The Middle Georgia argus. (Indian Springs, Ga.) 18??-1893, January 05, 1882, Image 1
w ;,?. SMITH, Publisher.
VOLUME IX.
THE %PICB OF I>lT.
T>ie drouth itTstill Meeting ooal, it
plentiful ar ° bi£h bUt 100 awfull -y
proofs of Guiteau’s sanity are
overwhelming.
Philadelphia is overrun with pro
fessional beggars.
Senator Wade Hamp:dn’s daughter
is preparing for the stage.
Office-seekers make very little head
way with President Arthur. *
Ins citizens of Montreal will give a
dinner in honor of Mark Twain.
•* * m -
1 es, President ATthur is very deliber
ate—ideas long drawn out, you know. ,
General Grant will probably visit
the Atlanta Exposition before its close.
It appears that Patti is itching t<3 ap
pear before a Cincinnati audienoe.
Ohio does not get many offioes, but
when she does get them, she gets good
ones.
Mackey, the bonanza king, is easting
about with a view to buying a portion
of Texas.
The restrictions upon tne importation
•of American pork to France are soon to
be removed. .
The estimated expenses of the Govern
ment for the year ending June 30, 1883,
are $340,462,507.
P. T. Barnum, who used to be a pro
hibitionist, has come out in favor of a
limited license law.
Davlq Davis is Again in the matri
monial market. What a fat take he will
make, for woman.
liie (Cabinet does not apppar to be
getting reconstructed very fast. Arthur
is very deliberate in liis acts.
Philadelphia may be a poky place,
but still sliqUas just enterprise enough to
light up the entire city with electricity.
The main portion of the President’s
message w#s ( printed in the London pa
pers thfe day following its delivery to
Congress. '
Of lato it seems that Yennor’s weather
predictions are missing offcener than they
hit. We shall have to erase his name
from the list pretty soon.
Prinebrb in ihe- Government printing
office are getting pretty particular.
They demand sixty cents an hour for
labor performed after midnight.
Mrs. Garfield has seen and approved
a the new flve-cent postage
stamp, which bears upon its face an ac
curate likeness of the late President,
There has been no lack of rebuttal
testimony in the Guiteau oase to prove
that the prisoner, and all the other mm
)>ers of the Guiteau family, were per
fectly sane.
Ten years of the sentence of* the
Tich borne claimant expired October 29,
and by a continuance of good marks he
will have three years and, eight months
more to serve before he is free.
Jeff. Davis, who has returfikd from
Europe, and experienced a "meat stormy
passage, will devote himsetf henceforth
to nis plantation in Tennessee, and the
business growing out of the publication
of his work. * •* *
Thk Liberal idea is looming up in
Texas. It is proposed to Malionize the
State. Hon. Geo. W. -Jones, member
of Congress from Texas, will resign his
seat in the House to become the Liberal
candidate for Governor.
Kbkly, of motor fame, has squandered
*160,000 stockholders’ money in experi
menting with his invention, and by
his repeated failure to fulfill his promises
of the stockholders now bring
suit to recover their money.
It is stated that $15,000,000 of the
fractional currency has not been pre
sented <isr redemption. The greater
oart of this ’SjdSßunt has been lost or de
stroyed, while mnch of it has been filed
away to fce held as a reminiseenoe.
• w f - f ■ ■ * .
It is all ovgng to how the indictment
reads, k Wisconsin man stole thirty
nine sheep sod a steer, but the warrant
charged stwdinj? ‘thirty^niee
steers and a sheep, and he left the
court-room.all his reputation re
•toned. j£se.
Capt. Howo ate’s trial is in progress.
Mr. Howgate will endeavor to explain
to the Government what he and an ex
pensiye mistress did with 8150.000 Gov
ernment money while his family were
being neglected. Oh, but this country
is full of rogues !
Halstead of the Cincinnati Covimer
ciat, wants Guiteau hanged forthwith.
Ihe assassin suffered from too much
turkey Thanksgiving, and with Christ
inas here at hand?—-whv, of course it
he an outrage. Let the Christ
mas, turkey be forestalled.
An association nas ieen lormed in
Dublin for the relief of widows and un
married ladies, annuitants and holders
>f mortgages on Irish estates, a number
of whom are rendered destitute through
the non-payment of rents. Lady Oow
per was present and subscribed £IOO.
. The total number of land owners in
Ireland is 68.758. of whom 36.144 are
the possessors of less than one aero each,
or only about 9,000 acres all told. It
follows, then, that, with this relatively
insignificant exception, the nearly 21,-
000,000 acres of Irish soil are owned by
.32,614 persons.
Guiteau has experienced more real en
joyment and more solid satisfaction in
the notoriety which his trial has given
him than he had in all his life preceding
that event. If left to choose, he doubt
less would give the balance of his life in
preference to a denial the pleasures his
trial has afforded him.
It ib sincerely hoped that Congress
will do something to facilitate the send
ing by mail of fractional currency. Sil
ver is too heavy to enolose in a letter, and
its safe transmission by such means is
questionable. This want is small, al
though a common one, and should be
promptly attended to.
Revenge is sweet. Windfield S. Cox,
of Passaic County, N. J.. who was op
posed lor tlia office of sheriff by a num
ber of prominent men of Paterson, c<?n
listing gf insuraaoo men, manufacturers,
bankers, etc., has placed them on his
first petit jury list to serve at $2 a day,
it the neglect of their large business
interests.
According to the testimoney in the
Guiteau trial, while Guiteau was
so everlastingly religious, in 1875,
he was lounging about afflicted
with a loathsome disease aud squander
ing money on lewd women that his wife
was earning as an employe in a hotel.
It seems to have been more a case of
moral depravity than of religious insan
ity.
Smallpox seems to be raging in all
quarters, and if the greatest precaution
is not taken to prevent its spread, the
probabilities arc that during the present
winter the death rate from that cause
will be something alarming. In every
instance where there is a patient af
flicted with the dread disease a yellow
flag should be hoisted to prevent others
from unnecessarily coming in contact
with it.
Av electric wire came in contact with
a telephone wire, in Cincinnati, and the
lightning traveled both ways on the tele
phone. Fortunately no one had the
telephone trumpet to his ear, or there is
no telling what the effect of the flame
that burst forth from the trumpet a dis
tance of six inches, would have been.
Wires in large cities are getting to be
entirely too plentiful for the enjoyment
of first-class health..
The past two months have been un
pleasant ones to those who have been to
sea. The great steamers have been ar
riving at New York days and even weeks
behind time, and some have been com
pelled to put back with broken machinery.
The officers of one of the arrivals mention
as a significant fact of their stormy voyage
that they did not see a sailing vessel
during the voyage. It is only too prob
able that more than one bark of this
class will never be heard from.
A Rule That Works Both Ways.
“ That must be a false rue,” says the
Interior, “ requiring virtue, cleanliness
and good temper and conduct in women,
while many men may go on to any
length almost, and society one and all
wink, if not blink, at our faults. What
ever degrades a woman also degrades a
man. Take some of the vices and hab
its of the day. A man smokes a filthy
oigar, or carries about a half an ounce of
tobacco in his cheek, and yet expects
his wife to preserve a clean mouth and a
sweet breath. Again, a young man
starts out to spend the evening with his
adored Evelina. Should he find her not
at home, but in the neighboring saloon,
however genteel it might be, that would
be his last visit In his estimation she
j would have sunk below his level, and
yet that young man himself is a daily
, visitor to that same saloon, and engages
' in all its eternises ”
DmM to Industrial Inter it, the ftiffa i..n of Truth, the Establishment of Jnstiee, and the Preservation of a People’s Government.
INDIAN SPRINGS, GEORGIA.
Vaccination, Primitive and Modern.
Nearly a century has elapsed since the
discovery of Dr. Jenner that vaccine
virus was an antidote for smallpox so
moved the gratitude of the British Gov
ernment that it gave him nearly half as
much money as our own people raised
f° r rs - Garfield. When he died a
splendid monument was ereoted to his
memory, and he is ranked everywhere
among the benefactors of humanity.
Yet it is only fair to say that the experi
ence of late years has not sustained all
the hopes at first entertained. We have
been told by an aged physician, whose
siudi s began while vaccination was still
a novelty, that his instructor advised
him not to waste much time in reading
about smallpox, as it would soon disap
pear from among men.
The failure of this prediction has arisen
n part from the neglect of vaccination,
and in part, also, from the fact that what
is recognized as virus has been weakened
by transmission through a long line of
human subjects, it has also been more
than once combined with diseases far
worse than that which it was intended
to keep off. People who have been
more than once vaccinated, or who have
supposed that they were, have been at
tacked with smallpox in severe, and
perhaps fatal forms, while others have
been ma le wretched invalids for life.
These fa •In have led to an organized
opposition to vaccination, which has its
headquarters in England, though its
ramifications extend to other countries,
our own among the number. It publishes
tracts and reports, helps poor people to
fight the agents of compulsory vaccina
tion. and boldly asserts that unmodified
smallpox is preferable to that which may
come after vaccination, perhaps with
deplorable accompaniments. Of course
tins is exaggeration and absurdity. One
has only to glance at the literature of
the seventeentli and eighteenth centuries
to find abundant evidence of the fearful
ravages of variola, and of the terror
which it inspired in palace and in hovel.
Stdl, it may be questioned whether
much of what passes for vaccine virus is
really such. If long humanized it may
have become ineit, if not impure.
Recognizing this possibility, it has be
come the fashion to take virus directly
from the cow, and the seventy of the
symptoms following vaccination from
this source has been thought to prove
the wisdom of the step. Yet it does not
follow that every pustule found on a cow
,is identical with that observed and ex
perimented from by Jeaner. It is cer
tainly true that while in the early days
of vaccination one operation was thought
enough to protect one during life, it is
now held that repeated vaccinations are
essential—that the process should be
gone through with at least as often as
smallpox threatens to became epidemic.
This may be a conclusion established by
more careful observation, but it seems
to indicate that the quality of the virus
lias been impaired. We have been told
of a man who was vaccinated in the
early years cf this century by matter
brought direct from Jenner. When his
arm was well, to test the value of the
process, he was inoculated with smallpox
virus. He went to a pest house to await
results. He did not have varioloid, even
in its mildest form. Could as much be
hoped from much of the vaccination of
the present day ? — Exchange.
A Japanese Hotel.
In imagining a Japanese hotel, good
reader, please dismiss all architectural
ideas derived from the Continental or
Fifth Avenue. Our hotels in Japan,
outwardly, at least, are wooden struct
ures, two stories high, often but one.
Their roofs are usually thatched, though
the city caravansaries are tiled. They
are entirely open on the front ground
floor, and about six feet from the sill or
threshold rises a platform about a fool
and a half high, upon which may be seen
the proprietor, seated on his heels, busp
with his account books. If it is winter,
he is engaged in that absorbing occupa
tion of all Japanese tradesmen at that
time of the year, warming his hands over
a charcoal fire in a low brazier. Ti e
kitchen is usually-just next to the front
room, often separated from the street by
only a latticed partition. In evolving a
Japanese kitchen out of his or her imag
ination the reader must cast away the
rising conception of Bridget’s realm.
Blissful, indeed, is the thought as we
enter the Japanese hotel that neither the
typical servant girl nor the American
hotel clerk is to be found here. The
landlord comes to meet us, falling on his
hands and knees, bows his head to the
floor. One or two of the pretty girls out
of the bevy usually seen in the Japanese
hotels comes to assist us and take our
traps. Welcomes, invitations and plen
ty of fun greet us as we sit down to take
off our shoes, as all good Japanese do,
and as those filthy foreigners don’t, who
tramp on the clean mats with muidy
boots. We stand up unshod, and are
led by the laughing girls along the
smooth corridors, across an arched
bridge which spans an open space in
which is a rookery, garden and pond
stocked with goldfish, turtles and ma-
rine plants. The room which our fair
guides choose for us is at the rear end of
the house, overlooking, the grand scen
ery for which Kanozan is justly noted
all over the empire. Ninety-nine valleys
are said to be visible from the mountain
top on which the hotel is situated, and
we suspect that multiplication by ten
would scarcely be an exaggeration. A
world of blue water and pines, and the
detailed loveliness of the rolling land,
form a picture which I lack power 10
paint with words. The water seemed
the type of repose, the earth of motion
—-hi xrpincotL
He who can heroically endure adver
sity will Bear prosperity with equd
greatness of soul.
Hoffenstein’s Prize Brogan.
Hoffenstein was busily engaged mark
ing the selling price on some clothing
which had just arrived, when suddenly
stopping in his work he tamed to the
olerk and said:
“Herman, I had forgot if ve sell and
all uf dote plack jean bants vat vas dam
aged. Vas any more nf dem in da adore
yet?” _' -
“Yes, Misder I dink
dere Vas dree bairs left. I haf been dry
ing to sell dem but de beople say dey
don’t vant to go around de sdreet mit
bants on vat makes dem look like a cir
cus brocession. Dere vas yellow spots
all ofer de bants, you know. ”
“Veit, subbose dey haf got spots on
dem, vas you going to let de beople
dink dey vas damaged ? My gr-r-acious.
Herman, de longer yon vas in de pisness
de more you don’t learn nodiug. Vy,
ven a man comes in de sdore und dells
me dot dose bants vas damaged I dells
him he vas misdaken und I asks him if
he know a biece uf quadruple, vox finish,
needle point, hand dwisted vool from a
biece vat vas von ply, cotton stitched
und mit a beveled edge. Ven I ask him
dot he don’t can say noding. Den I
dell him dot de bants vas not damaged,
und dot dey vas made uf vot vas called
in de old vorld Spanish spot vool, de
best ardicle mad& dere. In a gouple uf
minutes afder I dalk to de gustomer he
buys de bants, und I half sell nine bairs
in dot vay. ”
Hoffenstein had scarcely finished
speaking when a negro with a bundle in
his hand and considerably excited en
tered the store.
‘ ‘ Veil, my frent, vat can I do for you ?”
said Hoffenstein, advancing toward him
and smiling pleasantly.
**You can’t do anything fur me,” re
plied the negro, angrily, “but I want
yer to gib me back my money what I
paid fur des hyar shoes or I’se gwine to
take de matter fore de law. I gib four
dollars for dem shoes an’ I nebber wore
dem but six days fore de soles drapped
off, an’ when I ’zamined dem dar warn’t
a God s blessed ting dar bat paper.
I’se bin cheated, and when a man thinks
he can come miratin’ around me an’ I
ain’t gwine to say uuffiti’ he’s apt to find
hisself in de nine hole. ”
“My frent,” said Hoffenstein, qnietly,
“did you find any ding in de soles uf dem
shoes ?”
“No, sah,” replied the negro.
“Yell, dot vas a biece u£ hard luck,
my frent. De shoes vat you buy vas de
Louisiana brize shoe, und ven you dake
a bair ut u< m you vas liable at any mo
ment to find a dwenty dollar gold biece
in de soles uf dem. It‘ de soles Uf de
brize shoes vas made uf hard ledder, dey
vouldn’t vear out, and de gonsequence
vould be you don’t can find de dwenty
dollar biece, und dot vas de reason
de soles vas made of baper so dot dey
vill vear oud soon, und let de beople
know if dey git a brize, you know. ”
“Is dese hvar shoes de legerler prize
shoes ?” inquired the negro, greatly in
terested.
“Yell, my frent, if ye see a man vat
come in de oder day und show me a
gouple uf and wendy dollar bieces vot he
got oud uf dem shoes, you vould say dey
vas a gold mine. ”
“If de shoes is de regerler prize shoes,
I’ll take ’er nudder pair.”
“Certainly, my frent. Herman, wrap
de sheutleman up a bair uf dose Louisi
ana brize shoes, and dake dose vat you
dink de money vas in. ”
When the shoes had been paid for and
the negro had gone, Hoffenstein said :
“Herman, did you see how I vork off
dose old star brogans ?”
“Yes, Misder Hoffsnstein.”
“Veil, ven efer a gustomer comes in
de sdore, recgolleck dot dey vas de Lou
isiana brize shoe mit a dwenty dollar
gold biece in de sole uf dem. I think I
vill learn you someding about de busi
ness yet.”— Nero Orleans Times.
The Pleasures of the Table.
The simplest food will not suffice to
maintain a community in mental and
physical health, and to produce the
highest form of efforts. A people who
hve on rice will usually be found unfit to
do anything better than grow rice.
Monotony in food, as in other things,
begets dullness. For all classes there
must be something in life to look for
ward to if men are not to become soured;
und, constituted as we are at present,
tie pleasures of the table must continue
U form an important element among the
peasures available for man. But if the
u.e of luxurous food be defensible on
tlese grounds, absolute waste of food,
al any rate, produces the ill effect
panted out, without any compensating
a<vantage. The dinner at every glut
tmous city feast contributes his quota
h the already existing distress in some
aher part of the community. So does
iae guest at a charity dinner. The
noney he subscribes to the charity is
nerelv a transfer of wealth which leaves
he world neither rich nor poorer; the
linner he eats or leaves increases the
loverty of his neighbor. —The Fort •
tightly Review.
An Edinburgh professor has disoov
fed that an animal struck by lightning
c by an eleotric shock, under scientific
I erection, is rendered delightfully ten
er in a moment. Read this paragraph
at at supper in presence of the assem
led boarders. It may startle the land-.
i Idv, cause her to invest in an electric
mttery, and change the hard and stony
hearted beefsteak from “ a thing of duty
acd a chaw forever” into a soft and ten
derhearted dream of Mary’s little lamb.
—Ntw York Commercial Advertiser.
The revised edition of the New Testa*
mmt failed to catch the popular favor
that was expected. Copies of the work
areoflfered for sale in the East at greatly
re diced prices.
I Praying Workmen of Constantinople*
In the bazars of Stamboul the work
men and salesmen (there are no women
employed in these bazars—Turkish opin
ion will not permit it) are of the male
sex only. Eunuchs are not infrequent,
and are easily recognized at a glance
from other black men, but are never
other than harem servants or managers
of the household. As one loiters through
these bazars some queer.things are seen.
The bazars, properly-so called, are nar
row' streets of shops, covered from rain
by arched roofs, and continuous for
miles one with another, so that without
umbrella (for sunshine or rain) one can
go through them protected. The floors
are damp stones or packed clay—they are
dark and one goes up and down steps
from one to another so that progression
is unpleasant. Th'e personal solicitation
of the salesmen is something painful
and very annoying—until one learns, as
he soon does, to pay not the slightest at
tention to any one, but to look around
him, apparently indifferent and unob
servant of the remarks and exhibitions
of goods—while inwardly you feel a
yearning desire to knock over some im
pudent man who takes you for a fool.
While you pass along looking at some
workman making something in the skill
ful yet clumsy way they work, with tools
unlike, often, anything you ever saw—
using feet as if they were hands and
making complex furniture, veneered
beautifully with the simplest of tools, (so
few as to make the work seem incredible)
—lo ! —the worker will turn about with
his back to the door and crowd—seem
to read his Koran—and lose himself in
prayer!—oi; walk off, leaving his pur
chaser at the door, and enter the nearest
mosque and say his prayers. (Infernally
aggravating when you have about con
cluded a .desirable purchase !) In the
mosques one sees them enter, after wash
ing their feet, pray reverently and ab
sorbedly towards Mecca, (the altar of the
mosque is always placed so that praying
towards it is praying towards Mecca.)
and reverently depart, putting on their
shoes again at the door as they go out.
I several times fefi a strong inward
temptation, when at the door of some pop
ular mosque, to gather up the queer col
lection of worshippers’ shoe* and fly with
them to start a museum with.
On the boats, at sunset, the Moslem
teem in the midst of the crowd, utterly
oblivious apparently, of surrounding
bow to the earth repeatedly, seeming! j
uttering prayers toward Mecca, and three
times touching the earth with the fore
head.
The bazar workmen are, however, by
no means always Turkish, or even Mo
hammedan. They are of every race;
many Jews, some Americans and Eng
lish, who have crept in. The fruit-sell
ers of the city are mostly Armenian.
The strong-muscled porters (herculean
many of them) whom one sees every
where in the streets carrying loads that
a tender-hearted man would not force his
horse to pull, are many of them Wal
lachian, Servian, Bulgarian or Koume
lian. The merchants aud artificers, as a
class intelligent-looking and pleasant
countenances—are Greek. This is a
place of conglomerate nationality—the
Turk ruling—the middle cla-s largely
Greek—the under classes Macedonian,
ete., —with mixtures in each class. The
Circassain always either soldier, or, if
woman, a bought wife in the harem (pro
nounced ha reem,) the negro, (of all
shades of color) Persian, Indian, Egyp
tian, European, American (a few), etc.,
are commingled, and a very picturesque
crowd is the visible result. Constanti
nople Letter in Kokomo Tribune.
How an Indian Boy Shoots.
The remarkable shooting of the young
Nez Perces Indian boy, Otto, was wit
nessed by a large audience of those in
terested in rifle shooting. The most re
markable feature of the exhibition was
the lightning quickness of the boy. But
very few of the attempts failed. The first
shot was at a five-cent piece on the head
of a figure representing a man, and was
hit, the distance being fifteen paces. The
next was the cutting of a string that sus
pended a figure at the rear of the stage.
Ths rifle was picked up from the stage
by the lad after he had turned a somer
sault, and the shot was fired almost in
stantly. The most remarkable shot of
the evening was accomplished by the use
of peculiarly placed appliances' in the
following maimer: In a small steel
frame a pistol-barrel was suspended ; be
hind the barrel a razor had been fixed,
and on either side of it was suspended a
glass ball. The boy was then taken to
the front uf the stage and blindfolded,
with his face to the audience. At the
command “about face,” he turned,
raised his rifle, and, after only a mo
mentary hesitation, fired. The ball
passed through the pistol, was split by
the razor, and each glass ball was broken
by half the bullet This shot is said to
be due the boy’s wonderful gift of the
power of location. The precision of the
aim is secured by taking a position di
rectly in front of "the object, and aim is
taken by a certain pressure of the rifle
stock against the shoulder and cheek.
An exhibition bayonet drill followed.
The boy was applauded for his marks
manship and dexterity. —San Francisco
Call.
Practical Arithmetic.
“Yon can’t add different things to
gether,” said an Austin school teacher.
“ II you add a sheep and a cow together,
it does not make too sheep or two cows. ”
A little boy, the son of an Austin av
enue milkman, held up his hand, and
said:
“ That may do with sheep and cows,
but if you add a quart of milk and p
quart of water, it makes two quarts of
milk. I’ve seen it tried.”
SUBSCRIPTION**SI.SI.
NUMBER 18
BITS OF INFORMATION*
Point lace is the oldest variety of lace
known. It was the work of nuns during
the latter pait of the fourteenth century.
American deer, both male and female,
•filled their horns every year from
the latter part of January to about the
15th of February only.
The “ freedom of a city” is an
honorary distinction conferred on some
illustrious man. It is usually bestowed
through a certificate or diploma signed
by the municipal authorities and
suitably mounted. It is presented on
the occasion of a visit or may be for
warded. It makes the recipient an
honorary citizen. It may be awarded a
countryman or a stranger.
Thb engagement ring is supposed to
be of a Roman origin, aud to have sprung
from the ancient custom of using lings
in making agreements, grants, etc. Its
primitive form was that of a seal or
signet ring. Betrorlial rings were fre
quently exchanged by lovers in ancient
times. It is also believed that the
Romans originated the custom of giving
rings with mottoes or posies engraved
on them to their lady loves.
Forks were invented in Italy in the
fifteenth century, but were not employed
in England until the middle of the
seventeeili century; then only by the
higher classes. As late as the eighteenth
century, forks, as well as knives, were
kept on so meager a scale by country
inns in Scotland that it was customary
for persons travelmg to carry with them
a knife and a fork m a shagreen case,
and a small knife and fork still forms
part of th 3 ornamental equipment in the
Highland costume..
The bridge or covered gallery whi h
connects the ducal palace and the prison
of Venice is high above the water and
divided by a stone wall into a passage
and a cell. The state dungeons were
sunk into the thick walls of the palace,
and the prisoners when taken out to die
were conducted across the gallery to the
other side, upon the bridge, and were
there strangled. The low portal through
which the criminal was taken into the
cell is now walled up, but the passage
is open, and is still known by the name
of the “ Bridge of Sighs.”
The origin of the cant name, “Uncle
Sam,” was as follows : Immediately after
the declaration of war with England,
Elbert Anderson, of New York, then a
contractor, visited Troy, where was con
centrated, and where he purchased, a
large, quantity of provisions—beef, pork,
etc. TLa inspectors or article at
that place were Messrs. Ebenezer and
Samuel Wilson. The latter gentleman
(invariably known as “Uncle Sam”) gen
erally superintended, in person, a large
number of workmen, who, on this occa
sion, were employed in overhauling the
provisions purchased by the contractor
for the army. The casks were marked
“E. A.—U. S.” The work fell to the
lot of a facetious fellow in the employ of
tlje Messrs. Wilson, who, on being asked
by some of his fellow-workmen the
meaning of the mark (for the letters U.
8., for United States, were then almost
entirely new to them), said : “ He did not
know, unless it meant Elbert Anderson
and Uncle Sam”—alluding exclusively,
then, to the said “ Uncle Sam ” Wilson.
The joke took among the workmen, and
passed currently; aud “Uncle Sam”
himself being present was occasionally
rallied by them on the increasing extent
of his possessions. Many of these work
men being of character denominated
“food for powder,” were found shortly
after following the recruiting drum, and
pushing toward the frontier lines
for the double purpose of meeting the
enemy and of eating the provisions they
had lately labored to put in good order.
Their old jokes accompanied them, and
before the first campaign ended this
identical one first appeared in print; it
gained favor rapidly, till it penetrated
and was recognized in every part of the
country, and will, no doubt, continue so
while the United States remains a nation.
The Weigh of the Transgress.
By almost universal consent, the light
weight championship is conceded to deal
ers in coal. As water unto milk, and
glucose to the lager beer, so are the
platform scales to the coal cart. It
would be unjust to large numbers of
honest and reputable dealers to say that
their coal is like the fellow who said that
when he was mad he weighed a ton, but
the conduct of disreputable and dis
honest dealers has a tendency to throw 1
suspicion upon all of them. According
to the statement of one who has tried it,
it requires the spirit of a martyr to be an
honest dealer, at least in New York.
He tells a doleful story of the difficulties,
not to say the dangers, he encountered
in trying to deliver 2,000 pounds for a
ton to his costumers. He began by an
nouncing that any one buying coal of
him could test its weight at any of the
public scales. The result was astonish
ing. Orders came in from all directions
and not more than one in ten ever
wanted to test it. When cartmen came
from other yards he had to enlarge their
carts. For these offenses he was set
upon by a member of the Coal Associa
tion and beaten ; his cartmen were got
away from him; they tried to prevent
his vessels from landing ; broke his der
ricks, and he had good reason to think
that they either shot at him or had him
shot at. So that it is not the weigh of
transgressor, bat the other man’s, that
is hard.
Records show that in thirteen Sep
tembers in the past thirty-one years no
rain fell in San Francisco. The rain
in the remaining eighteen Septembers
ranged from .02 of an . inch to 1.08
inches.