Newspaper Page Text
BY PAUL H. HAYXE.
IS DEMOCRACY V FAILURE.* democratic government, and be moved serious- Familiar Talks About New
,v ly to apprehend results as disastrous as any
that have made France sadly famous in recent
Communism in the United States, history. But there is no such similarity. A
complete metamorphosis of the respective pop
ulations would be necessary.
It would require too much space to point out
the leading characteristics in which the American
people differ from the people whose examples
erve Macaulay as ground for the belief, that
Books. THE GHOSTLY HORSEMEN.
A Scene in a Tunnel.
A Legend of Stirling Castle.
Review of Lord Macaulay's l.etter on the
Subject of Labor vs. Capital.
BY CHARLES W. HTBNER.
LIFE OF DeQUINCEY—No. IV.
Before passing to the subject-proper of this
article, I have a few words to say upon the ec
centricities of “printer’s devils.” These ink-
besmirched and sometimes malicious little imps,
T , ,, , , ... . , whenever they get possession of an author’s
More than twenty years ago Lord Macaulay Democracy and the destruction of liberty and ma nuscript, are almost su -e to misinterpret it,
wrote a series of letters to Henry S. Randall, an- civilization are equivalents. However, there are presentin £ such versions in type as have often
thor of the “ Life of Jefferson in which he dis- three factors whose sum presents an insurmoun- cansed th | luckless litterateur frantically to tear
cussed, at length, the political prospects of the table obstacle to the success of communistic h is hair; or in default of that graceful covering,
United States, and the Jeffersonian doctrine of vagaries in our country, and which will preserve tQ luck off his wi and dash it eart hward with
government. it from the mischief and dire effects of French pie expletives” In the Sunny South estab-
The letters are very interesting, and were re- pure democracy, so called. These factors lishment there is a “printer’s devil” of more
cently republished in Harper s Magazine. They are Religion-the influence of the pulpit, the than ordinary ingenuity in evil-doing. I arraign
are worthy of profound respect, because they religious training of the masses by an open blQ1 now> and 0 “ ce fo ; alli because of his nu-
embracethe judgment of a master mind, and Bible tree churches, and unlimited Sabbath- merous offences one whereof, especially calcu-
th- views of a man whose genius and scholar- schools; a blessed tn-une power, whose potency lateJ t0 provoke hair-scattering and anathemas,
ship command the admiration of the world; alike for good is immeasurable Secondly, the general occurred j n my paper on “Gill’s Life of Poe.”
distinguished in statesmanship, in the splen- intelligence of our people; our six millions of j should like to know what this pestilent imp
did domain of history, and the charmful walks children in the common schools, managed by a meant by introducing the adjective “coarse ” in
of poetry, rhetoric and criticism. system superior to any other in the world; our tbe sentence which follows :
I desire to call especial attention to one of the hooks in every household; our libraries in every ..p oe - s career remained a perplexed one until
most pointed and suggestive of these letters, : village and town and, above all other literary : b iu3men8e labori & 0>> his last biographer
wherein Macaulay predicts the destruction of ; alda . our Press, religious and secular; the “voice brou „ bt order out of chaos, and lurnished the
our form of government, and consequent despot- th e people; their guide counselor, and clue tQ a ijf e —coarse, sad, and painful indeed,
ism, or anarchy, as the result of a general revolt champion; free as the air and as penetrating; - — -
(See Engraving.)
Stirling Castle -historical old Stirling—with
its great stone towers, turrets, ramparts and
battlements, ivy-grown and mouldering, seems
a tit location for a ghostly legend; and accord
ingly one hangs about it more stern and gloomy
than any Banshee story that gives romance to
castles less historical and martial in their tradi-
Railroad tunnels have their romantic and ri
diculous phases. Many stories are related in
which curious facts are developed when the
passenger cars emerge from subterranean dark
ness into the full sunlight. Vails are displaced,
feminine hair winds its seperate threads about
some masculine beard, and the shirt bosoms
just from the laundry of some Ah Sin are rum
pled suddenly and strangely. What rollicking
apparitions visit tunnels, especially long ones!
People go into the bath of darkness, and come
tions. In former years, it was the custom to , . . . , , , , ,
leave the ponderous gi Ues of the castle-wall I ? at had just awoke from sleep, look
of the laboring classes of our people against law the welcome daily and weekly visitor in almost
and order, and in the interest of Communism. ever y home in this broad land; unfolding to the
In view of the recent extensive strikes in the i comprehension of the humblest citizen the plan
eastern and western states, and the fearful loss ■ or purpose of the mightiest; causing every man
of life, and destruction of property which fol- to feel that he is intimately concerned with the
lowed the movement, and that grew out of the affairs of his country, and that, to the extent of
reckless disregard of life and property on the his individuality, he is a judge and arbiter of its
part of ungovernable mobs, Macaulay’s ominous [ destiny. It teaches him the divine truth of the
prophecy confronts us again with peculiar sig- j Gospel; enforces the mandates ot an enlightened
ificance. It becomes a matter of grave impor
tance to know whether the argument of Macau
lay is based upon sound premises, and whether
his conclusions are logical. We want to know
whether government by the people inevitably
leads to despotism, or anarchy, and whether
our laboring classes are actuated by the same
spirit of evil which characterizes French
Communism, and whether the American labor
ing man is, really, a steadily developing Hun or
Vandal.
The following in substance, is the letter un
der consideration
“I am certain that I never wrote a line, and
that I never, in Parliament, in conversation, or
even on the hustings—a place where it is the
fashion to court the populace—uttered a word
indicating an opinion that the supreme authori
ty in a state ought to be intrusted to the major
ity of citizens told by the head; in other words
to the poorest and most ignorant part of society.
I have long been convinced that institutions
purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy
liberty or civilization, or both. What happened
lately in France is an example. In 1848 a pure
democracy was established there. During a
short time there was a reason to expect a gener
al spoliation, a national bankruptcy, a new par
tition of the soil, a maximum of prices, a ruinous
load of taxation laid on the rich for the purpose
ofsupporting the poor in idleness. Such a sys
tem would, in twenty years, have made France
as poor and barbarous as the France of the Car-
lovingians. Happily, the danger was averted.
You may think that your country enjoys an ex
emption from these evils. Your fate I believe
to be certain, though it is deferred by a physical
cause. As long as you have a boundless extent
of fertile and unoccupied land, your laboring
population will be far more at ease than
the laboring population of the Old World, and
while that is the case the Jefferson politics may
continue to exist without causing any fatal ca
lamity. But the time will come when New Eng
land will be as thickly peopled as Old England.
Wages will be as low and will fluctuate as much
with you as with us. You will have your Man-
chesters and Birminghams, and in those Man
chesters and Birminghams hundreds of thou
sands of artisans will assuredly be sometimes
out of work. Then your institutions will be fair
ly brought to the test. Distress everywhere
makes the laborer mutinous and discontented,
and inclines him to listen with eagerness to agi
tators, who tell him that it is a monstrous iniq
uity that one man should have a million, while
another could not get a full meal. In bad years
there is plenty of grumbling here, and sometimes
a little rioting. But it matters little. For here
the sufferers are not the rulers. The supreme
power is in the hands of a class, numerous in
deed, but select; of an educated class; of a class
which is, and knows itself to be, deeply interest
ed in the security of property and the mainten
ance of order. Accordingly the malcontents are
firmly yet gently restrained. The bad time is
got over without robbing the wealthy to relieve
the indigent. The springs of national prosperi
ty soon begin to flow again—work is plentiful,
wages rise, and all is tranquility and cheerful
ness. I have seen England pass three or four
times through such critical seasons as I have de
scribed. Through such seasons the United
States will have to pass in the course of the next
century, if not of this. I seriously apprehend
that you will, in some such season of adversity
as I have described, do things which will pre
vent prosperity from returning; that you will
act like people who should in a year of scarcity
devour all the seed-corn, and thus make the
next year not one of scarcity, but of absolute fam
ine. There will be, I fear, spoliation. The
spoliation will increase the distress. The dis
tress will produce fresh spoliation. There is
nothing to stop yon. Your constitution is all
sail and no anchor. As I said before, when a so
ciety has entered on this downward progress,
either civilization or liberty must perish. Eith
er some Cajsar or Napoleon will seize the reins
of government with a strong hand, or your re
public will be as fearfully plundered and laid
waste by barbarians in the twentieth century, as
the Roman Empire was in the fifth, with this
difference, that the Huns and Vandals who rav
aged the Roman Empire came from without, and
your Huns and Vandals will have been engen
dered within your country by your own institu
tions.”
With proper deference to the learning, wis
dom and scholarship of Lord Macaulay, I pro
test against his argument, and dissent, decidedly,
from his conclusions. In the first place I question
his ability to judge our people correctly. What
he knew of us was acquired by reading, and by
hear-say. He had no practical knowledge of our
political or social institutions; he made no spec
ial study from actual observation; he could not
familiarize himself with the tone and spirit of
the American public; he could not thoroughly
comprehend our peculiar necessities, nor the
peculiar means adopted by us to meet these ne-
cessitiest—he material, moral and political forces,
by whose application our country has grown
great in all the essentials and attributes of a
powerful and illustrious Republic.
Macaulay’s opinion of our people and their
peculiar system of government, suffers from the
defect common to aristocratic foreigners; they
have no love for what they are pleased to call
“the populace,” making this epithet synony
mous with ignorance, poverty, and degradation;
to these the melo-dramastic incidents of French
revolutions, and the burlesqe Republicanism of
that mutable nation, afford an easy solution of
the value of democratic principles; to these
I ranee is the prototype of states whose sover
eignty lies in the hand of the people.
ft the condition of France could be consist
ently considered the condition of the United
States; if the people of that country were similar
to our people, in all important respects, then the
conclusions which Macaulay draws from his
Christianity, and, in the secular field, tenders to
old and young, rich and poor, alike, knowledge
of every passing event, and of every interesting
incident in the political, literary, commercial
and social world, at home or abroad.
A third powerful factor is the isolated situa
tion of our country; free from entangling alli
ances; backed by the limitless resources of a
continent; untrammeled in the development of
Science, Commerce, Art; untainted by the prox
imity of corrupt governments, and the influence
of discordant nationalities; we are exempt, by
nature, from the ruinous conditions which have
so frequently deprived France, and her neigh
bors, of the opportunity for testing the manhood
of true Democracy, even were it possible for the
chronically unstable character of the French to
appreciate a free, permanent, constitutional
government, when the whirligig of time presents
the opportunity for securing one. Our liberty
and civilization can never be endangered by
forces engendered by despotism, or growing out
of conditions of general ignorance and supersti
tion, and vacillating character, such as are ex
emplified by the countries Macaulay exhibits to
prove the worthlessness of Democracy. He
thinks that the fertility and extent of our coun
try, alone, defer our eventual ruin—a calamity
which he believes nothing can prevent. He
places no value upon the moral causes to which
allusion has been made, and which, in my opin
ion, are far more potent for permanently pro
tecting and conserving the prosperity of Demo
cratic principles, than all the physical causes
mentioned combined.
In his vivid description of the threatened
mutiny of our laboring classes, Macaulay paints
from the pattern furnished by the laboring
classes of Europe, ignoring the integral differ
ences in the character of the two—the superior
intelligence of the American; his greater advan
tages; his hardihood; his ready adaptation to
surroundings; his deeply-rooted love for, and
appreciation of, the benefits of a free and law-
consecrated government, whose privileges are
enjoyed in common, and which ho desires to
see perpetuated for his own sake, and the sake
of his posterity.
Communism is the horrid spectre which the
imagination of Macaulay beholds quitting its
native haunts, to revel upon the shores of the
New World ; he sees it running amuck in our
streets, dressed in blouse and red cap, applying
the torch to our cities, and hanging rich men
to convenient lamp-posts, amid demoniac cries
of “ ca ira," and cutting the throat of Liberty
and Civilization with all the frenzy and dexteri
ty of the genuine sans culottes of the time of
Danton and Robespierre. The world, on this
side of the Atlantic, has advanced too far to make
any such retrogression into the domain of barba
rism possible. The conservative forces of which
Macaulay boasts, are equally potent in this
country, though they are more generally distril-
uted, and not as much concentrated into one
paramount class,a3 in the case of England, leav
ing a wide and almost impassable chasm between
the governing class, and the subordinate orders
of the population. We, too, have seen seasons of
great adversity, but the manhood of our country
has been a match for them ; from the nettle,
Danger, we have plucked the flower, Safety ;—
nor will the American people fail to profit, in
the future, from the experience and wisdom
gained in the past.
No matter how boldly liberty and civilization
may be assailed, the rebutting power of justice,
truth and wisdom will repel the assault; the
great common sense of the people will predom
inate, and the treacherous schemes of the haters
of Right and Liberty will come to naught.
The right of a people to self-goverment is a
divine right; to believe in the distruclion of this
right, is to believe in the final obliteration of
every vestige of modern civilization, and the
establishment of a chaos of utter anarchy and
ruin.
No such destiny is inscribed around the motto-
stars of this Republic ; esto perpetua is the
beautiful legend, and, despite the clouds which
may temporarily obscure it, there it will remain,
to illumine the coming ages with prestine
splendor.
The Origin of Shylock.
A correspondent of Jewish Chronicle calls atten
tion to the fact that the original of Shakespear’s
Shylock was a Christian and not a Jew. He quotes
from the eleventh book of Gregori Leti’s “ Biogra
phy of Sixtus V,” in proof of this. A Roman,
merchant named Sechi heard that Admiral Francis
Blake had conquered St. Domingo, and communi
cated the news to a Jewish merchant named Cene-
da. The latter was so confident in the falseness of
the news that, after repeated protestations, he
said, “ I bet a pound of my flesh that the re
port is untrue.” “ And I lay a thousand scudi
against it," rejoined the Christian, who caused a
bond to be drawn up to the effect that in case the
report should prove untrue, then the Christian
merchant, Signor Paul M. Sechi, is bound to pay
the Jewish merchant the sum of 1,000 scudi; and
on the other hand, if the truth of this news be
confirmed, the Christian merchant, Signor Paul M.
Sechi, is justified and empowered to cut with his
own hand, with a well-sharpened knife, a pound of
the Jew’s fair flesh, of that part of the body it
might please him. When the news proved true,
the Christian insisted on his bond; but the Gov
ernor having got wind of the affair, reported it to
the Pope, who condemned both Jew and Christian
to the galleys, from which they could only be ran
somed by paying a fine of 2,000 scudi to the hospi
tal of Sextine bridge.
The early bird having caught the worm, wonders
what the dilapidated man with the red nose is out
so early for.
Two things in nature are detestable—A girl who
premises would be just, and every intelligent is trying to be a woman, and a woman who is try-
man would have reason to doubt the stability of j ing to be a girl.
but fairly comprehensible now in all its parts !”
Just look at the truly diabolical cleverness
with which this “little familiar,” by printing
a word I never wrote in its present connection,
has managed to contradict the entire tone of the
rest of the article, and set—so to speak—its
other sentences by the ears !
Had the whole dictionary been searched, no
term could have been discovered more teasingly
inappropriate.
However, I pardon my fiendish hobbledehoy,
if he will only mutter a “yeccavi,” and promise
to sin no more. Otherwise, let him “beware!”
The cap of the Eastern Dervish may still exist,
and may even, for aught he supposes, be within
my reach! Mysterious pin-pricks, and sharp
twitchings of the ear from invisible fingers, are
pretty sure to be my young “devil’s” portion,
unless straightway he amends.
Verbum sap! !
Who that reads at all, is unacquainted with
the genius and works of the great English
“opium eater?” His genius was cast in a mould
poetical and spiritual, with profound metaphy
sical depths in it, leading towards the mystical
kingdoms of Dream and Reverie; and of his
works it may justly be said, that in their nobler
parts, they illustrate the rhythmical eloquence
and force with which English prose is capable
to a degree unrivaled in v>ur literature, except
ing the essays of Milton.
At length this remarkable man is presented to
us in all his most interesting personal relations,
through an elaborate and sympathetic biography
by Henry Page, just re-published in America by
Scribner A; Co., in two especially elegant duodec
imos. Herein we have DeQuincey faithfully
portrayed. His subtle humors and unaccount
able idiosyncrasies; his tenderness of heart and
breadth of brain; his enormous learning (never
ostentatiously displayed); his love of Nature in
all her moods and aspects, but particularly
among the solitudes of vast mountains and on
the gray Scotch moorlands; his impassioned
visionary raptures, alternating with visionary
tortures, if possible, more impassioned still: his
utter, unpractical, child-like bewilderment in
matters of worldly concern; his oddities of in
dividual habit and bizarre appearance; in fine,
his entire marked, interesting, but grotesque
individuality, stands before us as prononce al
most as life itself!
Our conviction, after maturely studying De-
Quincey’s character and genius under the many
new lights .ifbiography, is un
hesitating as to the Existence in his nature—
deeply veining it from beginning to end—of a
streak of eccentricity so strong and ineradicable
as to approach what may be termed a quasi-in
sanity; that half-latent species of craziness
which never breaks forth into outrageous actions,
but is manifested by great oddities of sentiment
and oddities of behavior— by absurd contre-temps
and ludicrous misadventures.
Two “phases of extravagance” will serve to
illustrate the man’s unbalanced j udgment. From
the first of these — a wanton, indiscriminate
charity—he derived, no doubt, a personal satis
faction ; but its ultimate results were always un
fortunate. His presence at home was the signal
for a crowd of beggars, among whom borrowed
babies and drunken old women were sure of the
largest share of his sympathy; but he refused it
to none, and was often wearied by the necessity
he laid upon himself of listening to all the
woes which were heaped upon him.
As for his other extravagance, it grew out of
the morbid value he set upon his papers, and
their not being disturbed. He accumulated
these until he was “snowed up;” which meant,
when matters came to such an extremity, that
there was not a square inch on the table, and no
possibility of making his bed for the weight of
papers gathered there; that there was no chair to
be used for legitimate purposes, and that the
track from the door to the fireplace bad been
blotted out, even for his own careful treading.
Then he locked the door, leaving his landlady,
if simple and honest, fearfully impressed with
the mysterious sin of meddling with his papers;
but if dishonest, with such a handle for playing
upon his morbid anxieties, as was a source of
livelihood !
Gradually he has been known to paper his
family out of a house; but subsequently, his
daughters in the home at Lasswade were wary,
and the smallest amount of papers was handed
down into the one irrecoverable desert in which
he worked!
Nervous people must have found a residence
with DeQuincey charming—nay, beatific! It
was quite an exceptional night upon which he did
not set something on fire; the commonest inci
dent being for somebody to look up from book
or work to casually remark, "Papa, your hair is
on fire!” to which comes the philosophic re
sponse, “Is it, my dear?” followed by an ener
getic hand rubbing out the blaze.
And yet, DeQuincey lived to be upwards of
seventy, and finally died quite peacefully in his
bed ! There’s an oriental proverb to the effect
that the Fates take special care of drunkards,
madmen and children. A little mad (as hinted
before) was our eloquent DeQuincey. Yet, all
who knew him well seemed to have loved him.
He had a heart of gold. His sympathies were
deep and noble. For little children, especially
wide open upon a certain night in every year—
the anniversary of a terrible tragedy. He who
braved superstition’s terrors and watched on
that night, would hear in the dead midnight the
rapid tramp of iron-shod steeds along the ave
nues of the castle, and see through the gloom
two coal-black coursers, ridden by stalwart
knights in full armor with visors down, one of
them bearing in his arms a muffled burden. On
swept the ghostly steeds, passing through the
castle gates, leaping down the terraced height,
while wild laughter and a blood-curdling cry
came from the riders, until they were lost to
view in the gloom of the forest.
The legend explaining this apparition of the
phantom riders, tells that more tfian a century
ago, the governor of Stirling—the knightly,
brave and handsome Sir Alberic Ruthven—saw
and loved a beautiful maiden, whom he acci
dentally encountered in a secluded portion of
the castle-grounds. An exquisitely lovely crea
ture, with all the fresh innocence of an un
taught child, and all the graceful dignity’ of a
high-born, courtly lady. At this last Lord
Alberic marveled, not knowing that her birth
was more noble than his own, and that the blind
old hermit who had reared her in such seclusion
was the once proud and mighty Earl of Lauris-
ton, Lord of the Western Islands, who, for rais
ing the standard of rebellion against Scotland's
king, was forced to fly from his estates and seek
refuge in these wilds with a price set upon his
head. Joletta herself was ignorant of her illus
trious descent. Not so her brother, who, proud
and ambitious, dreamed of reinstating himself
in his rights; though he disguised his purpose,
and under the assumed name of St. Clair, became
the trusted and confidential friend of the gov
ernor of Stirling, who, however, did not guess
that his handsome squire was the brother of the
girl whom he had met in the castle-grounds,
and whom he sought, wooed and soon won to
love him. One so utterly unsophisticated—a
motherless child, reared in nun-like seclusion—
was not hard to deceive; Joletta trusted her
splendid lover implicitly, with the innocent
faith of a loving heart; and for a time he was
sincere in his passion and in his intention to
marry this peerless creature, peasant-born
though he believed her to be. But sudden war
summoned him to a distant battlefield; victory
perched on his banner; he was called to the royal
court, and the rank and power of an Earl con
ferred upon him. Thus loaded with favors from
the king, the princes and the lovely, high-born
ladies of the court, he forgot his brief romance
in the woods of Stirling and the faith he owed
to the blind hermit’s daughter. He had con
fided the affair to his squire, still ignorant that
St. Clair was Joletta’s brother—who, smothering
his bitter resentment for his sister’s sake, waited
to see if his master would redeem his promise to
take her as his wife. The stifled fire of revenge
burst into flame when he found that the Earl of
Ruthven had j ust led to the altar the king’s stately
niece, and had sent a message to him directing
that the castle be prepared to receive his bride
with due splendor, and that, especially, the old
hermit and his daughter were to be sent far
away from that portion of the country. A purse
heavy with gold accompanied the message. St.
Clair threw it into the river and planned his re
venge. Joletta, who had existed on hope and
counted the days till her lover should return,
when the sudden truth came to her that he had
forsaken her, cast her off utterly, that she was
disgraced, bowed her head over her babe with
one low, deep cry of agony, and never spoke
again.
The bridal party arrived, and were received
with joyful festivities; but when the bride re
tired to her chamber, and drew back the rich,
gold-embroidered curtains of her marriage-bed,
she found lying there a dead infant in its shroud.
Her shrieks of terror rang ominously through
the castle, and silenced the minstrel's joyous
music.
‘ It is your child!” St. Clair cried to the Earl.
“ I could not induce the old man and his daugh
ter to go away; they vow to denounce you to
your bride. Go to them yourself to-night, and
with gold and your persuasive tongue you may
make them give over their revengeful purpose.
I will go with you.”
They went that night, disguised in full armor
with closed visors, St. Clair bearing in his arms
the dead babe—his sister’s child. Out on a
lonely heath they stopped, dug a shallow grave
with their swords, and buried the ill-fated babe
by the faint light of the moon. Then they made
their way to the lonely cabin, hid under the cliff
like a swallow’s nest. Silence reigned within,
but the single lamp shone wanly tnrough the
window. The two mailed figures entered; there
Earl Ruthven saw a sight that transfixed him
with horror—Joletta robed from head to foot in
a white shroud, her arms crossed on her breast,
her eyes closed; her face, her limbs fixed in the
marble rigidity of death. The blind exile, her
father, knelt beside the pallet where she lay.
The anguish of his features changed to a fierce,
ing relieved, and busily engaged in readjusting
their apparel and themselves. The man who
had his hand on his pocket-book, and he who
had kissed his sweetheart on the sly, and the
woman who steadily looked at the dim lan
tern or shut her eyes where there were none,
to prevent a nervous fit—these and others af
fect a philosophical observer queerly. There
are interesting things which sometimes make
one laugh, sometimes make one sigh, while
dashing under a mountain. Not every day can
be seen so laughable a spectacle as was pre
sented by the young man who got into an un
enviable
PREDICAMENT IN A TUNNEL.
Simpson received a two weeks’ leave of ab
sence, not long ago, from the dry-goods store
where he labors ingloriously for four dollars
and seventeen cents per month.
Simpson was so happy when he had drawn
his salary in advance, that he actually asked
j the boys out to take something.
Than he started home and packed his valise
with paper piccadillies and white neck-ties,
I with a view to setting the country girls crazy.
After all was in readiness, he bade the old
! folks an affectionate adieu, and started on a
two-forty gait for the B \rclav-street ferry.
On the way there he indulged in sundry and
divers beers, and, after reaching Hoboken, he
J thought he’d try a snifter of brandy, just to
! straighten him up, previous to boarding the
train for his long ride.
He hadn’t time to look up a sample-room,
as the train was about to start, so, seeing a
| drug-store near by, he rushed for it to indulge
i in some soda water with a stick in it. Walk-
j ing up to the fountain hurriedly, he said to
j the woman:
“Give me some plain soda.”
' She was about to obey, when, by accident,
! she looked up at her customer, and was some-
I what surprised to see him wink at her. She
J didn’t know what to make of it. She didn’t
know that the wink meant to put in some bran-
; dy. Suddenly she looked up, and he winked
I again. Then she threw the soda water in Simp
son’s face and colored deeply.
Simpson was about to explain, when her hus-
' band came out, grabbed him by the collar, walk-
i ed him out of the place in lively style, and
I knocked him kicking in the gutter.
Then Simpson got up and ran as fast as he
could to catch the train.
He was soon on board, “the observed of all
observers,” on account of having a large plas
ter of mud running latitudinally across his oth
erwise snowy shirt front.
It was attracting more attention all the time,
and he determined to free himself of it as soon
as possible.
“I have it now,” he soliloquized, with a hap
py smile. “I shall change my shirt as we go
through the tunnel, blow me if I don’t.”
So he unlocked his valise and unbuttoned his
shirt, so that everything would be in readiness
at the eventful moment.
Finally the train reached the tunnel and was
soon immersed in inky darkness. Simpson lost
not a single moment. With hair on end and
his heart beating against his palate, he whipped
his soiled shirt off and crammed it into his va
lise.
Then he took the clean one out and tried to
get into it.
There were no lights in the car—an unusual
thing—and Simpson struggled in the dark to
get into the shirt in the usual fashion.
First he drove his arm up through the neck,
and got his head up one sleeve almost to the el
bow. Then he took breath for the next essay.
The second wasn’t very different from the
first trial, except that he got the shirt on with
the bosom on his back.
He ripped it off pretty lively, and as the train
was almost through the tunnel, every minute
was of value to him.
He got the shirt in the right position, and
commenced pulling it on as fast as he could.
He just got his arms up through the neck
when the train shot out into broad daylight,
and the racket that followed wasn’t much infe
rior to a Nicaragua earth-quake.
Men laughed and howled, and the women
looked out of the windows and giggled in spite
of their united efforts to appear calm.
Simpson felt so flat and mean that he drew
his head back in his shirt to be screened from
view.
Tne conductor, hearing the racket, came in
and marched Simpson out into a baggage car.
After he fixed himself up he got off at the
next station, snd took the next train.
I don’t think he’ll ever attempt to change his
shirt in a tunnel again.
Locomotive.
Athens.
The State Sunday-school Convention met in
the city of Athens on the 24th 25th and 26th of
revengel’nl expression when he heard the ring ! August. T-ie meeting was the best ever held in
of the mailed feet." j the State. The Citizens of Athens were a unit
“ He has come!” he cried, starting up. “ My j in extending to the members of the convention
son, is the murderer here?” j the most generous hospitality. Large audiences
“He is here, father,” St. Clair answered. ! governed by superb order greeted all the exer-
“ The villain is in our power. Know, wretch, cises of the convention. It is gratifying to know
that this betrayed and murdered girl is my sis- , that the convention proved to be to the delegates
ter—no peasant maid, but the daughter of the j and the citizens of the place, a source of spirit-
noble Earl of Lauriston. Thus her father and ual strength, and a spiritual feast.
upon
her de
brother wreak their vengeance
stroyer!”
Quick as thought he seized the Earl of Ruth
ven, bore him to the floor with his fierce strength
and held him while the old man pierced him to
the heart. Then the two turned their swords
upon themselves, and the illustrious house of
Lauriston was extinct.
Athens is noted as the seat of culture, refine
ment and science, throughout the south. To
this, the writer can add, from personal experi
ence, the citizens are characterized by a broad
catholic Christianity, and warmhearted hespital-
ity.
We learned from a well-informed citizen that
Four corpses filled the rea i estate has suffered very little depreciation
narrow room ! _ there, and rents have fallen only fifteen percent
When the fearful tidings reached the bride, j s j nce i860. Her merchants do a large and safe
she lost her reason and was borne back to her ; business. Her banks have never ceased to pay
father’s house a raving maniac. On the anni- ! jq percent dividends, although their rates of
nWL - he exhibited in several cases a 'sort *of versar y ni 8 ht of the terrible tragedy the figures interest have never exeeeeded 13 percent. Their
d S ’ tion 6Xhlblted m SeV6ral CaS6S a SOrt 0t j of two mailed knights, riding coal-black horses, i trade is steadily augmenting, and there are
a rUn, „.;„ „ j , one with a dead child in his arms, were seen to several houses who sell over a million dollars
Jof the Poei issne fr ° m the dark Shad ° WS ° f , ‘ he Caatle -™“ 8 ’ worth of goods annually.
append almost broken hearted. “Over and gcared ^ threw e the portals wid | and fled. and beautiful points. A visit through the libra-
?^' e , r) i an imnorannnHni f Ever afterwards on that night the gates were left ry 0 f the State University and of the apparatus
open, and the ghastly pair rode through on their J lh . u„ 0 „ Colleg.e will amply repair the
the Dawn, ana tne spirit oi lniancy fire-breathing steeds, and the sound of galloping ; t i me expended.
n l nnn h th 1 it^chndl prave-" “ not ” he hoofs ' and the wild laugh and blood-curdling The people revere and esteem Dr. Lipscomb,
the nigh p , , ’ . ’ ■ cry, woke the echoes of the old castle and struck Dr .Tucker and Dr. Lane knowing no denomi-
says, “ in any parade of sorrow; but in mere in- £ the heart3 of all who hear d the sounds. national f ee lio K of bitterness.
8 Wit i. ,ho country coming i, A »dd.n Th. North Lutor. ***** -nnning from
I have been able to give a most imperfect out- dra’t of hot air is reported to have passed Athens to Lula on the Airline R.R., a distanoe
line ot Mr. Page’s admirable biography. No through a cotton field and peach orchard m of forty miles, is in fine order. The trip is made
person of literary tastes ought to be without it. western Texas a few days ago, scorching and in^two^houre. ^The m^inera^springs near^the
The style is scholarlike and pure; the incidents
are clearly narrated; and the biographer’s sym
pathy with his subject, while sincere, is by no
means bigoted.
What is the difference between a girl and a night
cap? One is born to wed and the other is worn
to bed.
Asparagus is like a sermon. It is the end of it
that people enjoy most.
killing every green thing it touched for a space North Easton depot are visited daily by large
140 yards wide and 400 yards long. numbers . and a number of persons have been
rr, . . —-T . , , , . . cured ot their ailing, by the use of the water.
The New lork Herald has been in g Dr. Carlton is throwing much life into his
the heavy wholesale merchan sin a c , tri-weekly Georgian, and the old Watchman is
finds the belief general that the moving on swimmingly. Thomas A. Burke is
year will prove the best and t e g h Mayor pro tern, and “bears his blushing honors
1873. Their confidence in improved times is r B
based on the abundant crops throughout the
South and West and the political relief felt in , That thou m?v»t injure no man, dove-like b
the former section. i and serpent-like, that none may iDjnre thee
instinct print