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A CLOSE SHAVE. A I’rUon Harh.r Wlio Slcmiil Murder. Detroit Fret Prmi. Yon c.inJ- readily understand why a newspaper man would be attracted to visit a State prison, but you may well wonder why lie should seek permission for the prison barber to shave him, when he knew that barber to be a mur derer serving a life sentence, yet. in the composition of most meu there is a yearning to trend upon the skirts of adventure—to stand, as it were, close to the edge of some abyss down which a fall would be certain destruction. All men will take chances, but some men will risk everything when this feel ing is upon them. “So you want old Jack to skavejyou?” repeated the Warden as a look of as tonishment crossed his face. - Yes.” “ Don't you know that he is mur derer ?” •* Yes.” “ And in for life ?’* “ Yes/’ “ Ooh! I’d sooner have a snake crawling over my face than his black fingers, which cut the throat of his wile and two children 1 What is to prevent him from slashing your jugular vein ?” “ Nothing!” “ Yet you will take the risks ?” “ I will. I want to be shaved by' a murderer. I want the sensation ot having him pass a keen razor slowly over'my face and around my throat, and of knowing that I stand in door of death 1” “ Old Jack has been ngly-tempered of late.” • “ I don’t care.” “There isn’t a convict in the prison who doesn’t fear his razor.” “So much the better. I will take all the chances.” “ You may try it,” said the warden after a long silence, “ but—” But nothing. Is there a glass in front of the chair.” “ Yes.” ‘‘That's all 1 want. Let ine go into the barber shop alone and make my own arrangements. That’s it-—open the door —so long—don’t worry.” Old Jack was one of the prison bar bers. Every convict knew him as a triple-murderer. lie had made awful threats. He had no one to say a good word for him, but all dreaded and avoid ed him. lie was a man about 50 years old, slightly gray, thick-set, and no one could find a pleasant line in his face. As to his heart, he had slashed the throats of his family, piled the corpses in a corner and slept and ate in the next room until the horrible odor brought the police and discovery. “ Shave,” 1 said, as I entered his lit tle den, threw off hat and coat and sat down in his hard chair. He was seated on a stool behind me stropping a razor, lie looked up in surprise, seemed puzzled to know wiio I was and why I had come in, and then tested the edge of the razor on his bare thumb. I could see all this in the glass. He looked up in a furtive way, passed the razor over the strop a few times more and then slowly rose up and began preparing the lather. lie didn’t like me. That was plain enough by the ugly glances from the corners of his eyes. I had no business in there in the first place, and then I had probably interrupted his revery or broken in on hi3 plans. He didn’t know whether he would shave me or not. He stopped making the lather, set his jaw more firmly, and the look in his eyes grew ugly. “ Didn’t you hear me ?” I demanded, as I turned on him all of a sudden. “ Go ahead and shave me.” “Yes, sah!” he growled as he lifted up the lather and advanced. He knew I did not belong in the prison. lie also reasoned that I was a stranger. It puzzled him to know why I had entered his den, as I had been shaved the clay previous. I could see that he was bothered, but I was glad of it. He reasoned with himself all the time he was putting on the lather, and he got mad over it. He began to see see that it was sort of an intrusion and imposition, and he picked up his razor with a spiteful grab. Yet I would ag gravate and anger him. “ That was a horrible deed of 3'onr's,” I said as I seated myself in the chair. I could not see his face, and he made no reply. The razor touched my face, and I felt that his hand trembled. “ They ought to burn 3-ou at the stake ?” I went on as his razor made the first cut. I could now see his face in the glass, and his eves fairly blazed. He clench ed his hand and raised it to strike, but The 1 Labtwell Sun. By BENSON & McGILL. VOL. IV—NO. 21. let it fall again after four or five seconds and went on with Ids work. His hand •shook, he breathed hard and fast and yet he had no reply. After he had scraped away for a minute, I said : “ You must be a fiend and worse to do such a deed as that.! No wonder that all men hate and avoid you !” The hand with the razor went up into the air. llis first impulse was to slash me. He could seize me by the hair with his left hand and slash my throat with his right. The idea came to him, and if I had made a move he would have carried it out. “ Come —hurry lip!” 1 said, and his hand fell’and he resumed his work, trembling with anger and wondering to himself why r he did not revenge upon tnc. Ah ! I saw anew light shoot into his eyes like a flash, and I knew he had a plan. Ho had committed three mur ders. Another would be nothing to his bad heart. He was in for life, and his sentence could not be lengthened. Yet he dared not cut my throat with a sweep of his hand which he easily might. What was the plan? With eyes half shut I watched and waited. The look in liis eyes grew more crafty, lie forced a smile to his wicked face and tried to laugh as lie said : “ Doan be too hard on de ole man, sah —Izc had a heap o’ trouble.” “ Yes." “ An’ I isn’t so bad as dey try to make out, sab,” he continued as he wiped beard and lather on a piece of paper on my shoulder. I could see his face as it was above me, but the piece of paper fell to the floor on my left side. He had finished shaving the right cheek and would now begin on the left. What was his plan? It came to me in an instant. When he had his razor just right his foot would slip on that piece of soapy paper ! He had dropped it there on purpose, and it would not be a had excuse. “ No, I isn't so worry bad,” he said as he put the razor on my left cheek. I could see his jaw in the glass, and it was hard-shut, as if he was terribly ear nest. Well, perhaps not.” “ Nobody knows how much trouble I haz had, sail,” he sighed as the razor crept over my check towards the jugular vein, and his fingers tightened their grasp on the handle. He was ready! “ Jack!” “ Yes, sah.” “ A man will live a full minute after his jugular vein lias been severed! In that time be could shoot the mail who did it! In five seconds after you cut me I’ll put six bullets into your head!” Would he? The razor shook and trembled on nay neck, and he breathed like one with the asthma. His foot was all ready to go down on that paper but he hesitated. “ Who means' to cut you, sah!” he growled at last as he kicked the paper away. “No one,” I answered as I looked into his eyes. He began his work again with a fierce scowl on his face, hurried italoug arid in five minutes had finished. “ Good-bye, old man !” I said as I put on my coat and tossed him a quarter. He lifted his head to give me one fierce and murderous look. The money fell to the floor, and he kicked it aside in contempt. “ And he didn’t even scratch your face?” said tlic Warden as I returned to him. "No, not a scratch, and it was a close shave, too!” Slavery Times Coming. Union Timet. A few days ago a colored man came to town and sold his cotton, receiving a check on the bank for the money, lhe bank paid him in gold. On receiving the old fashioned coin the man gazed on it awhile in astonishment, and go ing into the street called some of his colored friends to him, saying, “look a ’heah, niggas,” holding out the shining 810 and 820 pieces in his hand. “\ou see dat. Look like old times don’t it ? I tell you what niggas, it looks like slavery times, and if dis ting goes on much longer we’ll all be put back into slavery agio, sure. HARTWELL, HA., WEDNESDAY JANUARY 21, 1880. A LEADVILLE WEDDING. A ClfrßyinM Iho Hrld mill I’oli -li s Oil tin- Itriili't:room. There is no doubt, says the romanc ist of the New York Times, that the rector of St. George’s Church, Lead ville, belongs to the church militant. He has just proved it beyond contra diction, and at this moment public sen timent in Leadville pronounces him the ablest and most powerful clergyman for liis weight in the United States, while a committee of leading citizens is about to present him with a silver mounted revolver as a testimonial of respect and admiration. The Rev. Mr. Withers earned this enviable reputation a few' weeks ago while engaged in marrying the well known Mr. Roaring Hill to one of the most beautiful and accomplished daugh ters of Leadvillc. The bridegroom was a man of most excellent reputation, having killed three men in hand-to hand fights, and wounded a number of others. He was not accompanied to the altar by any groomsmen, and the bride was similarly devoid of brides maids, though their places was to some extent taken by her brothers. Withers, who, up to that time, had been known as an extremely peaceable man, and was not supposed to have a particle of lighting ability about him, had been warned that the bridegroom was very quick tempered and exceedingly jeal ous and that he would do well to “ la dle out the service pretty considerable mild.” To this warning, however, lie paid no attention, being determined to do liis duty, no matter what the conse quence might be. The service proceeded smoothly un til the clergyman readied the point where he asked the bridegroom if lie took the “ woman ” to be his wedded wife. To this Mr. Roaring Bill replied by remarking that he was about to marry a “ lady,” and that any man who called her a “ woman ” must be remark ably" anxious to incur the expense of a personal funeral. Baying no attention to the remark, the clergyman proceed ed, and inquired if the bridegroom would love, cherish and protect the bride. This was regarded by Mr. R. Bill in the light of an unnecessary ask ing of foolish questions. “In course I do,” he replied ; “ what do you take me for ? I)o you mean to insinuate that I am a playin’ it onto her ? I want you to understand that this byer's a square deal, and if you don’t just go ahead with your marry in’and drop this askin’ of impertinent questions, it’ll lead to difficulties. You hear me.” Still the courageous clergyman, heedless of the brewin’ storm, ignored the bridegroom’s interruptions, and read the service with cool and steady courage. Presently he inquired of the bride if she would promise to love, honor and obey her husband. At this point the latter drew his revolver and informed the clergy man that he was fast ripening for the grave. “Any more personal questions will require me to answer with thishyer weapon. I don’t wisli to make a row in church, but if you will have one just continue as you have begun. I’m a peaceable, long-sufferin’ man, but the holiest feelin’s of this lady’s heart isn’t goin’ to be pried into by no man with out he hears from me.” Still the clergyman pursued the even tenor of his way. One might have im agined that he was deaf, so utterly heedless was he of the irregular re sponses made by the bridegroom. The spectators who had assembled to wit ness the ceremon3% were making bets freety as to whether Mr. Bill would kill him at the first fire or whether he would merely mark him with a bullet for fu ture identification. Contrary to the general anticipation, the bridegroom made no further interruption, either b3' word or bullet, and the ceremony came to an end. All might have ended peaceably, had not Mr. Withers, de termined to do his whole duty, supple mented the ceremony by kissing the i bride. The first bullet missed its mark, and the bridegroom, while pausing to adjust his aim, remarked that “this painful j immorality on the part of the clergy ; must lie checked.” Just as he was about to fire the second shot—having Devoted to Hart County. got the clergyman’s right ear in line— the brother of the bride sprang on him and took away his pistol. At the same moment Mr. Withers tore off his sur plice. and leaping over the railing, struck out at Mr. Roaring Hill in a most beautiful and scientific way. A ring was immediately formed. The brido climbed on the baptismal font and alternately encouraged each combatant with such inspiring remarks as, “ Now, then, Hill, bust him in the eye," or “ liooray', parson, the eye of the church is on you ! Hack up your religion like a little man!” The eager spectators swarmed into the church and fought for good positions in tho pulpit. The betting at first was on the bride groom, but at tho end of ten minutes large odds were offered on the clergy man. liis courage was undoubted, and bis pugilistic skill was simply astound ing. liis adversary scarcely touched him, while the clergyman danced around him, now closing an eye and now shak ing the foundation of liis teeth with a smiling confidence that created the wildest enthusiasm. In twenty min utes and five rounds he had reduced liis man to perfect helplessness. Mr. Roaring Hill, cried “ enough,” the spec tators cheered and the bride, descended from her perch, kissed the clergyman with hearty frankness, and informed him that she should never allow any husband of hers to come between her and her religion. Such was the public enthusiasm in Lead ville over the clergyman’s victory that no less than thirty citizens came forward and offered to be confirmed, as an evidence of tlicir good will pro vided the rector would refrain from in terfering with card-playing and other usual Sunday recreations. As lias been said, the admiration of Leadville is about to be expressed in silver-mount ed pistols, and there is no doubt that the prosperity of St. George’s Church and the popularity of Mr. Withers are fully assured. A Morning Sketch. He wanted his razor strop. He had just lathered his chin in the ino3t ex haustive manner, and was preparing to put a finer edge on his razor. Now the razor-strop w r as always kept in the wash-stand drawer, the one nearest the wall. He fancied he always put it there himself; certainly he had made a rule to do so. lie had already taken out the razor, and lie now put his hand mechanically into the drawer for the razor strop. No strop was there! His hand mechanically caine in contact with air of a peculiarly exasperatiug thinness. “By Jove !” he thought to himself, as he was opening the other drawer, “ what a singular quantity of female mind that is ! Not able to distinguish between two drawers for two (lays con secutively. Yet I would wager any thing Fanny would swear I had put the strop in here myself.” He was groping discursively among what appeared to be the stock in trade of a small frisour, but nothing so palatable as a razor strop resisted his touch through the silky fluffiness of the general contents. “ Where is the confounded thing?” he exclaimed, staring about the room vaguely, but like a man whose angry passions are very near the surface. “ Why can't they leave my tilings alone, I should like to know? Fanny! Fanny!” he called over the banister with more accent than was absolutely necessary. “ What the deuce have you done with my razor-strop?” The se rene voice of conscious rectitude was heard in flutey tones replying : “In the waslistand drawer, love — one nearest the wall.” Now there was something in these flutey tones of Fan ny’s just at that moment that suggest ed to her husband a second trial of the drawer, For when Fanny threw a cer tain timbre into her voice, he usually found that she had the maddening qual ity of being right in regard to the sub ject under discussion. Back he strode into the room, with an uncomfortable stiffness about his chin as of dry soap, and pulled both drawers oqL and turn ed them upside down upon the floor. Positively no strop! By this time there was a grimness in the man’s de meanor visible to the meanest capacity, 81.50 Per Annum. and particularly noticeable In his walk as he strode a second time to tho head of the stairs. “Fanny!” he shunted in loud, im petuous accents. “ I toll you again, it isn’t then*! What in the thunder do you mean by always meddling with my shaving things?” The answer was perhaps a trillo staccato than before. “ Your strop is in the drawer, my dear. 1 put it there myself, yesterday morning, when 1 found that as usual you had loft every thing on the dressing-table." “Drawer!” hu is believed to have muttered at this point. “I’ll drawer her!" and he fairly jumped back into the room, and dashing at the bureau ho began throwing the contents of each drawer, one after the other, out on tho floor, with an awful impartiality that knew no distinctions. Hut after emp tying these receptacles, and shaking and stamping upon each article they had contained, no razor-strop presented its simple proportions to his blazing sight. “ Fanny!” he yelled over tho banisters for the third time, in a voice of thunder that curdled the blood in the veins of liis little children as they sat at their early porridge. “ Fanny!” And then his wife came up stairs and stood at the door while he danced upon the scene of devastation, and brandished a curious weapon in liis hand, after the fashion of a fearful Fet-jec, or other un tamed denizen of wilds too gruesome to name. “This is past believing,” lie observed. This is the kind of method and order you would expect in Bedlam. Look round this room, will you? By Jove! it is too much. Look you, madam, I’ll dine at the Club niter this—and sleep and breakfast there, too. Then perhaps my razor-strop, ha ! ha ! will lie forth coining when 1 dare to treat myself to the luxury of a shave! 11a! I’m a monster, of course, to presume to want to shave in my own house. I admit that, hut for mere curiosity’s sake now, I should like to know where the strop is! The coffee’s done by this time, and the bacon sodden, so a few minutes spent in cheerful conversation can’t hurt the breakfast. Did Freddy take it for a hammer, or has Flosso dressed it up for a doll? Or did you give it to as esthet ic tramp, ns you did thatfilc?” Pausing a moment for breath, Fanny took the opportunity to make a single remark: “ Are you speaking of the razor-strop in your hand,” asked she softly, “ or of some other one?” A peculiar tingling sensation seemed to creep along his arm as he heard these words, and lie appear ed to shrink together, and to measure several inches less than usual in every direction. But as ho vigorously re sumed the operation of sharpening his razor, which be remembered now he had dropped while he applied the lather, he returned angrily : “Why the deuce didn’t you say so before?” - —. Trussing in (o*t. Dr. Derma, in Frank Lculie'* Sunday Afternoon. To believe that the Lord is at my hand, and at the hand of the men whom 1 most fear or most love, influ encing them and me, connecting all business and acts, working together with men for grand results, which are to affect society a thousand years to come, what an antidote to fretful care lessness is this! When you have striven to train your child as an heir of immortality, with what freedom from care you can hand him over to the Lord. When you have been diligent in business all day, neglecting nothing, hurrying nothing, acting as an agent for the Lord, leaving all your books and transactions to his inspection and protection ; when you have had intelli gent, faithful, trustful carefulness all day, liow free from fretting care you ought to be at night! When I have prepared my sermon for you, thinking carefully, reading discreetly, earnestly striving to find what is the mind of the Spirit in the Word of God, and then have delivered the sermon, how free I should be from distraction of spirit, for was not the Lord near me in the study, and “at hand ” in the pulpit ? To be wisely spiritually minded is to be serenely lofty. WHOLE NO. 177. IMMORTALITY. In the year <126 of our era, when Ed win, the Anglo-Saxon King, was delib erating on receiving the Christian mis sionaries, one of liis nobles said to him : “ Tho present life of man, O King, compared with that space of time be yond, of which wc have no certainty, reminds me of your winter feasts where you sit with youi generals and ministers. The hearth blazes in the middle and n grateful Imat is spread around, while storms of rain and mow arc raging with out. Driven by the tempest, the little sparrow enters at one door and flics de lighted around us till it departs through the other. Whilst it stays in our man sion it feels not the winter storm ; but when the short moment of happineai has been enjoyed, it is forced again into the same dreary tempest from which it had escaped and wo behold it no more. Such is the lifo of man, and we are ns as ignorant of the state which preceded onr present existence ns of that which will follow it.” In the first records of a nation in any way thoughtful and cultivated, some be lief in the life beyond life would of course be suggested. The Egyptian jieople f\irnish ns the earliest details of any es tablished civilization, and 1 read in tho Hook of Herodotus this remarkable sen tence : *• Egyptians are the first of man kind who have affirmed tho immortality of the soul. There never was a time when the doctrine of a future life was not held. The whole life*of man in the first ages was ponderously determined on death. It made every man an un dertaker and the priesthood a senate of sextons. The chief end of man being to be buried well, the arts most in request were masonry and embalming, to givo imperishability to the corpse. The Greek, with his perfect senses and perceptions, had quite another philoso phy. Ho loved lifo and delighted'in beauty- He drove away tbeembalin ers, lie built no more of these doleful, mountainous tombs. He adorned death brought wreaths of parsley and laurel; made it bright with games of strength and skill and chariot races. Nothing cun excel the beauty of the sarcophagus. The poet Shelley says of them : “They seem not so much tombs as voluptuous chambers for immortal spirits Christianity brought anew wisdom. But learning depends on the learner. No more truth can be conveyed than the popular mind can hear. Death is seen as a natural event and is mot with firmness. A wise man in our time caus ed tube written on his tomb : “Think on living” “The name of death was never terrible To him that knew to live. ” The saving of Marcus Antonins it were hard to mend : "It were well to die if there be gods, and sad to live if there he none. ” I think all sound minds rest on cer tain preliminary conviction, namely, tLsit if it he best that! conscious per sonal life shall continue,it will continue; if not best, then it will not; and we, if we saw the whole, should of course see that it was better so. Schiller said, “ What is so universal as death must bo a benefit.” — Ralph W. Emkkson. Business on the Brain. One night last week the wife of Jus tice Moses was aroused from a sound sleep by a stern voice: "A re you ready for trial, I say ?” “Ilusb! Don’t make a noise, or elso you’ll wake the baby,” she replied, en deavoring to sooth him. “Don’t talk back to this court,” ho vociferated. “If you've got any wit nesses bring’em on, but let your law yer do the talking.” “Why, Tom, how you take on! What is the matter ?” “I send you up for sixty days— that’s what’s the matter. Here, len ders, take her away. Now, I'm ready for that larceny case. Bring up the prisoner.” And, jumping out of bed, he started for the next room to summon a jury, hut fell over a rocking chair, barked his shins, woke up, and asked his wife what the dickens was the matter, any now. “Come here, my lad,” said an attor ney to a boy about nine years old. The boy came and asked the attorney what case was to be tried next ? The lawyer answered, “A case between the Pope and the Devil, which do 3'ou think will be most likel3' to gain the action ?” The boy replied, “I guess it will be a hard squeeze—the Pope has the most money, but the devil has the most lawyers.” Plant your own supplies.