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IjlBER 47. BAIN BRIDGE DECATUR COUNTY, GEORGIA FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 18, 1903. $1.00 YEAR IN ADVANCE Official (S>rgan of 2)ecatnr County ant> tbe Cit? of 36ainbril>oe. Le BOWER’S STRONG CHARGE. Irt Judge Reads Vagrant Law and Makes Strong Charge. week under the ge Bovver took oc- the principles usual thorough charge in substance (down Ibis I been indicted tor the Irancy, and the evi. ■that you have been |he past year, would ought to have ragrancy law provides |iny kinds of vagrants, have to be proven he vagrancy act, but violated any one Ibraces the following: who is able to work ■ property to support (ersons living an idle ilife who have no I support them. Per- lie a fixed abode and lie means to support fssional gamblers liv- ess. All able-bodied are found begging [ All persons over 16 I years able to work, [work, and have no Itupport them, and who pie means of an hon- 1 and who are not in Ipon some educational t subject to the chain- t is the main section [youhave been indict* pons able to work, [property to support pohay^no visible or fw of a fair, honest rep- plihood. Reasonably y merit for reas- lensation, or a fixed | income which is suflfi- c support and mainte i person. p section your case i are not following employment. You I a car of guano once IlW-Mr. Thomas, that pimendable in you, but e shows that you were | n g cars all the time W morning until Sat- ® ner ' You went out crossties; you did P°ugh. The law does 110 work enough to ■ the law does not let t way. t0 Mr. Ehrlich—you [ hlm at his store Mon- n absent fishing and f tof the week. You you find him from 6 ■morning until after P U ®° there Wednesday [l;\ methin g;g° there Li i. he ‘ S workin g still I He is working * ou go over to Dr. Ce ' yoo do . not 6nd i t L, ay , and gone the L; eek - >'? u find hinjs , l dayin week and Di n , y,nto th « night. 1 u 0n f of our stores' Uerk ‘Q there selling urt has its first va- [ goods, you do not find him there Monday and off the balance of the week. Everytime you go there you find him selling goods, follow ing up a continuous occupation. How is it with you ? You lie around here putting the price of your labor up where nobody wants to give it, and you don’t want it given to you so you can lie around and do nothing. And when a man gets in a place where he has to give you 75c and a $1.00 a day, you work a day and get rations enough for a week and so you stop working because you have got enough to last you a whole week. If you could not get but a quarter of a dollar a day you would work a whole week, because you could not get rations enough to run you otherwise, but just as soon as you get big wages you work long enough to get rations for the week. “That is what this law intended to stop. You have forced labor up to a price where a man has to give you enough in one day to buy rations for a week. As soon as vou gpt the rations you flop down for the balance ot the week, hanging around seeing what you can. steal for five days out of the week and Sundays too. It is intended to make you live by your work, follow an honest, continu ous occupation, just like every body else does It will throw into labor a large claps that are doing nothing and living on the balance. They were standing around the street corners with a great pistol in their poeket and talking bi$ and having a cook at somebody’? house supplying them *with provisions that they were, stealing; before this law was passed But you can’t do it now. The law says that you shall work. Whiin you- are arrested now, you can’t go to your friends and get a quarter from each and come up here and say that you have money, it is not so now. You have got to show for your defense that you have been hard at work all the time either for yourself or somebody else, or you go up. The far reaching effects of this law are good. It makes you work to put money in your pocket, that you would not have had before. The law takes you when you • are lazy and idle’ and makes you go and put money in your pocket whether you want it or not, and the result is all this idle class that have been doing nothing, lying around gam bling and febooting come up like honest men and go to work and fill tbeij pocket with money. And not only that, but all the colored and white men running businesses instead of going put k search of help have it eftfered to them. It changes the whole nature of things. The member ot the legis lature that introduced that bill deserves* the most profound grati tude otthe state for such a bene ficial law as th’i&. They ought to thank him for it, because it puts Important Mass Meeting Held Here; A mass meeting of the citizens of Bainbridge was held at the court house last Friday n’ght and a permanent organization was effected tor the purpose of taking steps towards forming an alliance with the tobacco and farming in terests of southern Decatur. A large number of business and pro fessional men were present. Mr. J. S. McRee was elected chairman and F. S. Jones secretary. After organizing discussions of the questions in hand were invited. Mr. W. E. Smith, of Attagulgus, the largest individual tobacco grower in this section, and an en thusiastic Decatur county man, responded to numerous calls, and in an inspiriting speech enthused the crowd with the bright future of the varied industries of his sec tion. Mr. Smith thinks the large trade now going elsewhere justly belongs to the flourishing capital of Decatur and that she can get it by providing as good a market for tobacco, syrup and other products as other points now offer. He would have us also to cultivate a closer friendship and sympathy with this section and feels sure every one there cherishes the same patriotism as he for the welfare of Bainbridge, conditions being made equal. Mr H. M. Lott, president of the Florida Tobacco and Commer cial Company at Havana, and Mr. Tom Hinson, manager of the Laingkat tobacco plantation, were present and offered some valuable suggestions for bringing about the desired results. Quite a bit of enthusiasm was worked up and Col. J)onalso»,. Dr. Chason and others pledged them selves to hearty co-operation in the movement. Bainbridge can secure this trade and her citizens have formed the determination to secure it. A combination of capi tal and forces will be made at once and the following committee on modus operandi were appointed: H L. Gans, E. J. Willis, R. R. Belcher, M. E. Nussbaum, D. C. Gurley, A. J. Macdonald, Wm. H. Legg, W. E. Frye. The report is awaited with much interest. The people of the southern sec tion are willing and anxious to come to us and that it will be made advantageous to them there can be no doubt. money into the pockets of an idle class and makes them work, forces the idle to labor, and enables those who are looking for laborers to hire them. It gives them thou sands of dollars they would hot have enjoyed had not this law an forced them to work for it. "You find a working man you do not find him to be a criming He hasn’t time to lie out in ttfe woods four days to watch a hog so he can get a chance to shoot him, he hasn’t time. This law tends to make vou all honest. “This new law does not grab you fight up and put you in the chain gang; it gives you a chance. If you pgn make a bond tor $3qo that you will do honest work for w a year, it wifi tum you loose, if not it wifl’pu'f you in the chain-gang where you will be made to work,” STORM STRIKES STATES. Hurricane Plays Fearful Havoc. Property and Lives Lost Great. One of the most destructive hur ricanes that i- remembered tor many years has brnu»h* death and damage to many places in Florida, south Georgia and south Alabama. It originated in the West Indies and struck the east coast of Flor ida last Friday traveling east. All telegraph lines were down and railroads washed up and it was not until the middle of the week that the full extent of the damage was known. The orange crop of Florida has suffered perhaps the greatest loss of any of the crops. With the wind blowing from 60 to 70 miles an hour the trees were whipped into shreds and it is estimated that fully 50 percent of the oranges were thrown down. At Miami the handsome car- shed of the East Coast railway was turned complfetely over and the cars that were in it did not receive a scratch. At nearly every point in Florida houses were un roofed and blown down and many people were .died and injured. Tampa suffered serious damage. Shipping, on both the cast and west coast suffered heavily. Many vessels were wrecked and people drowned. The property loss in Florida is estimated at a million dollars. The hurricane struck south Georgia Saturday night and con tinued throughout Sunday and Sunday night. At Bainbridge the wind attained its greatest velocity late Sunday afternoon, when St was estimated that it was blowing at the rate of 45 mi)e« an hour and the rain was pouring in tor rents. However little damage was done aside from the rain. Bothi railroads had serious wash outs and no trains could move fqr several ..days. The cptton crop suffered heaviest in this section, the open cotton being beaten out by the wind and rain and hun dreds of bales will t be lost. The turpentine’ interests of Georgia and Florida is greatly damaged from the blowing down ot the trees. It is estimated in Florida that 15 percent of the tqq- pjntine trees were blown down. Moultrie was struck by a cyclone early Monday morning that did $25,000 worth of damage, besides injuring several people. Houses were blown down, including three churches, and the steam laundry and cotton oil mill and other buildings greatly damaged. That there was no loss of life is ac counted for by the fact that the people could see the cyclone com ing and had time to get out of the buildings to places of safety. Five inches of rain fell at Bain bridge during the twenty-four hours that it lasted Scarcely a roof in the city could withstand the blowing rain and as a consequence every one was busy looking after leaks. The goods in several stores suffered considerable damage from leaks. Electric light wires were down and the city was in darkness as well as storm Sunday night. A short distance east of Whig- ham the track of the Coast Line railroad was washed away for more than six hundred feet, and trains were unable to pass over it for several days. The G. F. & A, road has not yet been able to, reach Ta'lahassee and they can not tell how much longer they will be repairing the road bed. Pass sengers for Tallahassee have been • orced to drive overland from rhomisville to that point, as that was the only Way of reaching, there, ’ No doubt there will follow a considerable swell in fhe streams of the county and state, as a re sult of the heavy rainfall. Leaving this section, the hurri cane seems to have beaten up the Atlantic coast and fearful destruc tion has been wrought in its path. New York City was itself struck and there is no telling the amount of damage done to property. One noticeable feature of the storm was the absence of cool weather following. The day’s have been'sweltering hot all the week. Farmers have been busying them selves picking cotton, or rather gat'-erlng the scattered crop in fheir fields. Anent Onr Tax Rate. Even 100 counties in Georgia have reported their tax rate to the cojnptrpllcr general. There is a wide variation in the rate of the different counties, from nothing in Terrell county to $37 36 per $1,- dop in Wilcox, The high rate in Wijcox is attributed to a tax levy to build a new court house. The people of Decatur county should never cease to congratu late themselves on having a hand some new! court house without special taxation and a decreasing tax rate. Terrell county has no tax at all as her dispensary pays the ex penses of the county government. Decatur county bas exactly the same rate, $5 00 per $1,000, as twenty other of these 100 counties, twenty have a lower rate and forty have a higher. Decatur county may always be found in the front ranks of the favored few. Ben Tillman To-night. Senator Ben - R. Tillman, of South Carolina, has been secured to deliver a lecture at the’opera house, th's city tonight, and it is expected that there will be a large crowd to hear him on his first visit to Bainbridge. Senator Tillman has decided views on the race question and the proper solution thereof. He has delivered this lecture throughout the north and many times in the south, and Wherever pre«ented it has been received by packed houses. Senator Tillman, known as “Pitch Fork Ben," has betn one of the conspicuous figures of the state he now represents, and while he has many enemies, yet his friends have been equally as strong; in fact the Tillman influ ence in South Carolina has been so strong as to completely control the politics of the state since it came into ascendency,