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HENRY COUNTY WEEKLY.
■ ■ —^
J. A. FOUCHE, Publisher.
R. L. JOHNSON, Editor.
Entered at the po3tofflce at McDon-
Jugh as second class mall matter.
Advertising Rates: SI.OO per lnet
per month. Reduction on standini
«joo tracts by special agreement.
As between the idiot that always
smiles and the orang-outang that never
smiles, there may be little choice for
congenial association, observes the
Beatrice Express. The light, gig
gling vapor from an impoverished
mind is perhaps no more distasteful
than the lugubrious mutterings of a
grouty dyspeptic. Let us all cheer
up. .
What an interesting time the men
and women are going to have who
Jive up t 6 the middle of the twentieth
century, exclaims the Christian Regis
ter. During that time some of these
mighty problems which now disturb
us will have been put in the way of
solution. The great general public
will have taken both capital and labor
in hand and have compelled them to
adjust their differences and create new
harmonies for the common good.
Fire-proof buildings *ost more
money than wooden structures, but
the difference will soon be saved in
smaller insurance. The thing, how
ever, of most importance is the saving
of human life, protests the Wichita
Eagle. This thing of being caught in
the top of a six or ten-story building
and a fire raging below and the smoke
coming up the elevator shaft ifke a
volcano is a most terrible thing to
contemplate. The steel and cement
age is here and here to stay.
Strong language was used by Com
missioner Lane in condemning the
Philadelphia & Reading Railroad for
discriminating between shippers by ex
pediting shipments of some and hold
ing up those of the others. Here is a
form of railroad favoritism, admits the
New York Press, which is just as in
sidious as cash rebates, and which can
be used to kill off competition with
eqaub effectiveness. Imprisonment
should be the punishment for railroad
officers found guilty of this crime.
That Canada will be an independent,
nation by the middle of the century is
quite likely, insists the Washington
Post. That she could have been an
independent nation at its beginning,
with England's hearty consent and
blessing, is certain; but they are a
canny set, the Canadians, and it is
the part of wisdom to have the Brit
ish navy as an asset. The world is
going at a pretty lively clip in 1907;
but it is a snail’s pace compared to
what it will be when Canada, South
America, and Africa are peopled
with teeming millions, with all the
energies and verve of the American of
today.
There is no conflict between the
President and the people of the far
West, the Denver Republican says, in
respect to public lands. The Repub
lican is convinced that the President
does not mean to force on the people
a policy in this regard which they de
clare to be antagonistic to the devel
opment of that part of the coun
try. It goes on to say: "The West
is opposed to any policy which would
bold the public lands as a permanent
estate, to be managed by the Federal
Government in the capacity of land
lord, and from which the people would
be excluded except in the capacity
of tenants or lessees. Homeseekers
and home builders should find the
public domain open to them, and any
policy which conflicts with the settle
ment and occupation of that part of
this domain which lies within the
Western States will be opposed by the
people of this section. The attitude of
the Supreme Court revealed by the de
cision in the Kansas case should not
be ignored. The rights of the people
in respect of all these matters are
fully recognized and proclaimed in that
all the waters of non-navigable streams
nre subject to the jurisdiction of the
states should be kept clearly in mind.’’
In building a fortune, maintains tbs
Atlanta Journal, the hardest work is
laying a foundation.
V* 7>= B y WALTER BESANT.*^
CHAPTER XII. 12.
Continued.
“We shall not go on being driven
with whips, Katharine, because we are
going to die. Shall we be killed by the
black fog and starvation? Or shall we
die a quicker way? Think of another
night in such a fog and without Ditt
mer beside us. Katharine,” she re
peated, “think of another night out
In this cruel place.”
Still there was no answer.
“Katharine!” she stooped and lifted
her head —“Katharine! are you dead
yet? Are you so happy as to be dead?”
“No! I wish we were dead. Oh! Lily
—Lily—how long—how long? Will
Dittnier never come? The seat is cold;
he is so good. He took off his coat and
laid it over me. Dittmer is very good
to us.”
She was light-headed; exhaustion and
cold made her forget where she was.
She thought she was still on the bench
in the park waiting for Dittmer to
come back.
“She is faint with hunger,” said Lily.
She instinctively felt her pocket. There
was in it a rough crust, the last of the
threepenny-worth of bread. She gave
it to Katharine, who devoured it
greedily.
“Are you better, dear? Do yon think
that you could stand? Do you think
that you could, walk a little?”
“Where?”
“It is not far—l should think about
half a mile. This time I know’ that I
can find my way. I see It in my head,
every inch, clear as if there w r ere no
fog, though it is as black as night.”
“Where, Lily? Do you mean—” she
trembled, she rose and stood beside
her friend—“do you mean—”
“It is the Embankment, dear. That
is the place where women go to end
their sufferings. The poor woman who
has lost her virtue; the poor shirt
maker who has lost her place; the poor
lady who can got no work; that is the
place for all of us. One plunge and
It is all over—all the sorrow’ and all
the disappointment.”
“But after death?”
“After death I shall ask w T liy we
> were forced to the Embankment.”
“Lily, I am afraid. It will he so
cold.”
“We shall not feel the cold one hit.
Think of another night! Think of the
rest of the day! Think of day after
day like this! Katharine, you shall
hold my hand. Come.”
She dragged Katharine away, walk
ing with the strength of madness, as
fast as her trembling friend Could go,
sometimes hurrying her, sometimes en
couraging her, sometimes reproving
her.
I know not how she found her way
or by what strange trick of brain she
was enabled to go straight to the Em
bankment at the point where it begins
at Westminster Bridge. She took tho
shortest way through the park, and
along George street, never halting or
hesitating for a moment, any more
than if it had been a day of cleat
brilliant sunshine. Yet she had be
fore lo>t her way simply in crossing
from the corner of the railings to tbf
Buckingham Palace road.
“Only a few minutes now, dear. Ob,
Katharine dear, we shall die together;
we will not let go of each other's
hands. Remember that. The watei
will roll over us, and in a moment
w r e shall be dead and all will be over.
You will not die alone. We shall go
into the next world together. No more
trouble, dear. Perhaps you will join
Tom and be happy. I think he must
be waiting for you somewhere. It is
the shortest way to reach him. And
as for me—why—they say that eye
hath not seen nor can tongue tell the
happiness that we shall find there; and
it seems to me that all I want is rest
and to be sure that 1 shall have food
to-morrow*. Y'ou must not think of the
plunge, dear—the river is not a bit
colder than the air; think of last night;
think of to-day; think of the flight be
fore ns—”
“Lily,” said Katharine, stopping,
“they are having service in the church
by the Abbey. Oh! it must be the
evening service. They are praising
God ami singing hymns, and we are
out in the fog and the cold and going
to kill ourselves.
“Yes; I could not ring any hymns jusl
now.”
“Lily, let us have one prayer before
we go.”
“No; leap first and pray afterward;
there will be plenty of time to pray
when we are sure that we shall not
have to come back to this miserable
world any more.” She dragged the
other girl along with her—past the
Abbey—straight down to the Embank
ment. “Hush! Katharine. Don’t
speak now. This is the very place.”
She stopped at one of the landing
places, where the steps go down into
the water.
“The tide is running up,” said Lily*
how did she know, because they could
see nothing? “It will carry us up the
river; it will roll us over and over.
Don’t let go my hand, Katharine; it
will kill us in a moment, and then it
will drive and beat us and bang us
against the piers of Westminster
Bridge, so that no one will be able to
recognize us when they do find us.
And so it will never be knowm what
became of us. Dear Katharine, dear
Katharine Regina—poor Queen with
out a penny—give me one kiss. Hold
Hy hand. Now you shall be with
your lover in a moment, and all your
sorrow shall be over. Ilokl my hand
and run down the steps with me.
Quick! Quick! Hold my hand hard —
harder. Quick!”
►She drew Katharine to the steps, cry
ing out to her to hasten and to hold
fast, and dragging her down to the
river; Katharine was too weak to re
sist, mentally and bodily. And all
around her lay the thick black fog
like a wall of darkness.
Did you ever think what it would
be to be shut up in such an inferno as
Dante's, in a thick black fog, a dark
ness wrapping you round as with a
horrible cloak from which there was
no escape? All day long these girls
had been sitting in such a fog, without
food, and before them they heard—and
now saw with eyes of madness—the
rush of the river w’hich w’ould merci
fully take them out of the fog, and
land them—at the foot of the golden
gates.
“Quick—Katharine —Quick! Don’t let
go. On!”
The fog lifted a little, suddenly, at
jhis moment.
Before the girls stood a figure, black
and gaunt, which stretched out two
long arms, and said, with harsh and
strident voice:
“No. my dears. Not this time you
don’t.”
Then Lily loosed her hold of Kath
arine’s band and threw out her arms in
a gesture of hopelessness.
“Oh!” she cried. “God will not let us
live, and He will not let us die.”
Then she turned and fled, leaving
Katharine alone.
CHAPTER XIII.
In the Morning.
Katharine stood for a moment stupe
’fied: In front of her, shadowy, like a
ghost, rose this man. gaunt and tall:
, by the lifting of the fog she saw that
be was in tatters. What was be do
ing on the steps in the dark? And
Lily was gone.
"No. you don’t,” he said to her. “I
thought there'd be some of you coming
along to-night. Is it hunger working
up with the fog, or is it remorse and
despair?”
Katharine made no reply. Where,
oh. where was Lily?
“If it’s hunger and the fog. you'll
get over it when you’ve had something
to eat. In course of time you'll get
used to hunger. I'm always hungry.”
“Who are you? Let me go—let me
go.”
“Not this way, then.” he replied—
for slie made as if she would rush
at the river—“not this way. Pretty!
Don’t do it. Have patience. Lord! if
you'd gone through as much as I have,
you’d have patience Don’t do it.”
As she spoke, the black wall of fog
rolled between them again. . Kath
arine stole away under its protection,
but she heard liim repeat as she re
treated: “Don’t do it. Pretty. Have
patience.”
It is now nothing but a memory of
the past; but sometimes the gaunt and
tattered figure of this man, holding
out his long arms between her and
the river, returns to Katharine’s mind
and stands up before her: she sees him
blurred in the fog and the dim lamp
light: she hears his voice saying:
Don’t do it. Pretty. Have patience.”
Who was this man, this failure and
wreck of manhood? and why did lie
lurk in the blackness upon those steps?
Then her misery comes back to her
again, her dreadful hiir.ger and cold
and weariness and desolation, and
Katharine has—change but one letter
and tlie pathetic becomes bathetic,
pathos turns into bathos—to “lie down”
—woman's grandest medicine—until
the memory of that night leaves her
again.
The fog was so black again that she
had not the least knowledge of the di
rection she was taking. Under each
lamp there was a little yellow gleam of
yellow light. Beyond this a black wail
all around it; when she stood under a
lamp it was just exactly as if slie
were built up and buried alive in it
with a hole for a little ligbt through
yellow glass in the top.
Sometimes steps came along and
faces came out of the black wail and
looked curiously at her as they passed
‘and disappeared. It was the face of a
j young man making bis way home and
marching confidently through the fog.
■or it was tfie face of a policeman who
•looked at her searchingly. asked her
if she was lost, told her how to get
back to the Strand, and went on his
beat; once it was a girl of her own age
who stood beside her for a few
minutes and looked as if sfle wanted
to speak, and then suddenly ran away,
from her. Why did she run away?
W T hy, indeed? And once it was a very
ugly face indeed, which greatly ter
rified her, a man’s face, unshaven for
many days and therefore thick with
bristles round the mouth, a face with
horrid red eyes and swelled cheeks.
“Have you got the price of a half
pint upon you?” he asked roughly.
. “I have not got one penny in the
world,” she replied.
Lily In fact had all the money be
longing to them both—ninepence.
: “You’ve got your jacket and your hat.
Gimme your jacket and your hat.” He
proceeded, in the language common to
his class, to touch briefly on the in
justice of suffering an honest man to
go about without a penny in his pocket,
while a girl had a jacket and a hat
which might be pawned. Perhaps he
forgot that it was Sunday. But other
steps were heard, and the creature of
the night slunk away.
Katharine knew that she was still at
the Westminster end of the Embank
ment. because the great clock struck
the quarters and the hours apparently
quite close to her.
She remembered that she had been
very near to Death—a shameful,
wicked, violent death—the death of
those whose wicked lives have driven
them to despair. One more step and
she would have plunged into the dark
waters rushing and tearing up the
stream with the tide. She tried to
picture to herself what she had es
caped; she recalled Lily’s words; slie
would have been, by this time, a dead
body rolled over and over, knocked
against the piles of tlie bridge, caught
by the ropes or barges, banged
against the boats. At last she would
have been picked up somewhere; no
one would have recognized her, and
she would have been buried in the
paupers’ corner, forgotten forever. But
imagination, like reason, refuses to
work to order unless it is fortified by
strong food. The words she recalled
and the picture she conjured up con
veyed to her soul in her exhausted
state little more than a trifling addition
.to her misery. When one is on the
rack a touch of toothache would be
little heeded. She shuddered and
turned and slowly crept away. The
great clock struck three. Lily was
lost now as well as Dittmer. She was
quite alone in the world, and penniless.
But the fog was gone, the black wall
of darkness had rolled away.
I know not where she wandered. It
was no more beside those black
waters, but along the streets—silent
now and deserted, save for the occa
sional step of the policeman. It is
strange to think of the great city with
all its four millions of people asleep
and its streets empty. Even the worst
and the wickedest are asleep at three
in the morning. It is the hour of in
nocence: the Devil himself sleeps. No
one met the girl as she walked aim
lessly along. She could no longer think
or feel or look forward or dread any
thing. She sunk on a doorstep and fell
asleep again.
At live o'clock she was awakened by
the ."hand of a policeman.
"Come,” he said, not unkindly, “you
mustn’t sleep in the streets, you know.
Haven't you got anywhere to go?”
She got up and began to understand
wbat had happened. Another day was
going to begin; she had spent two
nights in the street. Another day!
And she had no money. Another day
—oh! how long?
“I have nowhere to go,” she said.
“And I have no money.
“Won’t you go home to your
friends?”
“I have no friends.”
She did not look In the least like
most of the girls who have no friends.
“Haven’t you got any money at all?”
“I have no money, and no friends,
and no work.”
, Then this policeman looked tip and
down the street suspiciously, as men
do who are about to commit a very
bad action. There was nobody look
ing; there was nobody stirring yet: no
one would believe in the bare word of
the girl unsupported by any corrobora
tive evidence: he would neve- be
found out: ho did it. He put his hand
in bis pocket and produced a shilling—
a coin which is of much greater im
portance to a policeman than to you,
dear reader—at least. I hope so—and
he placed this shilling in Katharine’s
band.
“There!” he said. ‘Won look as if
you were to be pitied. Lord knows
who you are or what you are—but
there! get something to eat at any
rate.”
Then he marched stolidly away, and
Katharine sat down again upon the
doorstep and burst into tears. She bad
not wept through all that long night
in St. James’ Park—to be sure, she
had Dittmer then for protection: she
shed no tears all the long dark and
dreadful Sunday; she bad bee»
dragged by Lily to put an end to her
life without tears —but now she'sat
down and sobbed and cried because
the one unexpected touch of kindness
more than the cruel scourge of mis
fortune. revealed her most wretched
and despairing condition.
“In the darkest moment, my dear.”
—she heard the voice of Miss Beatrice
plainly speaking—not whispering, but
speaking out plainly—"in the daikest
moment, when the clouds are blackest
and the world is hardest and your suf
fering is more than you can bear, GOD
will help you. and that in the most un
expected way.”
It was a very little thing; a shilling
is not much, but it touched her heart
as a single ray of sunshine lights up
a whole hillside. And so she sat down
and cried, and presently rose up and
went on the way by which she was
led.
My friends, we live in an unbeliev
ing and skeptical generation, and the
old phraseology is laughed at, and
there is now, to many of us. no Father
who loves and guides His children and
orders their lives as is best for them,
as we are once taught to believe; all
is blind chance—even that policeman’s
shilling—even what followed, this very
morning.
Katharine’s wandering feet led her
to Covent Garden Market, where the
coffee houses are astir and doing good
business long before the rest of the
world is thinking of the new day’s
work. She went into one and had
breakfast—# substantial breakfast
with an egg and a loaf and a great cup
of hot brown coffee. Then —she went
to sleep again, and another good Sa
maritan befriended her. It was the
woman who waited—only a common,,
reugh-tongued, coarse creature —but
she saw that the sleeping girl looked
respectable, and that she looked tired
out; and she let her sleep.
(To be continued.)
ATLANTA TEAM WINS.
Captures Baseball Pennant in Southern.
League By Close Margin
From Memphis.
The Crackers. Atlanta s chesty
basebal lteam, won the pennant of the
Southern League Friday afternoon,
when it had come to pass that the
Crackers took the second from Little-
Rock —9 to 3 —Montgomery harpooned
Memphis—2 to I—thus shoving the
Crackers 26 points to the good and
assuring them of the bunting, no mat
ter what betided.
For the first time since ISB6 has
Atlanta copped a rag.
It was a goodly proportioned bunch
that saw -the Crackers punch their
way to victory at Ponce de Leon park
and it was a joyful crew that left the
grounds after Atlanta had won out.
Everyone knew that Bill Smith had
controlled a good team when the
Crackers reported in the spring, and
while it looked like a pennant win
ner, there are so many slips between
cup and lip that the fans just waited
until they copped it. No one was
sure of the dope, but it came true.
Atlanta has never been lower than
second place, and it does not Matter
now how long they remained in that
position, as they finish at the head
of the procession.
This is the fourth piece of bunting
Bill Smith has raked in. His first
was with the Lynchburg team in 1897,
two with Macon in 1908 and 1904 and
now with Atlanta in 1907. Bill has
been managing teams since 1895 and
during that time he has won four pen
nants and new*- finished lower than
fourth place. The team will be given
a present of $2,500 by the directors for
winning the pennant and it’s a reward
they richly deserve.
HONOR PAID GATE CITY GUARDS.
Company Gets Exclusive Invitation to At
tend McKinley Memorial Exercises.
The Gate City Guards, of Atlanta,
one of the oldest military organiza
tions in the United States, having
been organized during the civil war,
has had the distinction of being the
only company of troops outside of the
national guard o:: Ohio and the Uni
ted States army, to be invited to at
tend the unveiling of a monument to
the late President William McKinley,
at Cantcn, Ohio, September 30.
Whether or net the company can
represent Atlanta at the unveiling de
pends upon whether a sufficient dona
tion can be secured from Atlanta cit
izens.
Six years ago this company was the
only organization outside of the Ohio
and federal troops that weer invited
to attend the funeral of the late pres
ident.
RESREfFOR ACT CAME TOO LaTE.
Soldier Swallows Strychnine and Then
Begged Doctors to Save Him.
Edward E. Degrattery, a private in
the fifteenth coast artillery, stationed
at Fort Barrancas, Pensacola, Fla.,
committed suicide Thursday by swal
lowing a large dose of strychnine. Af
ter he had taken the poison he real
ized what he had done and begged
the physicians who were summoned
to save his life. Their efforts, how
ever, were fruitless.
