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A GOOD RULE. The Honorable Mr. Mills, of Texas, is not a statesman so to speak. He is hardly a good member of Congress, not for the lack of industry or intel¬ ligence, but that he is an unwise and impractical man, with a sharp temper, and if possible, a sharper voice. He is vigilant and noisy, is often heard, but rarely’ accomplishes anything save occasionally to vote right. If ,.e delights to tackle one thing more than another, it is a point of wrier, which he <•• n contuse n a mom m. while tt takes his colleague, ’• • a ,t«. a long tim to m» i lie it »! . il tu*‘ ex <'p*ion of a i“v •on i bet s, IVo .. J/.rnigau and la wucre. who know nothing at all, and some who do not pretend or assume to know any tiling, Mr. 3/d is and r. Reagan really u. der- starnl less about the rules by’ whic i parliamentary bodies arc governed than any member save Keifer. But even Mr. Mills lias, by long and continued practice, succeeded in piercing the bull’s eye, or. to use the vernacular of Texas, has plummcd the cross. He has introduced a resolu¬ tion to amend the rules so as to ex elude cx-members of congress from the privileges of the floor. Mr. Mills is right. He is a most persistent man and if be will devote himself to this by night and by day until success i8 achieved, his fame will have been set beyond all peradventure. At present, ex-members of Congress are entitled to the privileges of the floor, provided the application is made for the privilege in writing, accompa¬ nied by the statement that the party making the application is not inter¬ ested in pending legislation, This is regarded as an oath or pledge and is exacted to prevent lobbying. This result has not been obtained Alnu-s every member of Congress who is defeated for rc-election, and who cannot get a subordinate position in the House or in some branch of governmental service, and who can juggle a railroad out of a free pass, or reach Washington City by any other means, goes bacA* there and goes into the lobby for pay. Being entitled to the privileges of the floor. Congressman cannot escape him, and he possesses an immense advantage over the lay brethren of the profession. And on every day of the session tl.est men may be seen on t:ie floor, in the cloak rooms aud the corridors busily plying their trade. All causes com bined do not so lower and retard the public service as these people who come from both of the great political parties. Public measures, no matter what their merit and importance, arc the mortal foes of the lobby, and are always antagonized by bills in wliich private schemes and interests arc skilfully or clumsily concealed. We have seen these fellows running about the house like the pages ou a call of States, and more than once abso¬ lutely handling the bdls on the clerk’s desA*. It is a disgrace and growing outrage on public hones-y an*l decen¬ cy, and ,»»r. .* ills is aiming a bl w exactly at the right poiut where it is likely to do the most good. There is no sense or reason iu granting this privilege to cx-Congrvssuicn. The reason is against it, for the hall does not comfortably contain its regular members. Good sense would build up barriers against a lobby rather than open the way to the hucksters of men s votes and con¬ sciences. Mr. Mills is too late with bis movement, for this session, at least. It is more than questionable if he possesses the requisite tact, influence and ability to enforce this measure; but, as we have before remarked, he is a persistent man, and persistency will accomplish much Let him hang on to this movement in season and out of season and he will bring supporters to his back. Congressmen will begin to see and appreciate a measure that is likely to relieve them of the presence and pressnoe of these privileged lobbyists, and in time these fellows may have to oool their heels in the corridors along with the common herd.—Macon lelegraph. The San Francisco Bulletin, com¬ menting on the veto of the Chinese bill, says: ’The President has not done a good day’s work for himself, the Republican party or the country at large.’ TOCCOA NEWS Bj i dw SCHEAFER \ VOL JX. MOSES SW IN LIN * CAREER. BltOUGHT TO AN i nexpect:.d end. New York, March 28.—f ranklin . Moses, ex-Governor of ^outh Car olina. and tor years a | rotessional swindler, was a prisoner to-day at police headquarters on the charge ot swindling Freeborn J. Smith, a Booklyn piano manufacturer, out of one hundred and seventy-five dollars. There are quite a number of charges against him, and during the day’ he was identified by a number of his victims, who will appear against him to-morrow at the Toombs police courts. He was arrested at Broadway and Twenty second street to day by detectives who had been searching for him for two weeks. On March 11th Moses called on Mr. Smith, and representing himself as Richard H. Colquitt, a brother of Governor Colquitt, of Georgia, succeeded in inducing Smith to cash a chock for one hundred and seventy- five dollars. The check, which was drawn on a southern bank, was returned protested. £. Crowell, of the Phoenix Insurance company, also entertained Moses under the name of Anthony White, of Greenville, S. C., and cashed his checA* of $130. Howard II. Stewart, of 61 W’all street, also cashed two fifty dollar checks for Moses, who represented himself to be General Curtis, state commissioner of North Carolina, accidentally left without money in this city after banking hours. Stewart also informed the po.ice that a num - her ot Wall street men had been similarly victimized by the ex-Gov ernor, and Lie promised to produce the victims in court to morrow. B. H. Hazell of the Charleston steamship line, of Boston,also that he lost $*230 by the check ations of the prisoner. Charles R. Flint, the partner of Mayor Grace, wisely declined to cash checks presented. \ oses’ biography for the last five years, as written up to night, connects him with a continuous scries of swindles, mentioned from time to time with the names of the victims therein, but none of which were at the time accredited to Moses. One of these is a swindle, perpetrated upon a prom¬ inent Trans-Atlautic {Steamship company bv a man who pretended to nave discovered the Fenian plot to blow up tneir steamers, a>>d for bis information received a reward stated at $10, 00. A LAND OF WONDER Nevada is a land of curious natural phenomena, says the Eureka (Nev.) Leader. Her rivers have no visible outlet to the ocean. She has no lakes of any magnitude. She has vast stretches of alkali deserts, however, that give every indication of having been the beds or bottoms of either seas or lakes. Down in Lincoln county rhere is a spring of ice cold water that bubbles up over a rook and disappears on the other side, and no one has been able to find where the water goes. At another point in the same county is a large spring about twenty feet square, that is, appar¬ ently, only some eighteen or twenty inches in depth, with a sandy bottom, The sand can be plainly seen, but on looking closer it is perceived that this sand is in a perpetual state of unrest. No bottom has ever been found to this spring. It is said that a team¬ ster, on reaching this spring one day, deceived by its apparent shallowness, concluded to soak one of his wagon wheels to cure the loosness of its tire. He therefore took it off and rolled it into the ^iter. He never laid his eyes on that wagon wheel again. The mountains are full of caves and caverns, many of which have been explored to a great distance. Speak iog of caves, a rodeo was held last Devoted to News. Politics. Agriculture and General prgress- TOCCOA, GA., APRIL 15. 1882. spring over in Huntington Valley, During its progress quite a number of cattle were missing and for a time unavailing search was made for them. At ast they were trace 1 to the mouth of a natural tunnel or cave in the mountain. The herders entered the cave and following it for a long distance, at last found the cattle. Jt appears that they had probably entered the cave in search of water Jt had finally narrowed so that they could proceed no further A’cithcr could they turn around to get out. They had been missed some days, and, if they hud not been found, must inevitably have perished in a short time. As it was, they were extricated from their predicament with difficulty by the herders squeezing past and scaring them into a retrograde move¬ ment by flapping their hats into the faces of the stupid bovines,—Mc¬ Duffie Journal. A MODEST CLAIM. Savannah News. Kellogg, of Louisiana, so-called, is again brougt prominently before the American people, but as is usual with him, in no very enviable light. Not satisfied with ihe popular odium which is attached to kis name on account of his misdeeds in Louisiana during the Grant regime , and still later as the usurper of a seat in the United States Senate from that State — to which all the Radical sophistry which has been iiiged in his defense could never give him even the slight¬ est primn facie claim—he seems to have no shame, and has now seized and received through Hoar, of Mas-, sachusetts $9,0G0 from the public treasury—in addition to what he has already illegally received—to reim¬ burse him for the expense he is alleged to have incurred in his efforts t * retain his seat' against its rightful claimants. Apart from the flagrant injustice and unlimit d impudence of Kellogg in presenting this claim, the fact that he has done so and in accordance, too. with precedents furnished by Congress fuanishes food for reflec¬ tion. The practice of defraying the expenses of contestants for seats i i the Federal Legislature is one fraught with naught but evil. It is not only a severe tax upon the people, but it is a direct invitation to disappointed seekers for Congressional honors to console their grief with a liberal grab from the public money vaults. To this, no doubt, is largely due the great increase of late years in Con¬ gressional contests and while this custom is allowed, it may be regarded as pretty certain that the contests will continue. In fact, it is hard to imagine any more pleasant and easy way to make a snug little sum than for a man to run for Congress, and then, even if he be defeated by the most overwhelming majority”, to de¬ clare that he was fraudulently ‘ousted out,’ present his claim to Congress, aud after spending one or two seas¬ ons in pleasure at the Federal capital, receive several thousand dollars of the people s money as a generous gift. So nice indeed is all this that it is almost come to be a profession among certain Radical politicians, especially in this section. Certainly it has become one of the commonest nuis¬ ances at the capital. Alluding to this particular claim of Kellogg, the Boston Tost is led per¬ tinently to remark that $9,000 would buy a large edition of catechisms and spelling books for the wards of the nation, and, aside from the question of Congressional jurisdiction, the money would be far better thus spent than in paying Mr. Kelloggs bills in enabling him to hold a seat which, but for the party decree of his asso¬ ciates, he long since would have been compelled to vacate. Genuine cheerfulness is an almost certain iudex of a happy mind and pure good heart. HOW ME. PARSONS WOOED, ‘I never knew precisely’ wliy’ she broke her engagement with me,’ said Mr. Parsons solemnly. ‘I think she used to love me. She said so anyhow, and I think she meant it. I tried my. best to deal fairly with that girl. Soon after she accepted me I said to her one evening: ‘Annie, you know that it often happens that marriages turn out unhappily because people do not understand each other beforehand. You think you know me now, but you really know very little about me. "You do not comprehend my nature and my peculiarities as you will ten years hence.’ ‘She admit ed that it was so, but she said she couldn’t see what on earth wc were going to do about it. “I will tell you what we can do said I. ‘There is a noble science known as phrenology. It enables us to read a man’s inner nature. The bumps on his head are the symbols of his soul. A phrenologist fumbling about over a man s skull can discern whether he is cruel or selfish passionate or unfeeling. He cun tell whether a certain spirit is the kind of a one to form an affinity' for a certain other spirit, and whether the two are likely or unlikely to be congenial. ‘She said she hadn’t very much faith in it; but I assured her she was wrong. I told her I would have my head examined by a competent phre¬ nologist, and would get him to describe my charactcris'ics in writing in full, so that she could study meat her leisure. ‘She said she thought that would be splendid, and I thought so, too. ‘So I paid a professor to feel my head all over and to put the results of his exploration on a piece of paper. It was not quite so favorable as 1 expected it. I admit that I paid him five dollars extra to strike out his assertion that my oombati veness was eleven and my philanthropy minus two. I may have done wrong, but my motives were good. ‘Anyhow, the evening l was to take it around to her the thought struck me that she might want to satisfy herself of the correctness of the report, and so I went to the barbers had my head shaved cLsc, and then I got the professor of phreuology to map out the whole schemed’ bumps on my scalp with a paint brush and ink, dividing the skull off into sections, so that it looked like the ground plan of a cemetery. V\ hen the ink was dry 1 put on my hat and went to her house. I saw the servant girl looking curi¬ ously at my head as I put my hat on the rack, but she said nothing and J went into the parlor. ‘Pretty soon Annie’s father came down and said I would have to excuse her that evening. I was right sorry. But I banded him the manuscript, and bending my head down asked him if he would be kind enough to run over the cemetery lots and verify the written statement. I saw that he looked vexed about something, but he seemed rather interested, and so after he bad read the manuscript and carefully glanced over my scalp, I asked him if he considered it, upon the whole, satisfactory. ‘Perfectly so,’ he said ; and then I said that the professor told me I had some bumbs that were not even found upon Daniel Webster’s head. •He said something about that being ‘surprising’ and then he added, ‘But the matter does not concern me, Mr. Parsons.’ • ‘Why uot?’ 1 asAed, ‘Your son-in- law’s affairs concern you, don’t they? ‘Then he got up and said that I was not going to marry’ into the family ; that my engagement with his daughter was broken otf. As soon as be said that he walked out of the room, aud of course I went away, but to this day J. never learned what was i TERMS—$1 50 A YEAR. NO. 40 the matter, and I don’t know vet. Hard, wasn’t it. And it will be three mon ths before the hair will grow a & a ' n 1° cover the cemetery lots. Mr - Parsons sadly sneezed three times as he finished the story and tied a fresh knot in the silk handker- chief which enveloped his head under bis hat.—Our Continent. TREATING A COW AS YOU WOULD A LADY. Chicago Tribune. A man came into the office on Tuesday with a black eye, a strip of coat plaster across his cheeA, one arm in a sling, and as he lcaucd on a crutch and wiped the perspiration away from around a lump on his forehead with a red cotton handker¬ chief he asked it the editor was in. Being answered in the affirmative he said; * Well, 1 want to stop my paper,’ and he sat down on the edge of a chair as though it might hurt. ‘Scratch my name right off. You are responsible for my condition.’ ‘Can it be possible? we inquired. ‘Yes, said ho. Tam a farmer, and 7cecp cows. 1 recently read an article in your paper about a dairymen’s convention, where one of the mottoes over the door was, ‘Treat your cow as you would a lady,’ and the article said it was contended by’ our best dairymen that a cow treated in a polite, gentlemanly manner, as though she was a companion, would give twice as much milk. The plan seemed feasible to me. / had been a hard man with stock, and thought that may be that was one reason my cows always dried up when butter was forty cents a pound and gave plenty of milk when butter was only- worth fifteen cents a pound. I de¬ cided to adopt your plan and treat a cow as I would a lady 7 . I had a brindle cow that never had been much mashed on me and I decided to commence on her, and the next morn¬ ing after I read your devilish paper I put on my Sunday suit and a white plug bat that I bought the year Gree¬ ley’ run for President and went to the barn to milk. I noticed the old cow seemed to be bashful and frightened, but, taking off my hat and bowing po.itely’, I said : ‘Madame, excuse the impropriety of the request, but will you do me the favor to hoist!’ At the same time I tapped her gently on the flank with mj plug hat, and, putting the tin pail on the floor under her, /sat down on the milking stool.’ ‘Did she hoist?’ said wc, rather anxious to know how the advice of President Smith, of Shcboy’gan, the great dairyman, had worked. ‘Did she hoist?’ ‘Well look at me and see if you think she hoisted. That cow raised light up and kicked me with all four feet, switched me with her tail and hooked me with both horns, all at once, and when I got up out of the bending in the stall and dug my hat out of the manger and the milking stool out from under me and began to maul that cow I forgot all about the treatment of horned cattle. Why, she fairly gal¬ loped over me, and I never want to read your old paper again.’ We tried to explain to him that the advice did not apply to brindle cows at all, but he holfbled out the maddest man that ever asked a cow to hoist in diplomatic language. CUPID GETS AWAY WITH MARS. A VIRGINIA ELOPEMENT SUCCESSFUL IN SPITE OF AN ANGRY FATHER’S FIST. From the Norfolk Ledger. A day or two ago a young lady in this city, whose matrimonial tenden¬ cies did not meet the favor of her parents, concluded to elope with the man of her choice, and the arrange¬ ments were made looking to a speedy union in the land of *tar. pitch and turpentine.’ The Elizabeth city :.nd Norfolk railroad furnishes au easy means of transport to a section where the consent of parents is not a prere¬ quisite to connubial felicity* and where embarrassing questions as to ages, etc., are not. heard. To the Berkley depot of that road she ac¬ cordingly hied, and with her own swain impatiently awaited the toot of the whistle for starting on her mo* mentous errand. Before that welcome sound was heard, however, the ‘old man,' who, it seems, was up to the tricks of young lovers, appeared upon the scene in search of the truants. He found his daughter on the platform of the car, and endeavored with force and arms to induce her to alight from the train and accompany him to the paternal mansion. She struggled for her free¬ dom, being encouraged by her lover, who, for his interference, had his head punched by” the irate parent. in the meantime the train moved olf, and the aforesaid ‘old man,’ or party of the fiist part, being of a somewhat obese habit, and withal not very nimble upon his legs, was compelled to relinquish his hold upon his forward offspring and was left standing upon the platform,, survey¬ ing in mute wrath and rueful visage the swiftly vanishing cars which were bearing the young lovers to a haven of safety, whence he sadly wended his to his desolate home. TOO UTTERLY RICH. A pretty good story is told about Land Agent Milder, of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad, who one day had a party .of eastern far¬ mers in tow, try ing to sell each of them a farm in the rich Arkansas valley. Milner had taken them into his light wagon, and behind his spanking team of bays and given them a grand ride, lasting all day r . He had done his best to make them enthusias¬ tic by rehearsing the stories, which he had at tongue’s end, of the marvel¬ ous crops of the valley, but to all intents it was ‘love’s labor lost,’ for they would not thus. This annoyed Milner, but he had his revenge in his reply to one of the party 7 , who, with a sardonic smile, asked : ‘Well, Mr. Agent, is there anything that won’t grow here?’ ‘Fes, replied Milner, ‘pumpkins won’t.’ ‘What!’ exclaimed the cynical land buyers together, ‘pumpkins won’t?’ TVo,’said Milner j •there arc men in this country who would give $250 an acre for land that would mature a crop of pumpkins. They never had been able to get a crop since I’ve been here, and that’s ten years.’ ‘IFell. how strange ! Why is it?’ said lana-buycr No 1. This was Miner 1 s chance, and. with a serious expression, lie replied : ‘Well, sir, that soil is so rich that the vines grow so fast they wear the pumpkin out dragging them over the ground.’ —Kansas Sketches. SUSPICIONS AROUSED. Tt wasn’t that!’exclaimed Mr. Sanders indignantly, ‘You see* I didn’t say a word at all.’ ‘/low’d she find out, then?’ asked one of the party. ‘Why, I went home and she asked if it was me. I told her it was. Took the chance on that, you know. Then she asked me if 1 had been drinking* I told her no. And there I stopped. Never said another word.’ ‘But you say she caught on some¬ where. How was it.* VJust a blunder I made When f told her I hadn't drank anything, she was satisfied, but when I come to get to bed I put on my overcoat instead of my night sLirt. And that excited suspicion.—Texas Siftings. AS FA R ASHE KNEW. A stranger from the East was having his boots blacked at the post office when an alarm of fire was turned in. As he saw the steamer rush out he inquired of the ‘shiner’ at his feet: ‘Bob, what sort of water system have you got in this city?’ The boy spit on bis brush, looked op and down the street, and finally answered: ‘ Well, as far as I know anything about it, they all take water after their gm V The reply seemed to be thoroughly satisfactory to the stranger.—Detroit Free Press.