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FAMINE IN INDIA. That the monsoon lias broken and that rain is falling throughout the stricken district of India does not mean that the famine is at an end. The cause of the famine was lack of rain. The present fall is tjie first the country has known In twenty-four months with the exception of the one which fell on the 20th of July Hast year. Hence min must now fall frfr many weeks before the parched surface will become softened to a sufficient depth to assure the raising of a crop. Moreover, millions of head of cattle, ninety-five per cent, of all BLIND VICTIMS OF THE FAMINE I~N A POOH HOUSE. thg cattle, Indeed, have died, for want of fodder, and fannei'K are tied hand and foot till Government supplies new llvo stock to replace tlie old, whose bones lie scattered over the whole country. Therefore desperate distress still ex ists. Utter desolation is still the lot of millions. If the Government were now to withdraw its aid, shut up the relief works and poor-houses, seven million homeless, helpless people would he in imminent danger of s ary lug.to death. Moreover, since the rain lias come scones of thousands who have been saved from death by star vation are threatened with death by ‘exposure. Blankets and clothing arc scare; only one person in every thou sand possessing more than a loin cloth. Never since the world began have ten million people, at one time, been absolutely without a crumb of their own to eat. Gilson Willets, the special corre spondent of Collier's Weekly, writes as follows about v. hat lie saw in In dia: * "The hreadless area c ivers 350,000 square miles, one-third of all India, lilg as all our New England, Middle and Southern States, la tills area are 50,000,000 people, one-sixth the entire population of India, a number equal to our whole, well-fed family east of the Mississippi. Ten millions are on * ft ¥ I • .<:• * ■* i PAVUNB ORPHANS IN' THK TOOK HOUSE. tirely destitute, and of these Govern ment is taking care of 0,500,000 on re lief works and lu poor-houses. "As for the mortality—more famine dcutlis daily thuu the total American losses lu tho Bpanlsh-Amerieau war; more deaths weekly than the Boer and British losses to date In their pres cut war, and n grand total of famine deaths, since January 1. equal to twice the figure at which is placed the losses ou both sides from all ,’i L. - jf' DEAD BODIES OF THE STARVED ON FUNERAL FIRES READY FOR BURNING. causes In the Civil War. In actual figure* the death Hit amounts to more than 3000 dally. 100,000 each month, 700,000 this year. "Up-country train, pas sengers so few that each of us had a carriage to himself. Twenty-five miles from Bombay vegetation ceased. Eyes searched the miles vainly for a single green speck. We had passed even the last cactus. Blasts of hot air, as from millions of furnaces, al most suffocated us, and yet the trees of the ‘jackal jungle’ bordering the farms were shorn of leaves, as in a Canadian winter. Jackals could lx; seen prowling, trying to hide behind tree trunks, and we shuddered at the thought of their ‘daily bread.’ llu- man skulls and hopes dotting the sun baked fields told awful stories. “One hundred miles up the train crawled into Gujarat,.once the garden, now the Sahara, of India. The whole world, level as a prairie, barren as a desert, was dust-colored. The only thing of another color was the train. Even the naked trees were coated with the dust of the desert. The train zizagged in nud out between farms and deserted villages, where there was no living thing anywhere, not even a jackal. Yes, a few scampering monkeys seemed to find fun keeping SHE REACHED THE RELIEF CAMP TOO LATE. pace with the train. Huge, almost ape-size, they were, and dust-colored, too. ‘‘Rivers, streams, lakes, pools had disappeared, reaving beds, like the fields, parched wastes of etkrth. Water, except in the few remaining wells, had vanished from the earth’s sur face. We were journeying through n depopulated Hades. Were all the ab sent ones at work lu the relief camps? After all, besides the monkeys, we did occasionally see a stray brown man, or a stray brown group of families, ,trudging, probably bound for a relief camp, where they would arrive too late, so weak, so wasted, that the first stomnchful of curry would he like a mortal wound. At stations nearest these camps the train paused for water, which was brought by gaunt, half-dead coolies in buckets from the nearest cholera-infected well. “Two hundred miles and two days from Bombay the train wriggled Into the big station at Ahmedahad, the city lu the heart of the desert. Ordinary population, 100,000; famiuo popula lntioti, 130,000—the 100,000 living iu stone houses, normally, anil the 30,000 In straw tents on the relief works out side the city walls. These were the people I had come to see. This camp was the Mecca for all famine victims within a radius of thirty miles. None within that area need starve. AH were welcome. Here they could earn two nuuas (four cents) a day, which would buy grain enough to sustain life. The camp was divided into three sections; iu the first, -0,000 people were digging a reservoir half as big as Central Park; In the second, 7000 were building a narrow-guage rail road; In the third. SOOO were breaking stone for roadbed. Two-thirds of the workera were Women. On the tank wo'rka the men dug- the colossal pit, the women carried away tire sand In baskets on their beads. The great * •, .. > • ? - WAITING FOR AX ORDER ON THE BUN NIAH (GRAIN DEALER). reservoir was f*r tlie reserve storage of water, thus providing against the recurrence of famine in the future. In the stone-breaking section both men and women broke stone, but women only were the burden-bearers, carry ing away the broken stone in baskets on their heads, each tottering under her load for a distance of from one to two miles, till she came to the pile to which she must add lier share, day by day. Among the stone-breakers were nursing mothers, old crones, yotiiig girl’s. One mother broke stone with pne hand while with the other siie held an infant on her lap. Death claimed the child even while I looked on, and the native in charge of the gang of thirty to which the mother be longed came and tooK the little body away. She followed It awhile with animal eyes, then, after pulling her torn snree closer about her face, re sumed her task, grasping the hammer now with lxitli hands. "Next morning at sunrise we fol lowed the carts that gathered up the dead. In a cleared space in the adja cent jungle we attended the funeral of sixty-flrc famine victims. The ashes of a thousand other victims lay in white, smoking heaps. On top of these ash-heaps low-caste men piled logs—four such piles. Atop the logs were thrown the sixty-five bodies, the morning’s harvest. On the bodies more logs were thrown, till only a foot here, a head there, protruded. Then the four piles were set afire, and the j flames of the funeral pyres leaped far above tho tops of t lie surrounding trees. Thus is the trace ot' famine obliterated from the face of India.” Comliielov IVvs a I’njctilc Mystery. “I have known streetcar conductors lo fuss and worry,” said the Psychic Cuekler, “to call out the names of streets and carry passengers past them; to quarrel and give hack talk as a result. But the other day I met a marvel among conductors. Me was on a California avenue car and he never opened his mouth from tin’ time he left Bixth avenue until he reached Arthur street, where 1 go off. Nobody ever spoke to him or beckoned to him, so far ns I could see, hut the car stopped at different places and people got off. I was puzzled and paid strict attention, lnlt failed to fathom the mystery. I wanted to go to Arthur street, didn't know where it was, save that it was a good distance out, hut said nothing to the conductor. Talk ing didn't seem possible on that ear. By and by the ear stopped and nobody girt off. The conductor looked stern ly at me. I mumbled an apology. I didn't know why, and gut off at once. The neighborhood was strange to me, but the fact remains that 1 got off at Arthur street. I do not undertake to explain this thing; I siniply mention tt.” —Ilttsburg Dispatch. Kxtennnttnc Circumstance.. The British soldier is a first-class tigh’.ug man, but his mental attri butes are not always very high. Nu merous anecdotes are told of the sim plicity of his ideas, and the following is, perhaps, one of the best: A gunner in one of the campaigns In Egypt was serving his piece, when he was surrounded so closely by Arabs that he had to use his rauMfpr as a club. He repulsed the cMBy and saved his gun at the expense of a broken rammer, and for his bravery he was selected for the Victoria Cross. When summoned before the board of officers, the soldier thought it was for the breach ot discipline in having broken the rammer, and, before a word could tv said, he spoke up and volunteered a plea of “guilty, with ex tenuating circumstances.” There was a broad smile ou the face of the board, but the soldier got the Cross. Slenf Kellm Mattie In Germany. Preparations are already being made iu large industrial centres to meet or ders for Pekin relics, shell splinter brooches, bullets, Chinese skulls and ‘•match-boxes made from the wood work of the British Legation"—these last largely in Germany. Bteges are, however, becoming rather a drug In the market.—St. James Gazette. RE V. DR. TA LMAG E The Eminent Divine’s Sunday Discourse. Sabject: Nation* Are Jndjjed—Ooil Re wards Puntslie* Them on Kuril*— God** Juricrment* Likened to tlia Swift Sweep of a lluzor. [Copyright ISKmi.l Washington, D. C.— Dr. Tahnage, in his journey westward through Europe, has recently visited scenes of thrilling his toric events. He sends this sermon, in which he shows that nations are judged in this world, and that God rewards them for their virtues and punishes them for their crimes. The text is Isaiah vii, 20, “In the same day shall the Lord shave with ;t razor that is hired, namely, by them beyond the river, by the king of Assyria.” The Bible is the oldest hook ever writ ten. There are no similitudes in Ossinn or the liiad or the Odyssey so daring. Its imagery sometimes seems on the'verge of the reckless, but only seems so. The fact is that God would startle and arouse and propel men and nations. A tame and limping similitude would fail to accom plish the object. While there are times when He employs in the Bible the gentle dew, and the morning cloud, and the dove and the daybreak in the presentation of truth, vc oiten find the iron chariot, the lightning, the earthquake, the spray, the sword and in my text the razor. This keen bladed instrument has advanced in usefulness with the ages. In Bible times and lands the beard remained uncut save in the seasons of mourning and humilia tion, but the razor was always a sugges tive symbol. David said of Doeg, his an tagonist, ‘‘Thy tonpie is a sharp razor working deceitfully’*—that is, it protends to dfar tjie face, but is really used for deadly incision. In this striking text this weapon of the toilet appears under the following cir cumstances: Judea needed to have some of rfc prosperities cut off, and God sends against it three Affsyrian kings—first Sen nacherib, then Esarhaddon and afterward Nebuchadnezzar. These three sharp inva sions that cut doWn the glory of Judea are computed to so many sweeps of the razor across the face of the land. And these devastations were called a hired razor because God took the kings of As syria, with whom He had no sympathy, to do the work, and paid them in palaces ;fnd spoils and annexations. These kings were hired to esecute the divine behests. And now the test, which on its first read ing may have seemed trivial or inapt, is charged with momentous import. “In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired, namely, by them beyond the river, by the king of Assyria.” Well, if God’s judgments are razors, we had bettri - be careful how we use them on other people. In careful sheath these domestic weapons are put away, where no one by accident may touch them and where the hands of children may not reach them, Such instruments must be carefully bundled or not handled at all. But how recklessly some people wiqld the judgment of God! If a man meets with business misfortune, how many there are ready to cry out: “That is a judgment of God upon him because lie was unscrupu lous or arrogant or over-reaching or mis erly. I thought he would get cut down! What a clean sweep of everything! His city house and country house gone. His stables emptied of all the fine bays and sorrels and grays that used to prance by his door. All his resources overthrown, and all that he prided himself on tumbled into demolition. Good for him!” Stop, my brother. Don’t sling around too freely the judgments of God, for they are razors. Some of the most wicked business men succeed, and they live and die in pros perity, and some of the most honest and conscientious are driven into bankruptcy. Perhaps the unsuccessful man’s manner was unfortunate and he was not really as proud as he looked to be. Some of those who carry their heads tweet am! look im perial are humble,as a child, while many a man in seedy coat and slouch hat and unblaekened shoes is as proud as Lucifer. You cannot tell by a man’s look. Per haps he was not unscrupulous in business, for there are two sides to every story,-and everybody tljat accomplishes anything for himself or others gets industriously lied about. Perhaps his business misfortune was not a punishment, but the fatherly discipline vo prepare him for heaven, and God may love him far more than He loves you, who can piny dollar for dollar and arc put down in the commercial catalogue ns “Al.” Whom the Lord lovetli He gives $400,000 and lets die on embroidered pil lows? No; whom the Lord loveth lie chastenoih. Better keep your hand off the land's razors lest they cut and wound people that do not deserve it. If you want to shave off some of the bristling pride of vour own heart, do so, but be \ory oarelul how you put tho shrf> edge on others. How 1 do uislike the behavior of those persons who, when people are unfortunate, say, “I told you so; getting punished; served him light.” If those I told you so’s got their desert they would long ago have iieen pitched over the bat tlements. The mote in their neighbor's eyes, so small that it takes a microscope to find it, gives them more trouble than the beam which obscures their own optics. With air sometimes supercilious and some times Pharisaical and always blasphemous they take the razor of divine judgment and sharpen it on the bone of their own hard hearts, and then go to work on men sprawled out at full length under disaster, cutting mercilessly. They begin by soft expressions of sympathy and pity, and half praise and lather the victim all over before they put on ttie sharp edge. Let us he careful how we shoot at oth ers, lest we take down the wrong one, remembering t lee servant of King William Rufus who shot at a deer, but the arrow glanced against a tree and killed the king. Instead of going out- with shafts to pierce and razors to cut. we had bettor imitate the friend of Richard Coeur de Lion. Richard, in the war of the Crusades, was captured and imprisoned, hut none of his friends knew where, so his loyal friend went around tire land from stronghold to stronghold and sang at eacli window a snatch of a song that Richard Ooeur de Lion had taught him in other days. And one day coming before a jail where he suspected his king might be incarcer ated, he sang two lines of song and imme diately King Richard responded from his ; ceil with the other two lines, and so his j whereabouts were discovered, and a sue r eessful movement was at once made for ! his liberation. Bo let us go up and down I the world with the music of kind words i aiid sympathetic hearts, serenading the ! unfortunate and trying to get out of trouble men who had noble natures, hut ; by unforeseen circumstances have been : incarcerated, thus liberating kings. More : hymn-book and less razor. Especially ought we to be apologetic and merciful toward those who while they have great faults have also great virtues, i Borne people are barren of virtues: no 1 weeds verilv, but no flowers. I must not I be too much enraged at a nettle along the j fence if it he in a field containing forty acres of ripe Michigan wheat. Some time ; ago naturalists told us there was on the | sun a. spot 20,000 miles long, but from the brightness and warmth I concluded it was a good ileal of a sun still. The sun can afford to have a very large spot upon it, ; though it be 20,000 miles long, and I am very apologetic for those men who have grant faults while at the same time they have magnificent virtnes. Again, when I read in my text that the Lord shares with the hired razor of Assy ria the land of Judea I think myself of the precision of God's providence. A r aor swung the tenth part of an inch out of the right line means either failure or laceration, hut God’s dealincs never slip, and they do not miss by the thousandth part of an ineh the right direction. Peo ple talk as though things in this world were at loose ends. Cholera sweeps across Marseilles and Madrid and Palermo, and we watch anxiously. Will the epidemic sweep Europe and America? People say: “That will entirely depend on whether the inoculation is a successful experiment; that will depend entirely on quarantine regulation; that will depend on the early or late annearanee of frost; that epidemic is pitched into the world, and it goes blun dering across the continents, and it is all guesswork and all appalling perhaps.” I think perhaps that God had something to do with it and that IPs mercy may have in some wav protected us, that He may have done as much for us a= the quaran tine and the health officers. It was right and a necessity that all caution should be used, but there have come enough maca roni from Italy and enough grapes from tiic south off France and enough rags from tatterdermalions and hidden in these arti cles of transportation enough choleraic germs to have left by this time all the cities mourning in the cemeteries. I thank all the doctors and quarantines, but more than all and first of all and last of all and all the time I thank God. In all the 6000 years of the world’s existence there has not one thing merely “happened so.” God is not an anarchist, but a King, a Father. When little Tad, the son of President Lincoln, died, all America svmpathized with the sorrow in the White House. He used to rush into the room where the Cabinet was in session and while the most eminent men of the land were discussing the questions of national existence. But the child had no care about those ques tions. No. God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Ghost are in per petual session in regard to this world and kindred worlds. Shall you, His child, rush in to criticise or arraign or condemn the divine government? No. The cab inet of the eternal three can govern and will govern in the wisest and best way, and there never will be a mistake and. like razor skillfully swung, shall cut that which ought to be avoided. Precision to the very hairbreadth. Earthly time pieces may go out of order and strike wrong, saying it is 1 o’clock when it is 2 or 2 when it is 3. God’s clock is always right, and when it is 1 it strikes 1, and when it is 12 it strikes 12, and the second hand is ns accurate as the minute hand. Further, my text tells us that God sometimes shaves nations: “In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired.” With one sharp sweep He went across .Tudea, and down went its pride and its power. In IS6I God shared the American nation. We had allowed to grow Sabbath desecration and oppression and blasphemy and fraud- and impurity and all sorts of turpitude. The South had its sins and the North had its sins'and the East its sins and the West its sins. We had been warned again and again, and we did not heed. At length the sword of war cut from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf and from Atlantic scauoard to Pacific sea board. The pride of the land, not the cowards, but the heroes, on both sides went down. And that which we took for the sword of war was the Lord razor. In 1862 again it went across the land: in 1863 again: in 1804: again. Then the sharp instrument was incased and put away. One would think that our national sym bol of the eagle might sometimes suggest another eagle, that which ancient Rome carried. In the talons of that eagle were clutched at one time Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Dalmatia, Rhaetia, Noricum, Pannonia, Moesia, Dacia, Thrace, Mace donia. Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, Phoeni cia, Palestine, Egypt and all northern Africa and all the islands of the Mediter ranean—indeed all the world that was worth having; 120,000,000 of people under the wings of that one eagle! Where is she npw? Ask Gibbon, the historian, in liis prose poem, the “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” Ask her gigantic ruins, bemoaning their sadness through the ages, the screech owl at windows out of which worldwide conquerors looked. Ask the day of judgment, when her crowned debauchees, Commodiis and Per tinax and Caligula and Diocletian, shall answer for their infamy. As man and as nations let us repent and have our trust in a pardoning God rather than depend on former successes for immunity. Out of thirteen of the greatest battles of the world Napoleon had lost but one before Waterloo. Pride and destruction often rode in the same saddle. But notice once more and more than all in my text that God -is so kind and loving that when it is necessary for Him to cut He has to go to others for the sharp edged weapon. “In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired.” God is love. God is pity. God is help. God is shelter. God is rescue. There are no sharp edges about Him, no thrusting points, no instruments of lacera tion. If you want halm for wounds, He has that.’ If you want divine salve for eyesight, He has that. But if there is sharp and cutting work to do which re quires a razor, that He hires. God has nothing about Him that hurts save when dire necessity demands, and then He has to go clear off to some one else to get the instrument. This divine clemency will he no novelty to those who have pondered tlie Calvarean massacre, where God sub merged Himself in human tears and crim soned Himself from punctured arteries and let the terrestrial and infernal worlds maul Him until the chandeliers of the sky had to be turned out because the uni verse could not endure the outrage. Illus trious for love He must have been to take all that as our substitute, paying out of His own heart the price of our admission at the gates of heaven. King Henry 11. of England crowned his son as king, and on the day of coronation put on a servant’s garb and waited, he, the king, at the son's table, to the aston ishment ot ail the princes. But we know of a more wondrous scene, the King of heaven and earth offering to put on you, His child, the crown of life and in the form of a servant waiting on you with blessing. Extol that love, al! painting, all sculpture, all music, all architecture, all worship! In Dresdenian gallery let Ra phael hold Him up as a child, and in Ant werp cathedral let Rubens hand Him down from the cross ns a martyr and Han del make all his oratorio vibrate around that one chord —“He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities.” But not until all the redeemed got home and from the countenances in all the gal leries of the ransomed shall be revealed the wonders of redemption shall . cither man or seraph or archangel know the height and depth and breadth of the love of God. At our national capital a monument in honor of him who did more than any one to achieve our American independence was for scores of years in building, and most of us were discouraged and said it never would be completed. And how glad we all were when in the presence of the highest officials of the nation the work was done! But will the monument to Him who died for the eternal liberation of the human race ever be completed? For ages the work has been ghing up. Evangelists and apostles and martyrs have been add ing to. the heavenly pile, and every one of the millions of redeemed going up from earth has made to it contribution of glad ness. and weight of glory is swung to the top of other weight of glory, higher and higher as the whole millenniums roll, sap phire on the top of jasper, sardonyx on the top of chalcedonv and chrysoprasus above topaz, until far beneath shall tie the walls and towers and domes of our earth ly capitol, a monument forever and for ever rising and yet never done: “Unto Him who has loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood and made us kings and priests forever.” Alleluia, amen j 1 he Red Haired Lacfy. Red hair is a gift of the gods. The Woman to whom this rare endowment | has brought the accompanying gift of a fine, close-grained skin and a clear complexion, with glorious brown eyes, need ask no odds of any one. Bhe be longs in the line with the historic beau : ties of the centuries. Red hair and blue eyes are a charming combination,. ; but red hair and brown eyes are be— j yond all things fascinating. The girl with red hair should avoid ; lavenders, purples, yellow-greens and I Indeterminate browns and grays. She ! may not wear pink in any of its shades i but deep ruby red and any of the wine ! tints which omit purple are very be | coming to her. Black suits her, if it j be opaque, and so do dark shades of green,while white is her especial choice and sets off wonderfully her radiant style and glowing beauty. A Flabby Compliment. The greatest compliment that can tie paid to a Brazilian lady, it is said, is to tell her that she grows fatter and fatter every day. It is estimated that the world will consume 11,000,000 bales of American cotton this year. The varieties of stamps now current in the world number 13,811. Two Canals Binding Atlantic. It is asserted that the future will see two canals binding the Atlantic to the Pacific ooi an. The value of such connection can not be too highly estimated. It will bring added prosperity to the nation, as surely as Hostetter’s .Stomach Bitters brings health to the dyspeptic. If you cannot get rid of vour indigestion, constipation, dyspepsia or biliousness try the Bitters, and never accept anything in place of it if you wish to get well. Oftt*T* Hewrd. Pntrice—-I told Willie If he kissud me I'd scream. Patience—And what did he say? Patrice— l h, he said lie thought I had a very musical scream.—Yonkers Statesman. To Cure n Cold In One l>ay. Take I.axativk Bromo Quinine Tablets. All druggists refund the money it it fails to cure. E. W. Grove’s signature is on each hox. Cie. His Tire!c4s Labors. “What an active fellow Tugby is!” “Yes: he’s never happy unless he's doing something or somebody.”—New York Press. If sarsaparilla and the other vegetable ingredients that go into the best are good as a medicine, then Ayer’s Sarsa parilla is good. If not, we are hum bups. O Your doctor will tell you which, because he can have the formula of Ayer’s Sarsaparilla any time for the asking. If you are tired, half sick, half well, if one day’s work causes six days’ sickness, get a bottle of the old Sarsaparilla. Get Ayer’s, and insist on Ayer’s when you want Sarsaparilla. J. C. Ayer Company, Practical Chemists, Lowell, Mass, Aver’i Sarsaparilla I Ayer's I-lair Vigor Ayer’s Pills Ayer’s Cherry Pectoral Aver’s Ague Cure j Ayer’s Comatone ccnjwnFAT ULLU and OATS FOR SALE! Rad May need wheat fsom a crop that yield ed 83 to 35 bushels per acre, roeleaned by a special seed wheat cleaner, In new two busbei bags.price $1.25 per bushel, feed Oats grown la North Carolina from Texas Red Rust Proof Seed, tho North Carolina crop yielding 80 bushels per nope, price 50c per bushel. Prices on cars at Charlotte, N. C„ freight to be paid by bavor. Terms cash with order. CHARLOTTE OIL A FERTILIZER CO_ I RED OLIVER. 1 HARaOTTK, N. C. W anted. 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