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THE SUNNY SOUTH, ATLANTA, GA„ SATURDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 1, lW.
That Calamus Farm.
Something over two months ago we inserted
an item about a small calamus patch, by which
a Fayette county (Georgia) farmer had real
ized a large profit from roots grown on a quar
ter of an acre of swamp. Following the publi
cation we received a number of letters from
different parts ef the South, to a number of
which we forwarded replies by mail; we also
published an editorial, so that the general
public might have the benefit of what informa
tion we had obtained.
We confess that the reported results from
that plant and small area, rather overtaxed
our credulity; but wishing to attract attention
to all new industries promising diversity of in
dustries and profit, we risked it.
But the statement was entirely correct. The
owner, however, permitted the prospective
chances for a quickly acquired competency
(fortune?) to entice him to almost entirely
abandon regular farming, and give his atten
tion to the cultivation of calamus.
The owner of the farm and patch was Adam
Story, and the farm was on Flint river. Hav
ing done so well, he entered into a written
contract with a Baltimore drug house to sup
ply it with over .$5,000 worth of the root.
We learn from the Griffin, Ga., News, in
which the original item appeared, that late in
August Col. Hammond and a friend visited
the farm—and with the intention of buying it.
It was just after the long-continued heat/
rains, and before the waters had subsided. On
reselling the locality, they found that the river
had overflowed its banks, and in cutting a new
channel for itself, had swept away the “Cala
mus Plant.” Mr. Story will he unable to com
ply with his contract; which, in connection
with neglect of other interests, has depressed
and nearly ruined him.
But the calamus enterprise was no myth—
and its cultivation evidently opens up a busi
ness in a new and important farm product,
useful, necessary and profitable.
But Mr. Story’s course teaches a lesson.
He allowed this new production to absorb all
his time and attention, and let his other farm
operations suffer; when undoubtedly, he could
have run his farm as before, and made this a
surplus product. One should not let the
“make haste to get rich,” blind one to the old
reliable products and methods, and cast them
aside too hastily.
Shelter for Cows from Cold.
It may seem to some strange to advice giving
tome shel-er to cows at night thus early in the
season. In clear weather even in July and
August cows in fields will get under trees to
lie down, so that there may be less radiation
of their own warmth into space. If any one
tries sleeping out of doors in summer, as cam
pers sometimes do, he will be apt to feel a chilly
sensation towards morning. Of course when
old storms prevail, as they are liable to frem
now onward, the necessity for shelter is greatly
increased.
Fine Cotton Sample.
A neat job was put up on two of our local
cotton buyers Thursday evening. A handful
of cotton, which had been used in packing fiue
dressing cases and lad'es’ work boxes, which
was as white as snow and free from speck or
blemish, which wn offered for sale by Billy
Parr. The eyes of the first buyer bulged away
out when he saw the sample and he pronounc
ed it the prettiest yet brought to market. Fc
offered a good price for it. The next buyer
gave the sample a critical examination,admired
it very much, want ed to know where it g.ew,
what kind of cotton it was, saked if the wuole
bale was like the sample, inquired tenderly in
regard to the absence of mo.es, and finally
broke the camel’s back by asking Billy how
much he had like it. With tears in his eyes
Billy admitted that the sample was e'l he had.
—Alapaha (Ga.) Star.
Wine from Apricots.
In Califoruts, surplus apricots are to be made
into wine. Experiments show that they make
a richly flavored wine, clear and effervescent
as the best champagne.
Don’t Run or Worry the Cows.
It is true that the milk of cows that are wor
ried or frightened will sour much quicker than
when not so worried. Infants fed with the
milk of cows worried or heated by run oiug
(which is sometimes caused by boys m bringing
; hem from the pasture) will suffer from colic,
and often from diarrhoea.
Cultivate Less Land.
The American Cultivater says if every farmer
would limit himself in ploughing to such an
area as he can cultivate and manure in the
most thorough manner, there won id soon cease
to be any complaint about farming not paying.
The best systems of cropping are invariably
those which call for the most thorough prepaia-
ri'on of the soil.
Farmer’s Organizations.
All departments of trade and industry are
dependent upon the tillage of the soil. “The
king himself is fed from the field.” There is
no necessary conflict of interests between
these various lines of pursuit. That which
will conduct to the benefit of the produce - s
must needs be advantageous to all depaiiments
of legitimate trade. The merchant, the aui-
san, the professional man, all alike are con
cerned in that which concerns the farming in
terests of the country. There need be no a
prehensions felt by any, not farmers, as to the
ends sought by the organizations of farming
people and the results to other business likely
to follow. Existing economic conditions make
it imperative for farmers to organize with a
view of protecting their inter- ns against the
evils that have come from nnequaled legisla
tion. The good of all the country and of eve y
worthy interest in the country is involved in
the success of their work. To secure such
conditions as will put the farmer upon an eq rT
footing with those who handle and transport
his produce, and those who manufacture it
into articles of use, will be to promote the ir
terests of all other lines of business and every
class of society. It will, by giving the pn lu
cer a larger portion of the fruits of his labor,
increase his ability to be useful and valuable
as a citizen, while it w ; 'l largely augment the
happiness of his home. No man need fear
aught from the farmers’ organizations, Iney
p.omise good to the count./. They promi
hurt only to those things that are wrong and
ought to die.—Progressive Farmer.
of Cfrottggt.
Philosophy is the art of living.—Plutarch.
There is nothing useless to men of sense;
clever people turn everthing to account.—Fon
taine.
There is more of good nature than of good
sense at the bottom ot most marriages.—
Th/reau.
That beneficent harness of routine which
enables silly men to live respectably and un
happy men to live calmly.—George Eliot.
Proverbs are potted wisdom.—Charles Bux
ton.
There is no arguing with Johnson; for if his
pistol misses fire he knocks you down with the
butt end of it Goldsmith.
Keep cool and yon command everybopy.-
Just.
The trident of Neptune is the sceptre of the
world.—Antoine Lemierre.
Virtue is the first title of nobility.—Moliere.
Music can noble hints impart, engender fury,
kindle love, with unsuspected eloquence can
move and manage all men with secret art.—
Addison.
An outward gift which is seldom despised,
except by those to whom it has been refused.—
Gibbon.
According to the security you offer her,
Fortune makes her loans easy or ruinous.—Bul-
wer-Lylton.
The right of commanding is no longer an ad
vantage transmitted by nature like an inheri
tance; it is the fruit of labors, the price ofcour
age.—Voltaire.
If I were to deliver np my whole self to the
arbitrament of special pleaders, to-day I might
be argued into an atheist, and tomorrow into a
pick-pocket.—Bulwer-Lytton.
Fame has no necessary conjunction with
praise; it may exist without the breath of a word;
it is a recognition of excellence which must be
felt, but need not be spoken. Even the envious
must feel i.; feel it, and hate in silence.—Wash
ington A list on.
That all who are happy are equally happy is
not true. A peasant and a philosopher may
be equally satisfied, but not equally happy.
Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agree
able consciousness. A peasant has not capa
city for having equal happiness with a philoso
pher.—Johnson.
Nature is the armory of genius. Cities serve
it poorly, books and colleges at second hand;
the eye craves the spectacle of the horizon,
of mountain, ocean, rive* and plain, the clouds
-nd stars; actual contact with the elements,
sympathy with the seasons as they rise and
roll.—Alcott.
Curious
Largest Apple Orchard.
The largest apple orchard in the United
States is claimed by Fairinount, in Leaven
worth County, Ivan. It contains 437 acres and
composed of 59,000 trees of the following varie
ties: Seventy acres of Winesap*, 210 of Ben
Davis, seventy acres of Missouri Pippins, forty
acres of Genitans, eight acres of Cooper’s Early
aad eight acres of Maiden’s Blush. Last year’s
crop is estimated at 40,000 bushels.
Corgratulate North Carolina.
North Carolinians may now congratulate
themselves upon an Agricultural College in the
near future. The plans and specifications have
arrived and S- Skinner, Esq., of Hauford
county, has been eiected superintendent of the
i allege farm. One word right her. -elect
North Carolinians to the professorship there.
It is to be a people's college and we have as
competent men within our borders as come
from Massachusetts or anywhere else. — li'iii-
ston Sentinel
Late Pruning of Crape Vines.
The proper time to prune grapevines is in
the Fall, after t.he leaves have dropped, or in
early Winter. But if neglected then it is not
too ia’.e to do the work, even though the vines
bleed nrofusely. It is seldom if ever that any
perceptible injury to the vires results from this
bleeding. After the buds sihit into leaf the
sap does no: run, as the xuDerior attraction of
the leaves retains it. Much slashing of the
vines at this time, however, is really more in
jurious than pruning a little earlier, even
i hough it involve some loss of sap.
How to Improve Cattle.
The most successful way to raise Jstseys, or
any other tiue breed of cattle, is to cross 'he
: million breed with a locomotive. This has
been accomplished in Americas with flattering
success, as the following will clearly show: A
wide-awake citizen purchased a little measly
calf recently, paying three dollars ’herefor,
which he justly considered full value for the
bovine. A few days afterwards, as the calf
was grazing upon the railroad track, it wt <
ruu over aad killed by a passing tram, where
upon the disconsolate owner put in a claim for
forty dollars against the company, which was
paid. Anyone owning a pasture alongside a
good railroad can easily acquire a fortune in
th i<! ma..uer, and this simple means of “iia-
pioving” common stock is as rapid as it is cer
tain.—Americus (Ga.,) Becorder.
Agricultural Items.
A letter from San Diego says, “When I get
peaches as I did on Saturday, three weighing
two and a half pounds, I thought it was a
shame to eat them, and that they should be in
a horticultural show.” Is there any wonder
there is a boom in real estate in San Diego,
with Muscat grapes plenty at three or four
cents par pound, oranges, letnous, plums,
pruns and apricots in great abundance?
H. V. Sanford, of Miiledgeville, has a sample
of pure lye soap made by his mother in 1862.
She hat quite a quantity of this soap on hand
now. Making her own soap year to year she
now has hundreds of pounds on hand that have
accumulated during the past twenty-five years.
Biver Platte, which is said to be a very suit
able wheat for British millers, is more abun
dant this year than ever before. The greatest
portion of it goes to the Continent, where mil
lers have for a long time recognized the excel
lent milling qualities of this wheat.
There is always a fair demand for the best
products of the soil, and when they are obtain
ed by skillful management there is also a fair
margin of profit.
The chinch bug eats the farmer’s grain, the
bee moth spoils his honey, the bed bug fills
him full of pain, the humbug scoops his money.
The Dalrymple Farm of Dakota will use in
this year’s harvest 100 tons or nine car-loads of
binders’ twine.
Men Who Own Themselves.
Farming may be a laborious and irksome
business, and the profits of agriculture discour
aging, but there is one thing which the farmer
may possess of which eve./ man in any other
vocation may well envy him. and that is his
absolute independence. Men engaged in trade
frequently feel obliged to refrain fiom doing
what they consider their duty lest in its per
formance they may injure their business. In
Kennett Square the house-to-house canvass
for signers to a remonstrance against the
granting of a license to our one hotel devel
oped a number of cases of this kind, and two
or three persons who signed the remonstrance
were subsequently overcome by their fears
and had their names stricken off, the fear of a
boycott proving too poweriulfor their sense of
duty. The farmer, however, has nothing of
this kind to fear. He is absolutely his own
master, and neither his religious, moral, polit
ical or social beliefs or disbeliefs may in any
way be used to the injury of his worldly pros
pects. He wears no man’s collar. And, a, *er
all, this is more desirable than riches or place.
One’s manhood is something more to be de
sired than something that has to be gained by
constantly “crooking the pregnant hinges of
the knee,” or bowing to the caprice and whim
of people we may in our inmost soul loathe
and despise. The grange is educating the
farmer how 1■> use this independence not only
for his own good in correcting existing ev : ’s,
but in helping those who dare not help them
selves 1 for the good ol our country and man
kind.’’—Kocmelt.
Food for Thought.
We clip the following excellent article from
the editorial columns of that valuable and en
terprising journal. The Farm and Fireside. We
commend its truths to the careful study of our
readers:
For ten years pr <t the margin between the
market value of most k : nds of farm produce
and i's cost of production has been steadily
narrowing. The price of farm lands in the
middle and eas* rn States has been at a stand
still, or decreasing, and the time has come
when farmers everywhere are crying “there’s
no king in fanning!” thus intensifying by their
influence the spirit of unrest which is driving
the brightest of our young men from the farm
and into the alrer ly over-crowded professions,
and the time is not far distant, judging by
present indications, when the country at large
will pass through New England’s experience
in the transfer of a large proportion of its
farms into the hands of foreigners, and the
fuii her depreciation in value of the remainder.
Now, we believe there is one way and oily
one way by which this consummation may be
avoided, and that is by the better education
of farmers, both as farmers and as citizens.
That legislation is largely manipulated in the
interests of other classes aud agaiust the in
terests of farmers is a fact too patent for de
nial; but there ia no one so much to blame for
this as the farmer himself. Let farmers ob
tain that broad knowledge of human affairs
which shall enable them to understand and
appreciate the relative importance of their
calling among other human industries and its
just and equitable rights; let them unitedly
assert and maintain these rights at the ballot-
box, and agriculture will have taken the grand
est upward step its history has ever known.
But before farmers can act effectively in this
matter they must act intelligently. We have
already had too much bungling by half-edu
cated legislators; too much hoodwinking of
such by sharpers who had their special axes
to grind; too much throwing of sops to the
farmer to keep him still while acts of vital
importance to his business were being quietly
passed: and too much of that practice by which
demagogues have managed to keep the farmer
vote divided by raking over the ashes of dead
issues.
A Strong Endowment
is conferred upon that magnificent institution,
the human system, by Dr. Pierce’s “Golden
Medical Discovery” that fortifies it against the
encroachments of disease. It is the great blood
purifier and alterative, and as a remedy for
consumption, bronchitis, and all diseases of a
wasting nature, its influence is rapid, effica
cious and permanent. Sold everywhere.
Sauce for the Goose.—Mrs. Charles (decolle-
tee, to husband dressed in trowsers anu under
shirt)—“Whv, Charley, you are not going as
you are!” Charles—“Why, yes, aren’t you?”
_a. €2
To all who are suffering from the errors and
indiscretions of youth, nervous weakness, early
decay, loss of manhood, he., I will send a recipe
that will cure you, FREE OF CHAEGE. This great
remedy was discovered by a missionary In South
America. Send a self-addressed envelope to the
Bsv. JosETH T. I ft MAX, station D, *» Fori Cits.
There is a rooster in Kentucky with three
throats.
One of the big redwood trees of California
furnishes 24,000 feet of lumber for Pullman car
interiors.
A dog bitten by a rattlesnake in Nebraska,
instead of dying developed hydrophobia, and
bit fourteen head of cattle, all of which died,
Sir William Armstrong's new gun to resist
torpedo attacks is a thirty-pounder, and devel
ops a muzzle velocity of 1,900 feet per second.
A Treasury Department clerk has invented
a lock which can be locked with any one of 10,-
000 keys, but can be unlocked only by the
original key used to lock it.
At the National Cat Show recently held at
the Crystal Palace, near London, the prize for
weight was taken by a puss of twenty-three
pounds. Another gifted feline had white fur,
and one blue and one hazel eye.
Pasteur proves the value of his preventive
of splenic fever by showing that in France, dur-
the last five years, the mortality of inoculated
sheep has ranged from 0.75 to 1.08 per cent,
that ef non-inoculated being ten per cent. Only
0.28 to 0.50 per cent, of inoculated cattle died,
and five per cent, of others.
Some of the trees of Arkansas have peculiar
properties. The fruit and root of the buckeye
are used by Indians on their fishing excursions.
They put the fruit and roots in a hag, which
they drag through the water. In an hour or so
the fish rise to the surface dead. Cattle die
after eating of the fruit or leaves. Man eats
the fruit of the pawpaw, but hogs won’t.
Ropes and mats are made of its bark. The
fioit and bark of the bay tree are supposed to
be a cure for rheumatism and intermittent
fever.
Paper, rendered as tough as wood or leather,
has been introduced abroad for roofing and
other purposes. The method consists in mix
ing chloride of zinc with the pulp, in the pre
cess of manufacture, it being also found that
the greater the degree of concentration of the
zinc solution, the greater is the degree of tough
ness, and, consequently, of durability, charac
terizing the paper. The material is likewise
adapted for making boxes, combs, etc.
The municipality of St. Petersburg has de
cided to plant two rows of tress in all the
streets which are more than twenty-three
metres broad. There are sixty-five such streets
in the city. The Dutch linden tree will be
selected for the purpose, as being best adapted
to the climate of St. Petersburg and one of the
most rapidly growing trees. It is estimated
that the cost will be twenty-five roubles per
tree, or 025,000 roubles in all, as about 25,000
trees will be required.
It has recently been computed by an officer
of the Ordnance Depaument in Washington
that the weight carried by a soldier equipped
with rod bayonets, rifle, and cartridge belt,
three days’ cooked rations and 100 rounds of
ball cartridges and complete “kit” of clothin
is fifty-three pounds 2.58 ounces; with Spring
field rifle, bayonet, scabbard, cartridge noxes
and leather belt, clothing and ammunition, etc.,
is fifty-four pounds 1.95 ounces; with Spring-
field rifle, bayonet, scabbard, cartridge belt,
clothing, ammunition, etc.,is fifty-three pounds
15 90 ounces.
TALMAGE’S SERMON.
Brookltx, September, 25.—After the great
congregation had sung the long meter doxol-
ogy in the Brooklyn Tabernacle this morning,
Dr. Talmage expounded the sixth chapter of
the second epistle to the Corinthians, setting
forth the importance of separation from bad
fellowship, and saying that a man is no better
than the company he keeps. Professor Henry
Eyre Brown played an organ solo, Sonata No.
I in D minor ty Guillmant. The subject of
the sermon was “A straight-up-and-down re
ligion,” and the text was Amos vii, v. 8: “And
the Lord said unto me, Amos, what geest
thou? and I said, A plumb line.” Dr. Tal
mage said:
The solid masonry of the world has to me a
fascination. Walkabout some of the trium
phal arches and the cathedrals, four or six
hundred years old, and see them stand up
erect as when they were builded, walls of great
height for centuries not bending a quarter ot
an inch this way or that. So greatly honored
were the masons who builded these walls that
they were free from taxation and called “free”
masons. The trowel gets most of the credit
for these buildings, and its clear ringing on
stone and brick has sounded across the ages.
But there is another implement of just as mu' *i
importance as the trowel, and my text rei >g-
nizee it. Bricklayers, and stonemasons r id
carpenters, in the building of walls, use an in
strument made of cord, at the end of which
a lump of lead is fastened. They dropitove. 1
the side of the wall, and, as the plummet na
urally seeks the center of gravity in the earl ,
the workman discovers where the wall recedes,
and where it bulges out, and just what is the
perpendicular. 'Slur text represents God ae
standing on the tvall of character, which the
Israelites had built, and in that way meas
uring It. “And the Lord said unto me, Ames,
what seest thou*’ and I said, A plumb line.”
What tbe world wants is a straight u^-and-
down religion. Much of the so-called piety of
the day bends this way and that, to suit the
times. It is horizontal with a low state of sen
timent and morals. We have all been build
ing a wall of character, and it is glaringly im
perfect and needs reconstruction. How shall
it be brought into the perpendicular? Only
by the divine measurmeni. “And the Lord
said to me, Amos, what geest thou? and I said,
A plumb line.”
The whole tendency of the times is to make
us act by the standard of what others do. If
they play cards, we play cards. If they dance,
we daDce. If they read certain styles of book,
we read them. We throw over the wall of our
character the tangled plumb line of other lives,
and reject the infalliable test which Amos saw.
The question for me should not be what you
think is right, but what God thinks is right.
This petpetual reference to the behavior of
others, as though it decided anything but hu
man fallibility, is a mistake as wide as the
world. There are ten thousand plumb lines in
use, but only one is true aud exact, and that
is the line of God’s eternal right. There is a
mighty attempt being made to reconstruct and
fix up the Tea Commandments. To many
they seem too rigid. The tower of Pisa leans
over about thb.een feet from the perpendicu
lar, and people go thousands of miles to see i*s
graceful inclination, and by extra braces and
various architectural contrivances it is kept
leaning from century to century. Why not
have the t3n granite blocks of Sinai set a little
aslant? Why ithe pillar of ttath a
^ijsftorical.
The first British writers were Gildas, Nen-
nine and Bede, in the seventh century.
Amarath I. was the founder of the power of
Turks, and reigned from 1357 till k'lled in 1390.
The London Gazette, the earlieit English
newspaper, was commenced at Oxford, Nov. 7,
1605, where the Court was then residing on ac
count ot the plague.
The star chamber tribunal in England was
instituted in the third year of the reign of Henry
VII. and abolished in the sixteenth year of the
reign of Charles I.
There is a difference of eighty-one years in
the time which the Jews spent in Eg/pt in the
account of Exodus and that of Josephus, the
former making it a per.od of 430 years, and the
latter 511.
Cicero relates that the Chaldeans and Bac-
trians claimed celestial observations for 470,000
years; but, taking a day as an astronomical
period, it becomes 1,300 solar years, or, taking
a moon lunar, 32,009 years.
Julius Csesar was born 100 B. C.; became a
member of the Triumvirate with Crassus and
Pompey the Great in 60; in 45 assumed the title
of imperator or perpetual dictator, and was as
sassinated in March of the following year.
King John of England was forced to grant
the Magna Chartoa, June 15, 1215, when the
great seal was affixed thereto at Bunaemede,
a meadow between Staines and Windsor. The
original Magna Charta is preserved in the Brit
ish Museum.
Till the fifteenth century no Christians were
allowed to receive interest on money, anu Jews
were the only usurers, and therefore often ban
ished and persecuted. In England, under Ed
ward VI. interest was forbidden entirely from
religious motives.
Didn’t Want It Known.
Not many days ago a Horse Shoe (Hackett
City, Ark.) representative happened to drop in
at a house in this community where lives one
of the smartest young ladies in Western Ar
kansas. On arriving, he found the young lady
was just completing the job of harnessing a
horse and hitching him to a buggy. She at
once insisted that the Horse Shoe must keep
quiet about the matter, as she didn’t want it
known that she coaid harness a horse. Our
representative insisted that it could certainly
do her no harm to let it be known that she
could harness her own buggy horse. “Oh!’’
said she, “I am not afraid of that; I am only
afraid that I may some day fall into the hands
of a man who might want me to harness his
horse and miue too So we feel bound lo'se-
crecy in the matter.
“Your Agency obtans lower rates from us
than any other advertiser, for tbe good reasons
that you send us more business and always pay
promptly,” writes an Iowa publisher to Geo. P.
R iwell & Co. ’s Newspaper Advertising Bureau,
10 Spruce street, New York.
leaning tower? Why is not an ellipse as good
as a square? Why is not an oblique as goci
as straight up and down? My friends, we
must have a standard; shall it be God’s or
man’s?
The divine plamb line needs to be thrown
over all merchandise. Thousands of years ago
Solomon discovered the tendency of buyers to
depreciate goods. He saw a man beating
down an article lower and lower, and saying
it was not worth tbe price asked, and when he
bad purchased at the the lowest point he told
everybody what a sharp bargain hehadstiuck,
and how he had outwittid the merchant.
Proverbs, xx, 14:, “It is naught, it is naught,
saith the buyer; but when he is gone his way
then he boasteth.” So utterly zskew is socie
ty in this matter that you seldom find a seller
asking the price that he expects to get. He
puts on a higher value than he propo :es to
receive, knowing that he will have to drop.
And if be wants fifty he asks seventy-five, and
if he wants two thousand, he asks twenty-five
hundred.
“It is naught,” saith the buyer. “The fab
ric is defective; the style of goods is poor; I
can gel elsewhere a better article at a smaller
price. It is out of fashion; it is damaged; it
will fade; it will not wear well.” After awld'e
the merchant, from over persuasion or from
desire to dispose of that particular stock of
goods, says: “Well, take it at your own
price,” and the purchaser goes home' with light
step aud ca'ls into his private office his confi
dential friends, and chuckles while he tells how
that for half price he got the goods. In other
words, he lies and was proud of it. Nothing
would make times as good, ; and the earning of
a livelihood so easy, as the universal adoption
of the law of rigM* Suspicion strikes through
all bargain making. Men who sell know not
whether they will ever get the money. Pur
chasers know not whether the goods shipped
will be according to the sample. And what,
with the large number of clerks who are mak
ing false entries and then absconding to Cana
da, aud the explosion of firms that fail for
millions of dollars, honest men are at their
wit’s end to make a living. He who stands up
amid ali the pressure and does right is accom
plishing something toward the establishment
of a high commercial prosperity. I have deep
sympathy for the laboring classes who toil
with hand and foot. But we must not forget
the business men, who, without any complaint
or bannered processions through the streets,
are enduring a stress of circumstances terrific.
The fortunate people of to-day are those who
are receiving daily wages on regular salaries.
And the men most to be pitied are those who
conduct a business while prices are falling, aud
yet try to pay their clerks and tmployes, and
are m such fearful straits that they would quit
business to-morrow if it were cot for the reck
and ruin to others. When people tell me what
a ruinous low price they purchased an article
for, it gives me more dismay than satisfaction.
I know it means the bankruptcy and defalca
tion of men in many departments. The men
who toil with the brain need full as much
sympathy as those who toil with the hand.
All business life is struck through with suspi
cion, and panics are only the result of waat of
confidence.
The pressure to do wrong is all the stronger
from the fact that in our day the large busi
ness houses are swallowing up the smaller, the
whales dining on bine fish and minnows. The
large houses undersell the smaller ones, be
cause they can afford it. They can afford to
make nothing, or actually loose on some styles
of goods, assured they can make it up on oth
ers. So a great dry goods house gees outside
of its regular line and sells hooks at cost, or
less than cost, and that swamps the book
sellers; or, the dry goods house sells bric-a-
brac at the lowest figure, that swamps the
small dealer in bric-a-brac. And tbe same
thing goes on in other styles of merchandise,
aDd the consequence is that all along the busi
ness streets of onr cities there are merchants
of small capital who are in terrific struggle to
keep their heads above water. The Canarders
ruu down the Newfoundland fishing smacks.
This is nothing agaius: the man who has the
big store, for every man has as large a store
and as great a business as he can manage. To
feel right aad do right under all this pressure
requires martyr graces, requires divine sup
port, requires celestial reinforcement. Yet
there are tens of thousands of such men get
ting splendidly through. They see others go
ing up and themselves going down, bat they
keep their patience, and their courage, and
their Christian consistency, and after a while
their turn of success will come. The owners
ot the big business will die and their boys will
get possession of the business, and with a cigar
in their mouth, and full to the chin with the
best liquor, aud behind a pair of spanking
bay* they will pass everything on the turnpike
road to temporal aad eternal perdition. Then
the business will break op, and the smaller
dealer* will have fair opportunity. Or the
spirit ot contentment ana right feeling will
take posseesion of the large firm, aa recently
in the case of the great honae of A. A. Low &
Co., and the firm will say: “We have enongh
money for all onr needs, and the needs of onr
children; now let ns dissolve business and
make way for other men in the same line.
Instead ef being startled at a solitary instance
of magnanimity, as in the case just mentioned,
it will become a common thing. I know of
scores of great business houses that have bad
their opportunity of vast accnmolation, and
who ought to quit. But perhaps for all the
days of this generation the struggle of small
houses to keep alive under the overshadowing
pressure of great houses will continue; there
fore, taking things as they are, you will be
wise to preserve your equilibrium and your
honesty, and your faith, and throw over all the
counters and shelves, and barrels and hogs
heads, and cotton bales and rice casks the
measuring line of divine right. “And the Lord
said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? and I
said, a plumb line.”
In the same way we need to measure our
theologies. All sorts of religions are putting
forth their pretensions. Some have a spiritu
alistic religion, and their chief work is with
ghosts, and others a religion of political econ
omy proposing to put an end to human misery
by a new style of taxation, and there is a hu
manitarian religion that looks after the body
of men, and lets the soul look after itself, and
there is a legislative religion that proposes to
rectify all wrongs by enactment of better laws,
and there is an .esthetic religion that by rules
of exquisite taste would lift the heart out of
its deformities; and religions of all sorts, relig
ions by the peck, religions by the square foot,
and religions by tbe ton—all of them devices
of the devil that would take the heart away
from the only religion that will ever effect any
thing for the human race, and that is the
straight up and down religion written in the
book, which begins with Genesis and ends
with Revelation, the religion of the skies, the
old religion, the God-given religion, the ever
lasting religion, which says: “Love God above
all and your neighbor as yourself." All relig
ions but the one begin at the wrong end and in
the wrong place. The Bible religion demands
that we first get right with God. It begins at
the top and measures down, while the other
religions begin at the bottom and try to meas
ure up. They stand at the foot of the wall, up
to their knees in the mud of human theory and
speculation, and have a plummet and a string
tied fast to it. And they throw the plummet
this way, and break a head there, and throw
the plummet another way, and break a head
there, and then they throw it np, and it comes
down upon their own pate. Foolsl Why will
you stand at the foot of the wall measuring up
when you ought to stand at the top measuring
down? A few days ago I was in the country,
thirsty after a long walk. And I came in, and
my child was blowing soap bubbles, and they
rolled out of the cup, blue, and gold, and
green, and sparkling, and beautiful, and or
bicular, and in so small a space I never saw
more splendor concentrated. But she blew
once too often and ail the glory vanished into
suds. Then I turned and took a glass of plain
water, and was refreshed. And so far as soul
thirst is concerned, I put against all the glow
ing, glittering soap-bubbles of worldly reform
and human speculation one draught from the
fountain from under the throne of God, clear
as crystal. Glory be to God for the religion
that drops from above, not coming up from
beneathl “And the Lord said unto me, Amos,
what seest *hou? and I said a plumb line.”
I want you to no .ice .bis fact, that when a
man gives up the straight up-and-down reli
gion in the Bible for some new-far ed religion,
it is generally to suit his sins. You first hear
of his change of religion, and then you hear of
some swindle he has practiced in Colorado
mining stock, telling some one if he will put in
ten thou, .nd dollars he can take out a hun
dred thousand, or he has sacrified his charity,
or plunged into irremediable worldliness. His
sins are so broad he has to broaden his reli
gion, and he becomes as broad as temptation,
as broad as the soul’s darkness, as broad as
hell. They want a religion that will allow
them to keep their sins, and then at death say
to them: “Well done, good and faithful ser
vant,” and that- tells them: “All is well, for
there is no hell.” What a glorious heaven
they hold before us! Come, let us go m and
see it. There is Herod and all the babes he
massacred. There is Charles Guiteau, and
Jim Fiske, and Robespierre, the friend of the
French guillotine, and ail the liars, thieves,
house-burners, garroters, pick-pockets and lib
ertines of all the centuries. They have all got
crowns, and thrones, and harps, and sceptres,
and when they chant they sing: “Thanksgiv
ing, and honor, and glory, and power to the
broad religion that let us all into heaven with
out repentance and faith in those disgraceful
dogmas of ecclesiastical old-fogvism.”
My text gives me a grand opportunity of
saying a useful word to all young men who
are now forming habits for a lifetime. Of what
use to a stonemason or a bricklayer is a plumb
line? Why not build tbe wall by the unaided
eye and hand? Because they are insufficient;
because if there be a deflection in the wall it
cannot further on he corrected; because, by
the law of gravitation, a wall must be straight
in order to be symmetrical and safe. A young
man is in danger of getting a defect in his wall
of character that may never be corrected. One
of the best friends 1 ever bad died of delirium
tremens at sixty years of age, though he had
not since twenty-one years of age—before
which he had been dissipated—touched intoxi
cating liquor until that particular carousal that
took him off. Not feeling well in a street on a
hot summer day. he stepped into a drug-store,
just as yon and I would have done, and asked
for a dose of something to make him feet bet
ter. And there was alcohol in the dose, and
that one drop aroused the old appetite, and he
entered the first liquor store and stayed there
until thoroughly under the power of rum. He
entered his home a raving maniac, his wife
and daughters fleeing from his presence, until
he was taken to the city hospital to die. The
combustable material of early habit had lain
quiet for nearly forty years, and that one
spark ignited the conflagration. Remember
that the wall may be one hundred feet high,
and yet a deflection one foot from the founda
tion affects the entire structure, and if you live
a hundred years and do right the last eighty
years, you may nevertheless do something at
twenty years of age that will damage ail your
earthly existence. Ail you who have built
houses for yourselves or for others, am I not
right in saying to these young men you cannot
build a wall so high as to be independent of
the character of its foundation? A man be
fore thirty years of age may commit enough
sin to last him a lifetime. A cat that has
killed one pigeon cannot be cured. Keep it
from killing the first pigeon. Now, Joan, or
George, or Charles, or William, or Alexander,
or Andrew, or Henry, or whatever be year
Christian name or surname, say here and now:
“No wild oats for me, no cigars or cigarettes
for me, no wine or beer for me, no nasty
stones for me, no Sunday sprees for me; I am
going to start right and keep on right. Gcd
help me, for I am very weak. From the
throne of eternal righteousness let down to me
the principles by which I can be guided in
building everything from foundation to c ip-
stone. Lord God, by the wounded hand of
Christ, throw me a plumb line!”
Lord Nelson's general direction when goiDg
into naval battle was, no man can do wrong
that places his ship close alongside that of the
enemy. My friend, you will never do wrong
if you keep your life close alongside the Ten
Commandments. Do right, aud you can be as
brave as Maria Theresa, who rode up the hill
of Defiance and shook her sword at the four
corners of the earth.
Dr.pRJP_ es
FLWORIHGEXTRAtf 5
MOST PERFECT MADE
Dr. Price’s Extracts, Vanilla, Lemon. Orange, Etc.,
prepared from the true fruits, flavor deliciously.
Scene hi one of the Departments of the
PRICE BAKING POWDER COMPANY’S MANUFACTORY
THE LARGEST IN THE WORLD.
Preparing Dr. Price's Special Flavoring Extracts.
Piedmont Exposition at Atlanta, Ga.
Opens October 10th, Closes October 22d, 1887.
PRESIDENT CLEVELAND WILL BE IN ATLANTA OCTOBER 18 AND 19.
The Georgia Railroad Companj and Gainesville, Jefferson & Southern Railroad
Will sell ROUND TRIP TICKETS at the following low rates from all Regular Stations.
Tickets will include admission coupon to Exposition grounds for which an additional charge of
50 cents will be made. No tickets will be sold without the above named coupon is attached.
The rates will be as follows from stations named, including admission to Exposition Grounds:
Athens to Atlanta and return, • - - §3.10 I Augusta to Atlanta and return, - - §3.50
Washington “ “ - - - * 3.101 Miiledgeville “ “ - - - 3.50
Covington “ “ - - - - 1.30 I Madison “ “ - - - 1.85
Greensboro “ “ - - - - 2.251 Decatur “ “ - - 0.65
The sale of tickets will commence on Sunday, October 9th, and continue until October 22 , in
clusive, limited to 5 days, including date of sale.
JOE. W. WHITE, E. R. DORSEY,
Traveling Passenger Agent. General Passenger A gent.
AUGUSTA, GA.
“But,” you say, “von shut us young folks
out from ail fun.” O, no! I like fun. I be
lieve in fun. I have had lots of it in my time.
But I have not had to go into paths of sin to
find it. No credit to me, but because of an ex
traordinary parental example and influence 1
was kept from outward v transgressions, though
my heart was bad enough and desperately
wicked. I have had fun illimitable, though I
never swore one oath, and never gambled for
so much as the value of a pin, and never saw
the inside of a haunt of sin save as when, ten
years ago, with commissioner of police, and a
detective and two elders of my church, I ex
plored these cities by midnight, not out of cu
riosity, but that I might in pulpit discourse set
before the people the poverty and the horrors
of underground city liie. Yet; though I never
was intoxicated for an instant, and never com
mitted an act of dissoluteness, restrained onlv
by the grace of God, without which restraint
I would have gone headlong to the bottom of
infamy, I have had so much lun that I don’t
believe that there is a man on the planet in the
present time who has had more. Hear it, men
and boys, women and girls, ail the fun is on
the side of right. Sin may seem attractive,
but it is deathful, and like the machlneel, a
tree whose dews are poisonous. The only gen
uine happiness is in an honest Christian nfe.
The Caippewa, wanting to see God, blackens
his face with charcoal and fasts till he has a
vision of what he calls God. My God I can
see best when I take my hat off and let the
sunshine blaze in my face, and after a reason
able breakfast. He is not a God of blackness
and starvation, but of light and plenitude, and
the glory of the noonday sun is Egyptian mid
night compared to it. There they go—two
brothers. The one was converted a year ago
in church, one Sunday morning, during
prayer, or sermon, or hymn. No one knew
it at the time. The persons on either
side of him suspected nothing, but iu that
young man’s soul this process went on: “Lord,
here I am, a young man amid the temptations
of city life, and I am afraid to risk them alone;
come and be my pardon and my help; save me
from making the mistake that some of my com
rades are making, and save me now.” And
quicker than a flash God rolled Heaven into
his soul. He is just as jolly as he used to be,
is just as brilliant as he used to be. He can
strike a ball or catch one as easily as before he
was converted. With gun or fishing rod, in
this summer vacation, he was just as skillful
as before. The world is brighter to him than
ever. He appreciates pictures, music, inno
cent hilarity, social life, good jokes, and has
plenty of fun—first class fun, glorious fun.
But his brother is going down bill. In the
morniDg his head aches trom the champagne
debauch. Everybody sees he is in rapid de
scent. What cares he for right or decency or
the honor of his family name? Turned out of
employment, depleted in health, cast down in
spirits, the typhoid fever strikes him in the
smallest room on tne fourth story of a fifth
rate boarding house, cursing God, and calling
for his mother, and fighting oack demons from
his dying pillow, which is besweated and torn
to rags. He plunges out of this world with the
shriek of a destroyed spirit. Alas for that
kindoffunl It is remorse. It is despair. It
is blackness of darkness. It is woe unending
and long reverberating, and crushing as though
all the mountains of all continents rolled on
him in one avalanche. My soul, stand back
from such fun. Young man, there is no fun
in shipwrecking your character, no fun in dis
gracing your tattler’s name. There is no fun
in breaking your mother’s heart. There is no
fun in the physical pangs of the dissolute.
There is no lun in the profligate’s death-bed.
Tnere is no fun in an undone eternity. Para
celsus, out of the ashes of a burnt rose, said he
could re-create the rose, but he failed iu the
alchemic undertaking; and roseate life, once
burned down in sin, can never again be made
to blossom.
Oh! this plumb line of the everlasting right!
God will throw it over ail our lives to snow us
our moral deflections. God will throw it over
all churches to show whether they are doing
useful work or are standing instances of idle
ness and pretense. He will throw that plumb
line over all nations to demonstrate whether
their laws are just or cruel, their rulers good or
bad, their ambitions holy or infamous. He
tnrew that piurnb fine orer the Spanish mon
archy of other days; and what became of her?
Ask the splintered hulks of her overthrown
Armada. He threw that plumb line over
French imperialism; and what was the result?
Ask the ruins of ihe Tui 1 lies, aud the fallen
column of the Place Venuowe, and the grave
trenches of Sedan, aud the blood of revolutions
at different times rolling through the Champs
Elysees. He threw that piumb line over an
cient Rome; and what became of the realm of
the Csesars? Ask her war eagles, with Beak
dulled and wings broken, flung helpless into
the liber. He thre w it over the Assyrian Em
pire of a thou,-and years, tne thrones of Semi-
ramia and bardanapalus and Shalmaneser, of
twenty-seven victorious expeditious, the cities
of Phoenicia kntedrg to the scepter, and all the
world blanched in the presence. What became
of all the grandeur? Ask the fallen palaces of
Khorsabad aud the corpses of her one hundred
and eighty-five thousand soldiery slain by the
angel of tne Lord in one night, and the Assyr
ian sculpturers of the world’s museums, all mat
now remains of that splendor before which na
tions staggered and crouched. God is now
throwing that plumb line over this American
republic, ana it is a solemn time with this na
tion. And whether we keep His Sabbaths or
dishonor them; whether righteousness or in
iquity dominate; whether we are Christian or
inlidei; whether we fulfill our mission or re
fuse it; whether we are for God or against
Him, we’ll decide whether we shall, as a na
tion, go on in a higher and higher career or go
down in the same grave wnere Bacylon and
Nineveh and Thebes and Assyria are sepul
chred.
and she went to Baden Baden and tried those
waters, and went to Camsbad and tried those
waters, and went to Homburg and tried those
waters, and instead of getting better she got
worse, and in despair she said to a physician:
“What shall I do?” His reply was: “Medi
cine can do nothing for you Yon have one
chance in the waters of Pitt Kealthy, Scot
land.” “Is it possible?” she replied. “Why,
those waters are on my own estate!” She re
turned and drank of the fountain at her own
gate, and in two months completely recovered.
Oh! sick, and diseased, and sinning, and dying
hearer, why go trudging all ti e world over, and
seeking here and there relief for your discour
aged spirit, when close by a. d at your very
feet, and at the very door of juur heart—aye,
within ihe very estate of your own conscious
ness—the healing waters of eternal life may be
had, and had this very hour, this very minute,
this very Sabbath? Blessed be God that over
against the plumb line that Amos saw is the
cross, through the emancipating power of
which you and I may live, aad live forever.
PLAIN HOME TALKS
BY DR. E. B. POOTE.
For three new subscribers we will send
n copy of Dr. Foote’s Plain Home Talks
about the human system, the habits of men
and women, the cause and prevention of
disease, our sextual relations and social
natures, embracing medical common sense
applied to causes, prevention and cure of
chronic diseases, the natural relation of
men and women to each other; society,
love, marriage, parentage. &c., embellished
with 200 illustrations. The book contains
6,00 pages, handsomely bound in cloth and
gilt
A Classical anil Mythological Dictionary.
A new for popniar nas. Ej It. C. Faulkner. ltl»th»
of tula volume to provide the orrtJnarj render with m
1e! an.l concise explanation ortho ancient Mythological. Classi-
S Biographical Historical, and Geographical Allusions, moat
equeutly met with In English Literature, in art representations
frequently met with In English Literature
of Classical D-ltlee and Heroes, In news
paper discussions, and In ordinary apeecii.
70 Illustrations.
Erie? a counts are given of all the clanslrnl
heroes meritloned In ancient history ; nlso
of all Mythological Deities, Bach as Achilles, 1
Adonis, Ammon, A mi bis, Apollo, Ataluuta.
Atlas, Bacchus. Brahma. Buddha, Cerberus,
Charon, Cupid. Dagon, Diana. Duiya, Escn-
laplus, Euterpe, E bo, Iiulena, Hercules
Indra, Isia. Juno, Jupiter, Krishna, liars’
Me<lu?o, Mercury, Minerva, Moloch, Nlohe
Orpheus Os'.rla, Pan, Pluto, Psycho, Saturn,
bybli. Sirens. Terpsichore. Thalia, Thor,
Tnorh, Vuruna. Venus. Vesta, Vishnu, Vul
can Tama, ar.d hundreds of others. A hand
book for popular use—convenient, compro-
_ __ .
—very
i understand these >uh-
With whioh are combined the words opposite
in meaning. By H. O. Faulkner. For the nse
or all those who wonld speak or write the Eng
lish Language fluently and oorreotly. With
this book at hand any one may readily find a
suitable word to express their exact meaning
and convey a thought oorreotly. This book ia
invaluable to speakers, writers, authors and
the conversationalist. Handsomely bound in
cloth.
For two new subscribers we will send a oopy
of either of these valuable books in paper bind
ing.
A manual ofsooial etiquette. By Franoes Stev
ens. Nothing is given in this book that has not
the sanotion of observance by the best sooiety—
contains 21 chapters. Introductions and Salu
tations, Visiting Cards and Visiting, Strangers
and New-oomers, Engagements and Weddings,
, „ Reoeptions and Debuts, Private Balls and Ger-
to Isaiah, ‘God toall lay judgment to the line mans, Fanoy Dress and Masquerade Balia
MtinPKH fn !h« ninmmot 9* ,f aK 2 m,, ^ w WV*
“Bat,” say you, “if there be nothing but a
plumb line, what can any of us do? for there
is an old proverb which truthfully declares:
‘If the best man’s faults were written on his
forehead it would make him pull his hat over
his eyes ’ What shall we do w hen, according
to Isaiah, ‘God toall lay judgment to the line
aad righteousness to the plummet ?’ ” Ah,
here is where the gospel comes ia with a Sa
vior’s righteousness to make up for our defic
its. And while I see hanging on the wail a
plumb line, I see also hanging there a cross.
And whiD the one condemns us, the other
saves ns, if only we will hold to it. And here
and now you may be sat free with a more glo
rious liberty than Hampden or Sidney or a
Kosciusko ever fought for. Not out yonder, _ . ,
or down there, or up here, but just where you I book is indispensible to all who wish to
are you may get it. The invalid proprietress | obtain the most enjoyment from daily inter
of a wealthy estate in Scotland visited the con- | course with their fellow beimw. '
tinentoi Europe to get ridot her maladies, I bound in cloth. Handsomely
mg, Table Deoorations and Etiquette, Lunoh-
eons, Breakfast and Teas, The Art of Enter
taining, Letter Writing and Invitations, Musi
cal ‘ At Homes” and Garden Parties, Travel
ing Manners and Mourning Etiquette, Wedding
and Birthday Anniversaries and Presents, New
Year’s Day Receptions, Important General
Considerations, Brief Hints for every day use.