Newspaper Page Text
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.
