Newspaper Page Text
HENRY COUNTY WEEKLY.
J. A. FOUCHE. Publisher.
R. L. JOHNSON, Editor.
Entered at the postofflce at McDon
ough as second clas3 mail matter.
Advertising Rates: SI.OO per inci
yer month. Reduction on standinj
contracts by special agreement.
Public opinion seems sadiy divided,
to ihe Detroit News, as to the useful
ness of the man who makes two shares
of stock grow where one grew be
fore. —Detroit News.
A Danish scientist claims to have
discovered that tears kill microbes.
After thi-s, suggests the Washingtoi
Post, when you run across a microbe
just drop a hot salty tear on him.
The investigating committee of the
Minnesota state senate finds that, rail
road property in that state which is
valued at $215,000,000 is capitalized to
the extent of about $400,000,000. Now
it is the turn of the railroad presi
dents, thinks the New York Herald,
to deplore the popular tendency to at
tack corporations and to appeal to the
White House again to arrest local agi
tation against railroads in the various
states.
Reports of the London public libra
ries show that the proportion of novels
and stories called for has been dimin
ishing steadily during the last fow
years and is lower this year than ever
before, while the Westminster Gazette
is informed by publishers that “the
taste for fiction is giving way.’’ On
this side of the water, notes the New
York Sun, the book season has been
remarkable for the scarcity of fiction.
Very few stories of note, even for the
moment, have been published.
Physical perfection, remarks the Bos
ton Herald, is becoming a matter of
more rational consideration by par
ents, educators, physicians and legis
lators, as the whole drift of current
happenings shows; and nothing is
more significant than the way in
which theories of government and of
education that were time honored have
been modified by the increasing real
ization that underneath sound mental
and moral conditions there must be
the healthy physical human organism.
"How can we make good?” the farm
ers cry in alarm. Let them open their
eyes and see, answers the New Haven
Register. Every form of farm produce
has gone up, and is still rising. Let
them compare the prices they get now
•with those they got 20 or even 10
years ago. They must pay living
wages to get men to work for them.
But they will before long find farming
becoming attractive enough to keep
their own sons and neighbors’ boys at
home, and then the conditions of 30
years ago will have been partly re
stored. The reaction which is coming
will help farming in every way.
The most remarkable fact in the
history of Norway sobriety is that
the consumption of alcohol per in
habitant has decreased about 45 per
cent in the last 50 years. The decrease
has been most marked since the es
tablishment of the Sondag system,
avers the Cnicago Tribune. The aims
and principles of the Sondag system
are these: The elimination of private
profit and securing the monopoly val
us for the public, insuring highest
quality of liquors sold, the reduction
of the number of licenses, the easy en
forcement of the law, the destruction
of the power of the spirit trade and
the furtherance of all progressive
measures of reform.
The most effectual anti-suicide work
is that which the individual can do,
if he will. If every individual, pleads
the Louisville Courier-Journal, would
deal less selfishly with his fellows,
bringing into his home greater feel
ing of affection and gentleness and in
to tats business relations a more pro
nounced spirit of "live and let live,”
and so, little by little, destroy the
harsh, antagonistic grinding and pinch
ing conditions which today beget un
told misery and entail paralyzing
struggles, there would be fewer sui
cides. if only each man resolved him
self into an anti-suicide bureau in the
living of his daily life, what a differ
ent old world this would be!
'V: By WALTER BESANT. "'A
iii
CHAPTER VI. C
Continued.
English young men as well ns Ger
mans ardently desire to tell about
themselves, their prospects, their aims
and their ambitions, but they stifle the
yearning. They talk to each other
for awhile, but not after their career
Is actually begun. A German young
man, on the other hand, looks about
for a companion of the opposite sex,
to whom lie may confide everything;
she becomes his friend, his adviser,
his symmthizer. Sometimes she is
young ■■ pretty, when the result is
inevitable; sometimes she is young
ami plain, when the result is gener
ally much the same; sometimes she
is middle-aged or old, when her
frlendshi" may become a very sweet
and tender one. How much good might
be done if ladies of a certain ago
would let It be known that they wore
ready ( to undertake the part of con
soler, adviser and sympathizer each to
one young ian! One feels, speaking as
n man, perfectly ready at any age to
do as much for a young lady. Kathar
ine played this part to the young Ger
man, while he talked about himself.
“I am not. Fraulein,” Dittmer Bock
explained, “hochgeboren. My father
conducts a Delicatessen-Handlung in
Humburg, opposite the Jacobi Church.”
May one disguise the good Dittmer’s
English? Any one may speak it as
he spoke it. In fact, the Gerrnan-
English of to-day Is as easy to write
as the French-Englisli of sixty years
ngo—witness the humorist in every
American paper. “My father had am
bitions for his sons nbove the Deli
catessen-Handlung. He wished that
they should become great merchants,
such as used to bp found in London.”
“Are they not found here still?”
Dittmer shrugged his shoulders. .“I
find the memory of great English
merchants, and I find great German
houses—Hamburg is the place where
you must look now for groat mer
chants. Did you ever hear of the
Godofroi brothers?”
Katharine never had.
“They were hoys who worked and
looked about them. Perhaps they had
read history and knew about Whit
tyigton and Gresham. And they rose
and became rich; they discovered an
island, and they established trade with
it and planted it. They became rich.
They founded the great German
Colonial Empire of the future”—here
Dittmer Spread his arms—“which will
grow and grow until it swallows up
your English colonies one after the
other, I. too, shall look about the
world until I discover another island
like Samoa. Then I shall go there
and begin to trade and to plant.”
“It is a great ambition, Dittmer.”
‘‘lt has been my resolve since I was
a child. In order to carry it out I have
learned what I could—mathematics,
languages, bookkeeping, shorthand,
physical geography, commercial and
political history, and the present con
dition of trade over all the world. I
know every harbor and its exports
and imports, and the principal mer
chants who carry on its trade.”
“That seems a great deal to learn.”
‘‘Modern trade wants all this knowl
edge. There will very soon be no
more English merchants, because your
.voting men will not learn the new con
ditions of trade. In every office there
must be clerks who can write ar.d
speak foreign languages. Your young
men will not learn them, and your
schools cannot teach them. Then we
come over—we who have learned them.
Always we see in history commerce
which passes from hand to hand: ev
erywhere one people which decays and
one people which advances. It is
curious: it is wonderful.”
‘‘But all this will be after your time,
Dittmer.”
“As for me,” lie answered, coming
down from the prophetic level. ‘‘l shall
become another Godefroi, and find an
other Famoa.”
‘‘l hope you will, Dittmer,” said
Katharine.
“Frauleln,”—he left off talking about
himself—“my heart is sorrowful for
you. Every day I tear open the paper
and I look for news, I say: Oh! per
haps to-day it comes—the telegram
that he is well.”
“Dittmer. please stop, riease—do
not say such a thing again.”
“But there is hope, since they he. v
learned nothing about him.”
“How eaft there be Lope? No—h
Is dead. I have his letters. I sha’-
carry them all my life.’” Involun
tarily she laid her hand upon tl"
pocket where they were kept “IT
letters are all I have of him. He i
dead. Dittmer. And. oh! my heart is
breaking. Never speak again of news
There can be none, unless they find
his bones upon the sands. No news
no news. He is dead—ho is dead.”
They finished their walk in silence.
When they reacliyd EiarJey House
lil
Katharine saw that the tears were
running down Ditttner’s cheeks.
“You are good and kind, my friend.”
He stopped and kissed her hand.
“Fraulein ”he began, but he
choked and said no more. It is re
markable that although we boifst our
selves to be the grand mrticulately
speaking race of man,- the most c
pressive things are those which a
omitted. Dittmer Bock never !'•
Ished that sentence, yet Kathnri
knew what he meant, and that she
had a servant as well as a friend.
One evening lie had been silent and
dull at the house, even refusing to
sing. He spoke to her oil another
subject.
“Fraulein,” he said, “there will be
more trouble.”
“What is it, Dittmer? Trouble for
you or for me?”
“For our friends. Therefore, for you
as well as for me.”
*“What is it, then?”
He proceeded to tell her, with many
excuses and apologies to himself for
betraying the confidence of the house,
that in his position of confidential sec
retary and letter writer he knew a
great deal more than the clerks in the
outer office knew: that the partners
spoke more freely in his presence than
before others; that in this way and
by putting things together he had
learned that owing to the depression
of trade and the bad prospects of the
future It was in contemplation to
make a considerable reduction in the
expenses of the establishment.
“What does that mean?”
“It may means that Mr. Emptage
will be sent away.”
“Oh! that would be terrible for
them.”
“Oh. perhaps his salary would be
reduced.”
“Blit they are poor enough as it is.”
“I shall be kept because I am cheap.
They think I am cheap. Ho! The
English clerks are sent away because
they are dear, and because they know
neither shorthand nor any foreign lan
guage, and never try to devise any
way of extending the business. They
are machines. What did I tell you,
Fraulein? Is not London decaying
when her young men will not learn
the only, thing which will keep them
from falling?”
"But what—or! Dittmer, my friend—
what will that poor woman with her
six chijdren do if her husband is dis
missed?”
“I know not. Presently another Ger
man house may rise upon Hie ruins
of an English house. The jjood Emp
tage is honest. He shall count the
money in that house. And his daugh
ters shall marry the planters in my
i Facific island.”
> •
i
' i
1 CHAPTER VII.'
; rp IIE J OST Px^ACC.
No prophecies ever come true ex
cept prophecies of disaster. Perhaps
the reason is that there have never
been any other kind. Katharine went
about her duties with a sense of im
pending disaster duo to Dittmor’s pro
phecies. The children carried on in
their usual fashion; the mother worked
and contrived; the precise bald-head
ed father came home every day and
read the paper slowly, with his legs
crossed, just as usual; and yet some
thing dreadful was going to happen to
them. If you knew that the day after
to-morrow there was going to be an
earthquake of so vast and extended a
character that there would be no time
to escape, would you warn the un
thinking folk or would you leave them
to their fate? If you warned them,
for every one who would beteke him
to his knees, a dozen would take to
drink. Better leave them unconscious
i until the end came. As well warn
. the skipping lamb that in a day or
two he will be banging up, with his.
wool gone and his inside scooped out,
in a butcher’s shop.
The blow fell a few days later.
It was on Saturday afternoon, when
Mr. Emptage generally came home at
half-past two and spent the rest of the
day with the family, not disdaining
to t'jvn his hand to household jo- n;
few family men. indeed, were readiei
at nailing up a blind, mending a door
handle, or any of those little matters
for which the plnmber is too often
called in. He generally came home
i cheerful and contented—tenuity of in
come is not felt if yon desire no more
than you have. This day, however, lie
returned In a condition which —unjust-
ly, I declare—forced those who saw
him to think of strong drink.
“John,” said his wife, sharply. “Wlvpi
is the matter? Where have you been?"
His face was white, his lips tremu
lous, his hands dangled at his side—: 1
most undignified thing for hands to do
—and he swayed from side to side.
“John, his wife repeated. “What’s
the nia&tr
“He is ill, Mrs. Emptage,” said Kath
arine. But she knew what had hap
pened.
“Children!” the poor man groaned,
“wife! Katharine!”—he sunk into an
arm-chair and buried his face in Li?
hands—“we are ruined!”
Had he, then, been dismissed.
“John! What is it? Tell me, quick.
What? John! Speak up!”
“Marla, I will. Give me time. I’ve
eaten no dinner to-day at all. What
right had I to be eating dinner with
the poor children never going perhaps
to have any more?” He uttered these
awful words with his face still in his
hands, so that they had a muffled
funeral sound, like the drums at the
burial of a soldier.
“Oh. John! Speak up!” his wife re
peated.
The younger children began to cry.
The elders watched their mother and
Katharine. It would hot be becoming
in them to begin the crying until they
set the example. But they were terri
fied. John sat up and looked slowly
and solemnly around, shaking his head.
His children were about him. his wife
was at his siye, and in front of him
was the governess! Oh, how few of
his contemporaries had governesses!
And now he felt— In moments of
great trouble it is the small thing
which seizes first on the mind. John
Emptage suffered Ipsr pain at the mo
ment for tho loss of ssls income than
for the loss of his gentility. “Our
governessi My children’s governess!”
Now lie would be able to say these
words no longer.
“Business.” lie began, with «a groan,
“has been terribly bad. It is bad with
everybody, but in our trade it seems
to have gone altogether.”
“Well, my dear, you have said that
so often.”
“At last the partners have reduced
the establishment. Reduced—reduced
—the establishment, Maria.” •
“John!” shrieked liis wife, “you
haven’t lost your berth?”
“They’ve sent away half the clerks —
three are gone; and they’ve cut down
the salaries cf those who stay on.
I’m cut down. Maria—children—your
father lias been cut down:”
“Oh, John! How much? Fifty
pounds?’
“The chief partner sent for me. He
spoke very kind. He said it was very
hard on an old servant, but what was
he to do? He said that all his personal
expenses had been cut down to the low
est, and the establishment in the city
kept up in hopes of better times, but
the trade seemed gone away for good,
and what was he to do? And then he
said that he was very sorry indeed,
very sorry for me he was, but he eould
no longer go on paying salaries on the
same scale, and he Avas obliged to offer
me a reduction of”—John doubled up
and groaned as one who has an inter
nal pain—“of half my screA\-—take it or
leave it—take it or leave it. That’s
all. Maria.”
“Oh, John! Only half—that is what
we married on, sixteen years ago.. It
was plenty then. But now ” she
looked around her. Six children! And
the eldest only fifteen! She groaned
aloud.
Three hundred pounds a year does
not seem to some people a great in
come; hut many families have to make
three hundred pounds suffice for all
their wants and all their luxuries;
think of the clergy, half-pay officers
and Avidows. In careful hands —no
where are the hands more careful
than those of the London clerk’s AA-ife
—three hundred pounds will go a very
long way, particulary when you get
such a governess as Katherine—a
chance which falls to few. Eat divide
the three hundred by two—Mrs.
Emptage rapidly made that division
tnd gazed before her in consternation;
some clerks have to do with a hundred
and fifty, even clerks with families of
six. But none knew better than this
cousin of a thousand clerks what the
income meant.
“Oh! children.” she cried, “what
shali we do? The things that Ave must
give up! How in the world shall I
keep you respectable?”
Then she looked guiltily at Kath
arine.
“You will not be able to keep me any
longer,” said Katharine. “Oh! I am
so sorry for you, I am indeed.”
“Katharine, my dear, have one more
meal Avith us, if it is oniy a cup of tea.
Children, Katharine will come and see
us sometimes—AAon’t you, my dear?”
When Katharine came away at nine,
she met Dittmer Bock smoking a Ham
burg cigar under the laffipi>ost.
“They knoAV all now.” he said. “I
was afraid to liomm. I am sorry for
them, Yet they have still one hundred
and fifty pounds. In Hamburg that is
x good pay for a clerk. One hundred
ftrnl fifty pounds. Three thousand
marks. Count it in marks. So it is
tAventy times as great—ten marks a
day? They liaA*e been too rich, the
English. But they will he rich no
longer. The English clerks are sent
away. The German clerk remains. I
have but forty pounds a year. Eight
hundred marks. Yes, the German re
mains and the Englishman is sent
away. • It is the ueAv conquest of Eng
land. The German remains.”
”1 fear they will have to deny them
selves in many things,” said Katha
rine.
“They aa-HI oat enough, but they will
no longer be rich. They will no longer
have such a Fraulein to teach the chil
dren.’’
“No, I must find another place.”
“It is sometimes hard to find—l fear
—the other place.”
"I shall find it somehow. Oh, I have
no fear.”
“Fraulein”—Dittmer turned pale,
smitten with sudden terror—“you leave
this good family; you go away. Him
mel! Where can I go to meet you
now?”
Katharine hesitated.
“Do you still wish to meet me, Ditt
mer?” she asked, without the least
coquetry.
“Aeh! You ask if I wish—what other
pleasure have I than to meet you,
Fraulein? There is no one else in the
world who listens AA’hen I speak.”
“If it is only to tell me what is in
your mind I will try to arrange for
seeing you sometimes. But —’
“Fraulein, it is sweet to open my soul
to you because you understand and
are kind. You do not laugh. Ja! It
fills my heart Avith joy to be with you
and to see your face —so AA'umJer
schoin—”
“Dittmer, you must not ”
“Y'ou ask if I still wish to meet you.
Ach! And all the day at my work I
see your beautiful eyes and hear your
voice—so soft and sweet—”
(To be continued.)
The Shepherds’ Bulletin, of recent
date, estimates the wool clip of the
current year nt 300.000.000 pounds.
COTTON SEED EXPERT RESIGNS.
J. L. Benton Forced to Relinguish Job
Because of Bad Health.
Hon. J. L. Benton of Montieello,
Ga., recently appointed cotton ssed ex
pert abroad by Hon. Oscar Strauss,
secretary of commerce and labor at
Washington, has resigned that posi
tion, owing to ill health, a*nd has re
turned to Georgia.
Mr. Benton talks most interesting
ly of his service abroad where he
investigated the conditions in Den
mark and Holland for the United
states gOA-ernment and made exhaus
tive reports of his research work,
which has been published in pam
phlet form by the department under
which he served. In speaking of his
trip abroad he said:
“One of the most interesting fea
tures of my work on the continent
was the comparison made betAveen the
efforts of Denmark and Holland, both
noted as butter producing countries, to
secure the butter trade of England.
Holland had it, hut now Denmark has
forged ahead. The tAVo butters sold
are entirely different but the south
profits by each. In Denmark cotton
seed meal is fed im large quantities to
the cattle, and this has been declared
by- the experiment stations there to
be the best butter fa: producer known.
In Holland another southern product
is used. This is cotton seed oil which
is mixed Avith the butter of Holland
to make the famous margerine for
which the country is noted. Here we
have two countries trying for the same
end and both using a southern prod
uct for a basis and bo h bases coming
from our snow-white cotton fields.
Both countries are prosperous and use
more cottos seed meal as a feed and
cotton sed oil to make the margerine
than any others in the world, propor
tionate ix> size.”
CHAIRMAN JONEvS IS OPTIMISTIC.
Thinks Whole of Country Will Go “Dry”
at No Distant Date.
“Every state in the union will, at
a comparatively early date, be free
from legalized liquor traffic.” This
statement was mad? Thursday night
by Charles R. Jones, chairman of the
national prohibition committee. Mr.
Jones based his optimistic prediction
on the action of Georgia in enrolling
itself among tha “ary” states.
BILLS SIGNED BY COMER.
One Appropriate* $50,000 to Carry on
Fight Against the Railroads.
Governor Comer of Alabama has
signed the 'following bills: To allow
the Alabama Polytechnic institute tc
use $30,000 of the building fund as
an investment; to appropriate $50,000
to defray the expenses incident to the
fight being made on rate and regula
tion laws by the railroads \ _
NEGRO TROOPS FOR PHILLIPINES.
Colored Infantry Company Leaves Fort Mc-
Intosh for Long Journey.
A dispatch from Laredo, Texas, says:
A special train of twelve cars con
veying the twenty.fifth iniantry, ne
gro troops, to San Francisco, left
For: Mclntosh Monday. The troops
will sail from San Francisco to the
Philippines, where they will be st*
tioned for the next three years.
