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About The Henry County weekly. (McDonough, GA.) 18??-1934 | View Entire Issue (July 26, 1907)
HENRY COUNTY WEEKLY. J. A. FOUCHE, Publisher. R. L. JOHNSON, Editor. Entered at the postofßce at MrDon ougli as second class mail matter. Advertising Kates: SI.OO per inob per month. Reduction on standinf contracts by special agreement. So far as is known to the Birming ham Age-Herald, Pocahontas was not addicted to the millinery habit. The Massachusetts statesman who says that everybody ought to take a month's rest does not provide for the numerous people who cannot be per suaded to do a month’s work, laments the Washington Post. Every state which compels the open and public hearing of all divorce cases, asserts the Brooklyn Eagle, will make a large contribution to public morality, whether the action is secured at the solicitation of the divorce congress or otherwise. The railways must spend some of their collossal earnings to keep up with modern progress, suggests the New York American. The fact that they have permitted their lineß to get be hind is not sufficient justification now for the advance in the rates of freight. To the woman marriage is most al ways a failure, walls the New York World. The failure Is not often com plete. It has Its saving side. The man has his mitigating qualities. The children are a strong counterbalance to the man’s defects. - And when the wife looks around and sees her friends’ husbands and disappointments of the married women of her acquaintance she usually concludes that she gets along as well us they do, and lets it go at that. Observes the Utica Press: “There are very many who assert emphatically that suicide is the expression and re sult of insanity. It is not a statement very far from the fact to say that any body who would join a suicide club must lie crazy in the first place or else have a very weak and bobbly mind. A person in fear of punishment for some heinous offence, a person borne down by great grief, might easily be in such a state of mind that common sense would be too weak to prevail against reason.” 6ne passing through the country must be impressed with the utter lack of trees shrubs or flowers about too many of our country school houses, observes the Indiana Farmer. Men are usually too busy, just at the time of the season when this work must be done, so that the impetus to the work must be given by the teacher. If this work is planned right, the pupils can be de pended upon to bring specimen trees and shrubs from their home grounds. With a couple of spades and two or three stout boys, a good start may be made. The girls will look after the flowers, even after the schools have closed for the summer. This clipping from Studies in So cialism may be of interest to a very few prosperous Americans, thinks Life. We say “very few,” as nobody finds pleasure in hearing the other side of his pet argument. There are house builders, architects and material enough in the world to build beauti ful houses for each and every family, yet millions live in shelters that are unfit for human habitation. These men want to work, and all want to live in good houses. Why, then, is the world so poor? If one part produced food, another houses, another instruc tion and another pleasure and enter tainment. don’t you know there would be enough of these in the world for all who helped to produce them? Then why don't they do it? Because man, not produce the larger part of what in his ignorance and cunning, has de vised rules that give to those who do is produced, and thus themselves' do not help, leaving the greater burden on those they exploit. The many, ; n all ages, have been too stupid to sc this cheat, and thus the cunning ha ruled and robbed and the useful h i slaved and gone with scanty fare. To which class belong you? marine **o^ |v*By*WALTER*IiESANT*.*^ CHAPTER 111. 4 Continued. “Then, Mi§s Beatrice,” said the eni broideross, “it means that 1 must work —day and night—and never stop.” Miss Beatrice sighed, and went on her way. She stopped next before the elderly and gaunt-looking person who sat on the other side of the lire. “Are you better tills evening, Miss Stidolph?” she asked. “No, I aui worse.” “Was there the opening you expect ed?” “No, there was not. There never is for age. It is a sin now to grow old.” “Oh, no! But people do like their children to be taught by young and light-hearted women. As we grow old er we lose some of our Hgbt-hearted ness, do we not? And some of our pleasant looks, perhaps.” “I never had any pleasant looks, or any lightness of heart,” said Miss Stidolph, with a little laugh. “Life has always been a burden to me. Don’t waste time oh me, Miss Beatrice. Per haps something will turn up in the lit erary way. We heard at the Museum yesterday that there was work got by some of the ladies there, and peo ple are all come back to town.” "Yes; and your translations arc known to be so correct, Miss Sti dolpli. Oh. I am sure you will get some work now. And you have got well through the dead season, haven’t you?” When Miss Beatrice left her, the gaunt, hard-featured lady lay back in her chair, with something like a smile upon her face. Consolation often takes the form of subtle and crafty flattery. Miss Beatrice knew that if there was one subject which more than another afforded gratification to Miss Stidolph, it was the excellence of lier translations. Other translators made blunders in grammar and mistakes in. idiom. Miss Stidolph was always cor rect. Then Miss Beatrice went to a girl who lay upon the sofa; stretched su pine, careless of what went on around her, sick to death of monotonous labor and a dull and dreary life. She bent over lier and patted her cheeks and whispered things soothing and soft to her, and kissed lier forehead, so that the girl sat up and smoothed her hair and moved away to the table, where she took up a book and began to read. And all this time Miss Augusta, with sympathetic emphasis, played her Men delsohn. What with the music and the gentle words the girls began to throw off their tiredness and to brighten up, and some of them even went so far as to tnlk chiffons, which is a sure and cer tain sign of recovery. Lastly, the daughter of consolation came to Katherine and the girl who eat beside lier holding her hand. "Lily, my dear.” she said to the lat ter, “have you heard of anything?” Lily shook her head. “I have heard of a great many things,” she said, drearily, "and 1 have been tramping about after them. To-day it was a photographer's. He wanted a girl to sell his tilings, and he offered fifteen shillings a week—which wasn't so bad. But the man—” shuddered. “There was degradation even in talk ing to such a man! There was a man who wanted a girl to search newspa pers for something in the Museum; but that place was snapped up long before I had time to apply for it. Work is like the pool, you know, that could only cure one person at a time.” “Patience, dear.” “I had no money for omnibuses, so 1 had to walk all the way. Yes, Miss Beatrice, 1 am already as patient as the most exacting preacher can desire.” She hardly looked it with those eyes that flashed tire at the remembrance of the photographer and the fingers that pulled the ribbon. “Patient? Y'es, I am as patient as a man in the hands of the Inquisition. I am on the rack, and I smile, you see.” But she did not smile. “Would you like to hear an other day’s experience? Yesterday I heard of two places right away in the north of London. One was a place in a school. The lady principal received me frigidly and heard what I had to say, and told me if the references were satisfactory I should receive twelve pounds a year for my mornings. Isn't it wonderful? Twelve pounds a year! Four shillings and eightpenee a week! Allowing for holidays, five shillings a week!” "Oh!” said Miss Beatrice. “It Is really terrible!” "She said that I had left my after noons and evenings, so that I could easily double my money. I asked her if she thought & woman could live on ten shillings a week, and she replied that she paid according to the market value. Well, then I tried the other place. It was a draper’s shop. The man, who is a bully, wants a'cashier. She is to work from 9 in the morning til! 8.30 at night, and is to have seven shillings and sixpence a week. So 1 left him without saying anything. He is a deacon of his chapel, and the chief? support of the pastor, I was told. Dives was a draper who paid his cash ier seven shillings and sixpence a week.” “My dear, you are greatly tried. But have patience still. With those who have patlenc? end never lose their hold on faith and hope, everything comes right in the end. Look at us—my sister and myself—we have been very poor. Oh, we have suffered great privations arid many humiliations. When we were young I think that people were not so considerate and so kind toward their dependents as they have since— some of them—become.” “Not Dives the draper of Stolte-Ncw ington,” said Lily. “Often we bad not enough to cat. But see what happened. We adopted what we call the simple life. We lived upon fruit and bread chiefly, and some times vegetables. So we were enabled to weather the most terrible storms of adversity, and now that we are grown old and glad to rest, Providence has sent us an annuity of fifty pounds a year, on Avhieb we can live in com fort and -with thankful hearts. Pa tience, my dear.” “It will be such a long time before I get old,” Lily sighed. “And there are all those storms to get through first. And perhaps the fifty pounds a year won’t come along at all when it is most wanted. Very well, Miss Beatrice, I will try to be patient; 1 will, indeed.” Then Miss Beatrice turned to Kath arine and kissed her. “My dear,” she said, “when there is no news there is always hope.” “The natives have brought in reports that they are killed,” Katharine re plied, with dry eyes. “Nobody thinks there is any room for hope. I went to the office of the paper to-day and saw one of the assistant 'editors, lie is a kind man, and the tears came into his eyes. But he says it would be cruel to entertain any bope. Tom is dead! Tom is dead!” Then she sprang to her feet and rushed out of the room. “Don't follow her, Miss Beatrice,” said Lily. “She will throw herself on the bed and cry. It will do her good, poor thing. It would do most of us good if we could lie down every even ing for an hour or two and have a good cry.” ■ .—. . - ■ ' CHAPTER IV A Faithful Trustee. If, gentle reader, you are proposing to embark on a career of what the harsh world too readily calls crime, and judges reward with a term of seclusion, would you rather carry it on secretly, or would you take your wife into partnership? It is a question which cannot be lightly answered, be cause the answer must depend in great measure on the character and dispo sition of the lady. For there are wives who, like eminent statesmen when they suddenly and brazenly veer round and give the lie to all that they have hitherto said and taught and professed, are ready to aver that the thing is the only right thing to do, and to cover it up with a gilding of fair words and pretense, so as to make it appear most beautiful, virtuous and unselfish. Other wives there are again who can never be brought to see any thing but the naked ugliness of the thing standing out in front of the writ ten law, and refuse any assistance, and go melancholy and ashamed. You will now hear, if you have the patience to follow up this narrative, what happened to a man who adopted a certain course of action without his wife’s knowledge and consent previous ly obtained. I do not know, that is to say, what Harriet Rolfe would have said, or what co-operation she would have afforded her husband. Perhaps .the path which opened out before him, showing such vistas of case and de jight. might have attracted and tempt-, ed her as well—but I do not know. Meantime it is a curious speculation to think of the difference it might have made had Harriet herself been a con senting party to the line adopted. It was not a deep-laid conspiracy, hatched after long meditation and brooding. Not at all; it grew out of small beginnings, and was developed, as such things often are, by the assist ance of unforeseen, circumstances. James Rolfe knew perfectly well that he would get nothing from his uncle's will, and was not in the least surprised when he learned its contents. The his tory of five years spent as an articled clerk in the office, and live more spent in acquiring experience at the cost of Lis patrimony, caused his uncle to re solve that his nephew should be left to make his own way in the world. This shows what a high opinion he had formed of his nephew. FurtL?r, on several occasions he communicated till opinion to James. Therefore when Tom proposed that lie should prove the will and take over the management of the property, James considered it the greatest piece of luck which had ever befallen him. At first he sat down, the papers be fore him, with all the zeal which one expects of a man paid by the hour in stead of by the job, without limit as to time. He began by investigating the circumstances connected with the trust-money, something of which he already knew. Next he made, as he thought, the dis covery that the whole estate was not more than sufficient to discharge the trust. He communicated this unpleasant discovery to Tom as a fec-t about which there was no doubt. It had th 4 Immediate effect of causing Tom’s de parture for Egypt. If it had not for that discovery the second chapter of this book—nay, the whole book— would have been impossible for a truthful historian. Now at school the youthful James had never been able to add up his sums and to reduce his pounds to pence with the correctness desired by his masters. The immediate result was unpleasant; the more enduring result was hatred and continued ignorance of all mathe matical science. Therefore, as an ac countant, lie blundered. And it was not until Toni was gone that he found out what a big blunder he had made. Never mind, Avhon lie returned there would be time to set him right. Six weeks after his departure there came the first alarming telegram in the papers. James Rolfe read it and changed color. Then he reflected, and winked hard with both eyes. Some men turn red or pale or both; others fidget with their hands; others wriggle in their chairs; James Rolfe winked with both eyes. The next day and the next end the day after there came more telegrams of a similar character. ‘'Harriet,” said her husband, solemn ly. “my cousin Tom must be dead. Four days have passed and he has not come back. The last fugitives who have escaped have returned to camp, btit he has not come in. Captain Mo- T.auchiin. of the llotb. and Mr. Addi son, correspondent of'the Daily Herald, are still missing. There is no doubt, I very much fear, that Tom is dead.” “Then who’ll have all the money, James?” “There may be a will,” he replied, fully aware that there was none. “It ought to be mine, by rights. But there may bo a will.” “What other relations has he?” “He has cousins by his mother's sidp. |mt the family all went to New Zealand' long ago. By his father’s side I anl. the only first cousin.” “Then—oh! Jem, won’t you have it all?” “We must distinguish, Harriet.” he replied, in a legal tone; “we must dis tinguish, I certainly ought to have it all.” “He was engaged, you told me.” “Yes.” James was reminded by the question of certain last words and a promise. And again he winked with both eyes. “Yes, he was engaged. I shall look into his papers, Harriet, and find his will, if lie left one.” His heart leaped up within him and his pulse quickened, because he knew very well there was no will. The time was one of great tightness. The rent was overdue, and the land lord was pressing. James Rolfe’s pri vate resources had well-nigh come to an end, and his practice was meager enough. It is not enough, as many have discovered, to call yourself a solic itor, if your language, your manners, your appearance, and your general rep utation fail to command the respect and confidence which bring along the client. James’ appearance reminded the observer of a swash-buckler in private modern dress. Now, rightly or wrongly, people like their solicitors to exhibit a correct and sober tenor. His taster led him to racing, and there fore to billiards, the turf somehow be ing the first cousin of the billiard table. Both are green, to begin with. He was well set up: a big. handsome fellow, with brown hair straight and short, a smooth cheek, and a full mus tache: the kind of a man who at forty will have developed a figure and put on a double chin. His wife, whom he elevated to that proud position from a stall in Soho Bazaar, was, like himself, big-limbed, full of figure, and comely to look upon. There was no wom an anywhere. Jem proudly felt, who could compare with her. In fact, when Harriet was well dressed and in a good temper, she was a very handsome creature indeed. She would make a splendid stage queen with her masses of brown hair rolled up under a gleam ing gold coronet, a black or crimson velvet dress showing her white arms and setting off her regular features and her ample rosy cheek, her broad white shoulders and her great blue eyes. Rubens would have painted her with enthusiasm. She must have come from the country, for in London such women are not grown. In other things, besides comeliness, she was a fitting partner for James Rolfe; like him, she loved all the pomps and vault Ucs of tlie world—erery one—and es pecially the vanity of rich and beauti ful raiment. Next, she loved the vani ty of the theatre, which she regarded as the proper place to sho\y a good dress. She also loved the vanity of champagne, the festal drink; that of good eating, and that of cheerful so ciety, where the men did what they, pleased and the ladles Avere not stuck up and stiff. “Harriet,” said her husband, a few days later, “Tom is really dead. There can no longer be any doubt about it.” “Is it really aud truly certain?” “Everybody lias given bim up.” “Oh, Jem—and all this money! Is it really ours? Oil!” • Jem did not immediately reply, but he shut both eyes hard. Then he walked to the Avindow, and looked out into the back garden of the villa. Then ho returned to the fire place and played with the tilings on the mantel shelf. Harriet Avaited and watched him anx iously. “Harriet,” he said, I am his cousin find his solicitor. I have, therefore, been to his lodgings this afternoon and paid the rent, and carried away his books and papers and clothes aud everything.” “Well?” “So far as I have gone—l have ex amined all the papers, Avliieli did not take long—l have found no Avill.” "Then—oh. Jem”—Harriet sprung to her feet —“everything is ours!” (To be continued.) AUTOMOBILISTS BIFFED. A Strict Speed-Regulating Measure Passed in the Georgia Senate. The Georgia. senate passed the Fel der automobile bill Thursday morning, after a sharp debate on certain points and several amendments which make the bill more rigorous than as first drafted. The bill forbids driving autos in built-up portions of incorporated towns where houses average less than 150 feet apart, at greater speed than one mile in six minutes. Forbids greater speed on country highAvays than one mile iu four min utes. Provides that automobiles cannot be run on any street or highway at great er speed than proper for preservation and salety of public. Act does not in any way effect right of person injured in person or property, to sue and re cover damages from auto owner. Lays stringent regulations on auto drivers to regaid rights of person* rid ing or driving domestic animals. At a signal from persons riding or driving restive domestic animals, auto ists must come to full stop aud remain so until danger is over. All automobiles must hat'e adequate brakes, good horn or bell, and carry from one hour after sunset to one hour before sunrise a w'hite light in front and red light in rear. The headlight must project light 500 feet ahead of car. Act includes automobiles, locomo biles, motor vehicles and all other vehi cles propelled otherwise than by mus cular power, save electric and steam cars. Violations of act make offenders amenable to section 1039, criminal code. HANGING DON’T STOP CRIME Is Declaration of Missouri Pardon Clerk in Communication to Governor. Pardon Clerk Speed Mosby of Mis souri, in recommending to Governor I oik that clemency be shown to sev eral murderers under death sentence, muted that statistics shows hanging does not ac; as a deterrent to capital crimes, and asserted a close study of the sttutes would reveal that the state itself is guiity of murder when it moves premeditatedly and deliberate ly against a man’s life. HEADQUARTERS IN ATLANTA For Postoffice Inspector for Newly-Created Southern Division. Atlanta is to become headquarters for a postoffice inspector, the neAv di 'ision to be composed cf Georgia, Flor ida and Scuth Carolina. For years past Georgia has been m the Chattanooga division, that division being made up of the states of Tennes see, Georgia, Alabama, Florida and South Carolina. “LITTLE MOTHERS” GIVEN OUTING, Kew York Man Celebratees His Birthday in Praiseworthy Manner. Frank Tilford of the firm of Parker & Tilford, New York, took a unique wa y celebrate his birthday Tuesday. He invited i6O “lit; le mothers.” poor gtiis, who bear some of the burdens of heir families, to take a trip to Coney leiand at Mr. Tilford’s expense.