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About The Henry County weekly. (McDonough, GA.) 18??-1934 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 9, 1907)
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.
