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HOW NEW YORK SHOPS. §
(ijtjjs $20,000,000 Pass For Over Holiday the Things. Great City’s Counters ||||
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Some person with a love for largo
figures has said that in Christmas week
$20,000,000 is handed over counters
of this city as tribute to Santa Claus,
says a New York correspondent. That
sum may sound suspiciously great,
and the statistician might be charged
with the evil of exaggeration, butwhen
it is remembered that gifts for 3,000,
000 of people are purchased here $20,-
000,000 do not seem too large for the
total. An average of a trifle over $6
per person is large, or small, accord¬
ing to the financial rank ol the reader,
and in New York it is particularly dif¬
ficult to strike a fair average, because
of the extremes of poverty and wealth.
The Fifth avenue millionaire gives
his wife a $30,000 diamond necklace,
while the father of the east side brings
joy to the heart of the child of the
tenements with a gaudily painted ten-
cent toy. One Christmas, a half a
dozen years ago, William K. Vander¬
bilt gave his wife, now Mrs. Belmont,
a pearl necklace that cost him $1,500,-
000 to gather the fifteen feet of stringed
pearls together. That same Christmas
more than one child found delight in
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HOW NEW YOBK SPENDS ITS MILLIONS FOB HOLIDAY GIFTS.
a nickel toy. Christmases back John
D. Rockefeller sent a check for $100,-
000 to the Fifty-seventh holiday Street Baptist
church as a offering, ancl the
same day the organ grinder of Mul¬
berry Bend dropped a couple of cop¬
pers in the plate of the Italian church
in Roosevelt street.
So much for the extremes of Christ¬
mas giving in New York.
Fully one-half of the Christmas
shopping is done the day and the night
before Christmas; notone half financi¬
ally, but numerically. T ie moderate¬
ly poor, tho poor and the very poor
mus,t wait until the very last minute
to get their small funds together for
the great event. The money gift of
the employer to the bread winner of
the family is made the day before
Christmas, and often times the extent
of that gift determines the scope of the
Christmas shopping for tho family.
Again if Christmas comes near the
end of the week, as it does this year,
many will get their week’s pay on
Thursday night.
Another potent reason for delaying
the shopping to the last minute is that
things are cheaper on Christmas Evo
than earlier in the week, Toys and
games and clothing have suffered from
the rough handling, there are rips and
tears which, however, can be easily
sewed up; paint has been scraped off,
parts of games lost and numerous
other mishaps have occurred, all of
which induces the shop owner to make
a material reducution in his prices.
A,gain, he does not want to carry a
single piece of his Christmas stock
over for a year, as he loses the use of
the monsy. So he is eager to mark
things down to the real cost, or a trifle
below, if needs be, to get rid of them.
People who have to watch the pen¬
nies are quick to recognize these ad¬
vantages. So Christmas Eve is the
great shopping time for the lower
part of town and the East side. Vesey
street is the Christmas Eve stamping
ground of the old First and Fourth
Warders. The people for tho most
part of this district esteem themselves
lucky if they can sjrend $2, and as this
sum has to supply the Christmas din¬
ner, as well as to bring Santa Claus
to an abnormally large family of
children, sharp bargaining must be
done.
Push carts line the streets from
Broadway to the North River, and al-
most anything from heavy clothing,
household furniture, kitchen utensils,
to tiny gimcrack toys can be bought.
Ten cents is the prevailing price for
the average run of things, and at a
squeeze this can be brought down to
nine, or even eight cents.
Grand street is the centre of the
great East side. The Bowery boy
buys the Bowery girl a ninety-nine-
ceut diamond ring there, and she
reciprocates by purchasing a seven-
caret, seventy-nine-cent diamond stnd.
Women with seven or eight children
toddling along in open-mouthed won¬
der manage to get through the alarm¬
ing crush with their trancelike charges
in some remarkable way. A man with
a hobby horse on one shoulder, a ve¬
locipede in his hand, a Christmas tree
under his arm, big dolls sticking out
of every pocket, a dozen packages held
in some miraculous manner in the
other hand, stops and buys n five
pound box of oondy for forty cents,
stows it away somehow, and goes on as
happy as themillionaireridingthrough
the Park in his victoria.
Tough girls not above sneaking a
roll of ribbon under their wraps, were
it not for the hordes of detectives
which fill the stores of Grand street,
buy to the limit of their purses, but
buy sharply.
“lam going to buy a bennie for
Jimmie,” says one to her friend.
“Say, mister,” to the floorwalker,
“where do I buy der bennie?”
“Hey?”
“Per bennie? What floor is youse
selling them on?”
“The bennie?”
“Yes, yer hungry-looking guy, der
bennie. Don’t yer spose I’se got de
price? I want to buy a bennie like
dis.” Here she canght hold of a man
wearing a blue overcoat and held the
coat for the others inspection.
“Oh, a coat—on the fifth floor,
front.”
“What d’ye ti’nk of dat? De guy
didn’t know what a bennie was. He
must be new on Grand street.” Then
they take the elevator and she tells
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OLDEST LIVING TWINS.
the man to let her off “where dere
soilin’ de bennies.”
Fourteenth street and Sixth avenue
is where the biggest part of the city,
« goodly section of Brooklyn, a largs
part of Jersey and a big portion of all
the suburban towns within fifty mile*
of New York do their shopping.
Biggest Sweet Potato Grown.
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A Kansas farmer, John Graham, of
Abilene, has grown a sweet potato
which he says is the largest in the
world. It is twenty-five inches in cir¬
cumference and nine inches in length.
It weighs nine and three-quarters
pounds.
Woildlng Threads.
In certain parts of China the young
women wear their hair in a long, single
plait, with which is intertwined a
strand of bright scarlet thread, which
denotes them to be marriageable.
WERE BORN IN 1815.
Ladies Wlio Claim to Be the Oldest Liv¬
ing Twins in the Country.
The claim of the Newell brothers, of
Missouri, that they are the oldest pair
of twins in tlie country, will not hold,
according to a correspondent of the
Chicago Times-Herald. Mrs. H. H.
Johnson, recently of Kankakee, Ill.,
and now of Omaha, Neb., and Mrs.
David Noggle, of Janesville, Wis., are
one month older. These ladies are
the twin children—Polly M. and Anna
M.—of Benjamin and Eunice Mosher
Lewis, and were born at Bristol, N. Y.,
May 29, 1815. They were the young¬
est of fifteen children. The twins
went to Milan, Ohio, wLen about
seventeen, married there, and in 1837
Mrs. Noggle came to Wisconsin to live
the life of a pioneer. Mrs. Noggle is
a woman of native ability and can tell
many interesting tales of early life in
Wisconsin. She is the mother of
soven children, The sisters are both
in full possession of their faculties
and are as active as women of sixty-
five.
HOUSE REPUBLICANS VOTE EX¬
PENDITURE OF $141,208,880.
DINGLEY DEFENDS THE TARIFF ACT.
lie Declares In a Speech That Next Year
Will Show a Surplus of Something
Like *10,000,000.
A Washington special says: The
house at Friday’s session passed the
appropriation bill without amendment
and adjourned until Monday.
The : m mdments offered by the
democrats to correct alleged existing
abuses were all ruled out on the point
of order that they were new legisla¬
tion. As passed the bill carried $141,-
263,800.
The debate covered a wide range.
It touched not only the question of
our pension policy, but that of civil
service reform and the receipts and
expenditures of the treasury under the
Dingley law. On the latter question
Mr. Dingley made an important state-
ment, in which he expressed the opin¬
ion that the receipts would equal the
expenditures before the close of the
present fiscal year and predicted a
surplus of $10,000,000 next year.
At the opening of the session it -was
agreed that when the house adjourned
it be to meet on Monday.
On motion of Mr. Foss, republican
of Illinois, Saturday, December 18th,
w r as set apart for paying tribute to the
memory of the late E. D. Cooke, of
Illinois.
The house then resumed the con¬
sideration of the pension appropria¬
tion bill, which was debated Thurs¬
day. of Missis¬
Mr. Sullivan, democrat,
sippi, in support of an argument
against tho payment of pensions to
those who were wealthy and did not
need them, quoted at length from an
article recently written by General II.
Y. Boynton, whose testimony against
abuses in the present system, be said,
was entitled to respectful considera¬
tion by the other side.
Messrs. Carmack, Gaines and Sims,
democrats, of Tennessee, spoke briefly
in favor of retrenchment in pension
expenditures. Dingley contended that the
Mr.
maximum pension expenditure was
reached in 1893, when the pension
payments reached $198,000,000. In
1894 they fell to $141,000,000; 1895,
$141,009,000; 1896, $139,000,000, and
in 1897, $141,000,000. If tho expen¬
ditures for pensions during the next
fiscal year should be $148,000,000, as
had been estimated, the increase, Mr.
Dingley said, would not be due to new
legislation, but to more rapid admin¬
istration of the present laws. It
would, therefore, involve no addi¬
tional expense in the end.
He said the secretary of the treasury
and the president were confident the
receipts next year would exceed the
expenditures. estimated de¬
Mr. Dingley said the
ficit for the present year, not counting
the money obtained and to be obtained
from the Pacific railways, was $28,-
000,000. The anticipatory importation s
had placed in the treasury before July
1st $38,000,000. Those importations
had reduced the deficit last y.«ar from
$56,000,000 to $18,000,000.
Mr. Dingley figured out a surplus
of exactly $10,000,000 for the coming
fiscal year. He described the steady
maimer in which the revenue had been
increasing at the rate of one or two
millions a month. Although Decem¬
ber was generally a bad month for im¬
portations, he said that if the increase
for the first nine days of this month
were continued, the receipts this month
would increase from $25,000,000 in
November to $27,000,000 in Decem¬
ber.
When ho predicted that the effect of
the anticipatory revenues would all be
overcome during this fiscal year and
that after May or June, 4898, the rev¬
enues would exceed the expenditures,
the republican side broke into repeat¬
ed cheers.
Mr. Allen, democrat, of Mississippi,
concluded the general debate with a
humorous speech.
The bill was then reported to the
house and passed.
SAYS LUETGERT’S WIFE IS ALIVE,
A St. Louis Editor Declares That the Wo¬
man Was in Boston.
The Boston Globe, in its issue of
Thursday says: supposed
“Mrs. Luetgert, the vic¬
tim of the sausage manufacturer mur-
derer, so-called in Chicago, is alive
and well.
“Mrs Luetgert was .seen in this city
during the month of July, acknowl¬
edged her identity, besides giving
more or less explanation relative to
tlie reasons which caused her to leave
her husband, who is again to be tried
for his life.
“Such is the startling declaration
made by Editor John H. Schofield, of
St. Louis, to a Globe man.”
the tokture was useless.
Two Soldiers Frustrated In Attempt On
Lite of Sultan.
The Athens correspondent of Tho
London Daily Chronicle says that two
soldiers in the imperial service at tin
Yildiz Kiosk, the palace of the sultan,
made an attempt on the life of tin
sultan, which was frustrated.
The sultan had the men tortured in
the hope of extracting the names of the
instigators, but both succumbed with¬
out revealing anything.
ASSASSIN LEGALLY EXECUTED.
Mynntt Edach Hanged at Clinton* Tenn.»
Fop Killing J. I>. Heck.
Mynatt Leach was hanged at Clin¬
ton, Anderson county, Tenn., Wed¬
nesday, for the murder of J. D. Heck,
superintendent of the Royal Coal and
Coke Co., of Coal Creek.
The crime for which Leach suffered
death was a peculiarly atrocious one, de¬
and exhibited a depth of human Bhot
pravity not often seen. Leach
Heck from ambush at Coal Creek on
February 17, 1897, and instantly kill¬
ed him. Heck was returning from his
work to dinner, and his bride of a
month was advancing to meet him, and
he fell dead at her feet, the bullet from
the assassin’s rifle coming from behind
a tree on the hillside, about 250 feet
away. have
The murder of Heck seems to
grown out of a conspiracy that was di¬
abolical in its details. Heck had in¬
curred the enmity of some of the men
in a trial before one of the courts, and
four men decided that he must be
killed. Leach, while in Knox county
jail, gave out a confession in which he
stated that the men put up $200 for
the one of their number who should
do the murder, and that they then
drew straws and the awful job fell to
him.
GEORGIA POPULISTS PLANNING.
State Executive Committee Hold a Strictly
Business Meeting In Atlanta.
Tho Georgia populist state executive
committee met in Atlanta Wednesday
to discuss next year’s campaign, con¬
sider planks for the platform and can¬
didates to stand upon it, and to form¬
ulate plans to reorganize the party and
to put it in fighting trim.
The committee named the 3d of
next March as the date for a state con¬
vention to be held in Atlanta and reaf¬
firmed allegiance to populist princi¬
ples.
Chairman John Cunningham pre¬
sided. The sessions were held at the
slate capitol. Many of the prominent
leaders of the party were present. resig¬
Mr. Cunningham tendered his
nation twice as chairman of the com¬
mittee, giving arduous business duties
as his reason, hut the committee posi¬
tively refused to accept it.
The question of platform was dis¬
cussed, but no recommendations made,
it being decided to wait until the ad¬
journment of the legislature, as the
workings of that body would materially
affect the party policy for the coming
year.
THE GOVERNOR SUSTAINED.
Georgia Legislature Allows Veto of Foot¬
ball Bill to Stand.
The governor of Georgia won a close
but very decisive victory in the house
of representatives Wednesday. There
was a fight to override the veto of the
anti-football bill which arrayed 107 of
the 152 members present against the
chief executive. There was another
fight on the ruling of the chair that
two-thirds of the whole house was re¬
quired to pass a bill over tho governor.
It was without doubt one of the most
interesting struggles ever witnessed
in the house. As a result a precedent
has been established on a very impor¬
tant and hitherto undecided question.
Had the speaker decided that two-
thirds of the members present was
sufficient to override a veto, the gov-
ernor would have been ruthlessly
turned down. On the other baud,
his ruling that two-thirds of all the
members of the house is necessary
met with the approval of a big major¬
ity of those present, and the motion
to pass the bill over the governor’s
veto was lost, failing by ten votes of
the requisite majority.
WOMAN CONFESSES TO MURDER.
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Miss rales Admits Firine the shots That
Kiiied Kern.
Miss Delilah Fales, of Waverly, la.,
has confessed her share in the tragic
death of Jerome Kerr. The man was
found dead in a lonely wood on the
23d of last August and the young wo-
man now confesses she fired the bul-
lets that killed him. She was indicted
Wednesday and it is said her alleged
aecomplice before the fact, a son of
the victim, will also be indicted.
Miss Fales charges that when she
was a mere child of thirteen years the
elder Kern betrayed her, and that ever
after he harassed her with his ■ atten¬
tions. More than that, he sought by
blackening her reputation, she states,
to keep others from paying court to
her.
DURRANT LOSES AGAIN.
California Supreme Court Dispells all
Hope for Condemned Man.
Wednesday afternoon the California
supreme court dispelled the last hope
of W. H. T. Durraut, the murderer of
Blanche Lamontand Minnie Williams,
by disposing of his two appeals.
This action of the court put at naught
the efforts that have been made by the
alleged widow of one Blanther. When
B1 anther snieided it is said a written
confession was found, showing that he
was the murderer of the girls,and that
Durrant was innocent. Since then the
woman who claims to have been the
wife of BNntber has made every effort
to secure the reopening of the case,
WEYLER REJOICES.
President’s Message Pleases Former Cap¬
tain General Immensely.
According to a dispatch from Barce-
Iona, Lieutenant General Weyler. in
the course of an interview there, has
felicitated himself on being “attacked”
by President McKinley in the mes-
sage, as this proves that his (Weyler’s)
policy was displeasing to the enemies
of Spain. He expressed his “snrprise
that the Spanish government would
tolerate such attacks upon the repre¬
sentative of the nation.”
THROUGH THE STATE.
Once more, after an exciting con¬
test, S. B. Price has been re-elected
mayor of Macon.
Smallpox is breaking out in the
country around Griffin. Several cases
have been moved from Cresswell and
others are breaking out.
The passage of the Hopkins bill,
which confers the elcetion of judges
and solicitors upon the people, was
one of the moBt gratifying acts of the
legislature, and its author deserves the
thanks of the state for opening the
way to a reform which is sadly needed.
The government work on Cumber¬
land sound has been taken away from
Captain C. E. Gillette, stationed at Sa¬
vannah, and given to Colonel W. H.
H. Benyuard, who is in charge of the
government harbor improvements in
Florida. Captain Gillette received an
order recently directing him to turn
over this work and he did so forth¬
with. Why the change was made he
did not know, and the officer did not
state. It is rumored, however, that
the fact that work has been stopped
there by the Atlantic Construction
company since October 8th on account
of the Carter courtmartial had some¬
thing to do with it.
Hon. Pope Brown’s announcement
as gubernaterial candidate will be
made in a few days in the form of a
letter to the committa of Pulaski
county citizens who transmitted to him
the resolutions of a mass meeting held
at Hawkinsville on December 1st,
when he was commended to the state
as the man for governor. Mr. Brown’s
reply has not been completed, but he
is at work on it, and will probably
transmit it to the committee within
the week. The mass meeting which
nominated Mr. Brow r n was called for
the purpose of taking into considera¬
tion the low price of cotton and the
depression in agriculture and business,
and was a large and representative and
gathering of farmers and business
professional men.
Mr. Watson Says Nay!
The effort to force Hon. Tom Wat¬
son into the race for governor has
failed. He had an extra issue of The
Peoples Party Paper printed the day
when the executive committee met to
give publicity to the following state¬
ment:
“PERSONAL, POSITIVE AND
FINAL.—Time and again I have said
I would not be a candidate for gov¬
ernor. My friends have been asked
to take me at my word. My friends, I
think, will do so.
“Letters advocating me for any
office whatever will be denied space in
this paper. Letters upon that subject
will not be answered.
“Life is short and we might as well
save time on a matter like this.
“T. E. W.”
Will Grow Less Cotton.
A large number of representative
farmers of Floyd county gathered at
the courthouse at Rome the past week
for the purpose of discussing plans by
which the cotton acreage for 1898 can
be reduced. The following resolu¬
tions were adopted:
“Feeling sensibly the disastrous
effects of the low price of cotton to
all bnsiness enterprises in the
1 south, and realizing the folly of grow¬
ing for the coming year a ten-million-
bale crop, with full knowledge that by
so doing a farther depression in price
of said crop will come to us;
“Resolved, That we will heartily
co-operate with the interstate meeting
of cotton growers, to be held in At-
lanta on December 14th, in putting
into active operation any movement
seeking to reduce the acreage of the
cotton crop for the year 1898.
i “Resolved further, That we ap-
point delegates to said convention to
represent Floyd county in such move-
ment as may be to such end.
“Resolved, That we invite all citi-
zens interested in the welfare of onr
| county to co-operate with us, and in-
voke their good wishes and advice to
accomplish this result.”
Will Mrs. Nobles Hang?
I WillMrs.Nobles die the ignominious
death of a murderess on the scaffold,or
will Governor Atkinson stay the death
sentence and decree that she shall spend
her remaining days in the penitentiary? the
Never in the criminal annals of
state of Georgia did questions appeal
I with such thrilling interest to the peo-
p i e of the state as do these,
“if Mrs. Nobles doesn’t hang, it
take a regiment of soldiers to hang
q us Fambles, the negro who was her
accomplice in the crime,” so says a
prominent citizen of Twiggs county,
“I do not say this rashly. I measure
my words when I say it, and I am
speaking the sentiment of the best
white citizens of Twiggs county. They
believe Gus Fambles ought to bang,
but they believe first of all Mrs.
Nobles ought to hang. If Mrs. Nobles
j s spared capital punishment on the
ground of fanatical sentimentality, the
state had as well make ready to bring
soldiers to Twiggs county by compa¬
nies prepared for shooting if an at-
t 3 inpt is made to hang Gus Fambles
! after Mrs. Nobles has been saved from
the gallows.’ excels
The Nobles case probably any
case ever tried in America m point of
the number and character cf legal pro¬
ceedings takeii to save the prisoner from
the gallows. While the Durrant case
from California probably excited more
national interest, yet the legal pro¬
ceedings taken in that cause are simple
i and few by the side of this one.