on guard against
surprise, or the attack was too sudden
eo be avoided, 1 don’t know. Certain
it is, however, that the crow struck it
in the back of the neck with its beak
and killed it instantly. It is the only
case I can recall of an animal that was
sacrificed to its passion for music.”
There is a gentleman residing on
West Seventeenth street, who has a
summer residence in Westchester
County. One of his little girls found
a common wood turtle there and
bronght it down to the city in the fall. ’
She kept it in the back yard, where it
ipeedilv made the acquaintance of the
cook and used to tumble down thg
steps two or three times a week to lw)
fed. The cook has a harmonicon with
which it was her custom after work
ing hours to make the neighborhood
melancholy. While she was play*
ing on a certain evening the child
noticed the turtle waddling through
the grass as fast as it could go, never
pausing until it reached the edge of
the area, where it stood with its head
thrust out further than she had ever
seen it before, As soon as the har
monicon ceased the turtle half with
drew within its shell, and, turning
about, made for the grass again. The
child told the cook what she had seen,
and the latter thereupon blew another
dirge on the harmonicon. Sure
enough, the little girl had not mis¬
understood the turtle’s motive. No
sooner were the sounds resumed than
back it came, stopping just opposite
to the kitchen window and thrusting
its head out as before. Since then its
susceptibility to music has been fre
quently demonstrated, and neighbors
often bring strangers in to witness the
sight.
Mr. Montgomery told the News man
that next to dogs snakes were most
easily affected by musical sounds. He
could readily believe the stories which
came from India of the use which the
fakirs make of their knowledge of this
fact. He had himself experimented
with snakes, but under circumstances
that did not afford the best test. The
common black snake, he said, could
be quite easily charmed, especially
when it is young. But snakes are not
attracted by every musical note. There
are some strains that catch them
sooner than others, He had not
studied the subject sufficiently to say
where they drew the line. As a usual
thing they seem to prefer a slow’ and
mournful measure.
WISE WORDS.
The birds do not sing by note,
With Cupid salary is no object.
What a girl thinks, a woman would
like to.
A woman can not hide her heart
throbs.
Swearing at a horse never stops hia
balking.
He who sows wild oats is not apt to
reap tame ones.
Most men love women because they
love themselves.
We always better ourselves by for¬
getting ourselves.
Melody is the soul of music, as har*
mony is its body.
Much bending breaks the bow ; much
unbending the ynind.
Cynicism is one of the shadows
which experience casts.
The man who “itches for fame” is
usually kept scratching.
Ambition is, to a certain extent,
concentrated selfishness.
Riches exclude only one inconveni¬
ence, and that is poverty.
If thou desires to be wise, be so
wise as to hold thy tongue.
Every generation of man is a laborer
for that which succeeds it.
What a flower enjoys, it gives to the
world in color and perfume.
He who is firm and resolute in will
J uS«4]}ft.B'prld generallf^^Thip^^li to himself,
It is \ J^man
when he be ins to do vn hilL ^
°
^peak „ but little and well it
you
wouu ‘ o e esteemed a man of merit,
Forced to Live on Barnacles.
Not many people are ever com¬
pelled to subsist solely on a diet of
barnacles, and when they are it is
generally after som^desert they have been ship¬
wrecked on island, instead
of in the midst of a wealthy Christian
community. And yet that is what a
man has Veen doing for several weeks,
He has often been seen climbing over
the half-rotten piles in the vicinity of
the Mail dock at low tide and scrap
ing off the moliusks, but nobody paid
aa y attention to him until the other
flay he sat on a stringer and began to
mike a meal out of his gift from the
sea.
“Do you like those things?” asked
a bystander, “and don’t you know
they are poison?” “They haven’t
poisoned me,” answered the man,
“and I don’t eat them because I like
them, but because I have nothing else
and don’t know when I will have.”
His story was only another chapter of
the terrible experiences of the unem
ployed during the winter. He was an
unmarried man, aud had wandered
around the streets of San Francisco
vritnout food until he nearly dropped
from exhaustion before he thought ol
eating the barnacles,
That was over three weeks ago, and
in the meantime he has eaten nothing
else. He was perfectly willing to talk
about himself as he greedily devoured
+he tiny, raw bivalves. “Pretty tough
food, ain't they?” asked the man who
watching him. “You bet they
are,” he replied, throwing a handful
of shells into the bay, “but I would
rather eat them all the rest of my life
than beg.”—San Francisco Call,
Long Branch Long a Summer Resort,
Long Branch has been a summer re
sort for 116 years. A Philadelphian
in 1778 engaged summer boarding for
himself and" family at the Colonel
White House, Long’Branch, upon con
dition that he provide his own bed
ding. He provided not onlv bedding
but meat as well, because the landlady
could furnish only fish and vegetables,
The property in question, including
100 acres, was sold in 1790 for $700,
and S2000 having been spent in im
provements, a regular summer resort
was opene L Two years later the visi
tors at the place saw the battle between
the English frigate Boston and Che
French frigate Ambuscade.
THE NATION’S ARID LANDS.
GREAT VALUE OF IRRIGATION TO
TILLERS OF THE SOIL.
A Vast Area, N ot One-Tenth of Which
Can He Reclaimed—Availability
of Artesian Wells.
T RRIGATION of arid land lying in
I Asia and Northern Africa has
j been practised for ages. Long
, before the era of recorded history
the system was perfected in those lands.
Among the first governments estab¬
lished by the man were those founded
on and by the ditch. Population was
first cemented to the soil by water that
flowed through ditches. What little
semi-civilization there was on earth
was fringed along rivers that annually
overflowed, and by ditches through
which life-giving and population-sup¬
porting water flowed.
All arid lands, it matters not where
they lie, are worthless, and a large
area is required to support a single
beast, say, from fifteen to thirty acres.
The growth of grass is scanty, and it
does not. endure close grazing, and if
so grazed it speedily disappears. Water
only has value in arid zones. With¬
out water tlie land cannot be brought
under the plow. With water properly
applied the arid lands are transformed
from non-productive deserts into tho
most productive soil on earth, and
capable of supporting an exceedingly
dense population.
What is the area of the arid lands of
the United States? Open a map of the
country, place your index linger on
the one hundredth meridian at the
southern boundary, draw it diagonally
northward to the Canadian boundary
line at the point where the' ninety
ninth meridian passes into Manitoba.
All land west ef that line and east of
the Pacific Ocean is arid, save Western
Washington, Western Oregon and
Northern California.
It is true that within thiR arid zone
there are large areas of land where the
rainfall is sufficiently heavy to permit
grain to be grown to perfect maturity,
and there are other large areas in
which crops are occasionally snatched
from the grasp of herbage devouring
siroccos. But the migratory Western
settler, the children of the Mississippi
Valley, long ago discovered these pro¬
ductive and semi-procluotive districts,
and they are fully occupied. As a
whole, the region that I have indicated
is arid, and until wind deflecting
mountain chains sink into the earth
and the prevailing winds cease to
blow it will remain arid.
How much of this arid land can be
reclaimed? That question cannot be
answered accurately, but many acres
less than the advocates of Government
aid to The establish annual irrigation works as¬
sert. rainfall in this region,
taken as a wdiole, does not exceed ten
inches. To raise grain to perfect ma¬
turity inches of requires rainfall, from and with tw%^y this to amount thirty
of precipitation the rain must not be
bunched, but must fall when needed.
Throughout the arid zone a delay of a
few days in the falling of a needed rain
is fatal to full crops, and a delay of a
few weeks forbids the gathering of any
crops at all. It requires but a few days
of dry weather in the arid zone to
awaken the wrath of the -southwest
wind and cause it to blow its hot
breath in fierce blasts over the laud,
and all vegetation withers and curls
'"a^Ta^Si^ talkSfvfeM^ion> the wind blows many whole, days.
All as ft
ever being reclaimed is
of ignorant men. Ten inches of rain¬
fall, even if every drop was conserved,
is not sufficient to irrigate the region.
The rain and the snow fall on gravelly
plains, on sandy wastes, and on lofty
mountain chains, none of which can be
reclaimed. A large portion of the
moisture is lost by evaporation, an¬
other large portion sinks into the
ground, in fact, the only areas with¬
in the arid zone that can be depended
on to supply water to irrigating ditches
are the highlands. In those regions
of lofty altitudes the summer rains
quickly run down the steep flanks of
the mountains and into the creeks and
rivers. And the snow, which contains
the great bulk of the moisture that
falls in the highlands, lies deep in
mountain valleys, and shaded canyons
and melts slowly andkeeps the streams
full of ivater during the very months
that water is required on the plains.
There are no permanent, everfiowing
rivers that course through the plains,
save those that head in the snowbanks
that lie in the innermost recesses of
the mountains.
It is evident that there can be no
greater aggregate of water in any re¬
gion than the amount that falls from
the clouds on the land, less the amount
that flows out by rivers, and less the
evaporation. This being true, the
statement that one-fourth or one-fifth
of the arid land can be reclaimed is a
mistake. The writer unhesitatingly
asserts that not one-tenth of the land
lying between the one hundredth meri¬
dian and the Pacific Ocean, again ex¬
cluding Western Washington and Ore¬
gon and portions of California and
favored areas, such as the Palouse re¬
gion, can ever be brought under the
the plow, and solely because there is
not sufficient water in the region to
irrigate any larger area than is here
written of.
Much of the water that sinks below
the level of the watercourses can be
made available by artesian wells, but
these wells cannot flow an excess of the
water that falls on the land, and tney
cannot reasonably be expected to sup
plement irrigation ditches to any great
extent. New York Times.
The diamond market has been very
much depressed of late, and the great
London syndicate which controls the
stone market ha- had a hard time to
^f ep bmail P ri< diamonds l e . s U P> 80 l can ar g e npw 1S . t ^ be e SU ob¬ P'
tained at a very low- price.
no. h;
SELECT SIFTINGS.
On the Alps vinegar is made of millt
whey.
Schumann wrote an opera when litf
was only twelve years old.
Eton College, England, has just cele¬
brated its 452d anniversary.
An .Egeau piece of the year 700 B.
C. is the oldest coin in the world.
A blind lawyer argued a case in A
Bradford, England, court not long
ago and secured a verdict for his client.
In Mongolia, Asia, there are no
hotels. Monasteries, however, arc
numerous, and they always accommo¬
date travelers.
The Acta Diurna (“Day’s Doings”)
published in the later days of tho
Roman Empire, was the first newspaper
the world lias ever had.
A sickle blade found at Karuack,
uear Thebes, and believed to date from
ibout 2000 B. C., is regarded as tho
aldest bit of wrought iron iu the world.
A man with two artificial arms, one
artificial leg and one glass eye lives in
Mayville, Mo. He is pretty comt’ort
ible, considering how little there is
left of him.
One of the oldest families in Vir¬
ginia, a branch of which resides in
Brooklyn, have for generations spelled
their surname Enrouglity, but they
pronounce it Darby.
Gottlieb Schwartz, an unemployed
Chicago waiter, committed suicide
while hopeless and despondent. Word
jame from Germany soon after that
be had fallen heir to au estate valued
at $250,000.
The old Basque convent in which
Loyola was raised is still one of the
handsomest monasteries, as regards
the interior decoration, in Europe. It
is beautifully adorned, the rafters and
sellings being covered with thick gold
leaf.
Rev. Thomas T. Stone, D. D., who
is now residing in Middlesex County,
Massachusetts, recently completed his
ninety-third year, He is the oldest
living graduate of Bowdoin College,
Maine, and lias served seventy years
in the ministry.
A sea serpent with two eyes at tho
end of his nose and a valve in the top
of his head, like that of a porpoise,
has been discovered in Lake Superior.
The mate of a schooner, who vouches
for the truth of the story, say’s that
tho serpent made several unsuccessful
efforts to climb on the deck of his
vessel.
During a blinding snowstorm John
Cameron, of Tuscarora, Cal., fell into
a shaft some twenty-five feet deep, and
was rendered unconscious. When he
recovered his senses, realizing that no
one could hear his cries for help, he
used his pocket knife to cut steps in
the almost perpendicular sides and
reached the surface unaided.
Leaves of the talipot palm in Ceylon
sometimes attain the length of twenty
feet, with a width of eighteen feet.
They are used by the natives in making
tents. The leaves of the double cocoa
nut palm arc often thirty feet long,
while those of the Inaja palm on the
banks of the rivers of Brazil are some¬
times fifty feet long and ten to twenty
feet wide.
A Famous Clinic.
Perhaps the most famous clinic in
the world was the late Dr. Theodore
Billroth in the Univarsity of Vienna.
To it came students from every civil¬
ized land to learn the methods and
teachings of the great
professor. i
The discipline in his clini C "W (Uib luali
of an army, the result, possibly, of his
long military service. A martinet,
of few words, cold in manner, though
sympathetic and tender with his
patients, he gave himself little concern
as to details, exacting from every one
of his ten assistants the perfect per¬
formance of the duties assigned to him,
seldom troubling himself to bestow a
word of praise, while a rebuke from
him, usually couched in the words,
“But, Doctor,” came to be considered
almost a disgrace. In operating he
was cool and almost cold blooded,
swift, alert and dexterous. His methods
were often unique, so much so his
name occurs in modern works on sur
gery continually, perfecting or im¬
proving some operations. His greatest
fame was reached in 1881, when ho
performed for the first time success¬
fully excision of the pyloric end of tho
stomach for cancer. This achieve¬
ment made his reputation world-wide,
and easily placed him in a command¬
ing position as a bold and successful
operator. He soon came to be con¬
sidered the first surgeon in Europe,
and his clinic became renowned for
the number and character of the opera¬
tions performed by him. —Review of
Reviews.
Tragedy oi the Black Swamp,
Three and a half miles west of Aldie,
Loudoun County, Va., is the locally
famous “black swamp,” and a strange
story has been current thereabouts for
the better part of this century. Jesse
McVeigh lived long ago in an old stone
house on the edge of the swamp, and
there came to him once a stranger
asking shelter. The stranger was taken
in and he lived there for five years.
He never went beyond the pond for
exercise, and he took elaborate pre¬
cautions at night to guard against sur¬
prise. When he died a stranger from
a neighboring village came and claimed
the body, professing to recognize tho
dead man as an acquaintance. The
stranger who claimed the body was
the dead man’s son, and he afterward
became Chief Justice of the United
States Supreme Court. The father, a
wealthy and well educated Marylander,
but a man of ungovernable temper,
3rad slain a guest at his own table by
breaking his skull with a decanter.
The homicide’* place of hiding was
hardly more than fifty miles from the
scene of his oritne.—Chicago Herald.