Newspaper Page Text
Banks County Gazette.
VOL 2.---XO. 29.
MARGIE.
That lorelf brook, X §e It
Still flashing in the ran; Jj**?
And abe and i are children
Ont o more In Ellington;
And Margie on the bank there,
I see as site used to look.
Tin we summer days when the played with
me
On the border* of the brook.
What wonderful ship* and shallop*
I made for Margie then.
With leave* and grass for cargoes,
Aud sticks and straw* for men—
And what brave names we gave them—
**Orlando," %, George-a-Oreen, M
“Sir Galahad.'* “King Peilemore, rt
“The Cid” and “Sir Cauliner*
We cared not much for traffic.
Yet our captains and our mates
Brought often the honeys of Hybla,
And Tunis figs and dates;
But when love called, or honor.
We sent our vessels out
in aid of all who needed them.
With many a cheer and shout.
We wrote to Robinson Crusoe,
That we hoped, now Friday was gone,
lie would coma straight over and see us.
With all hi* goat skins on;
And briug the poll parrot with him,
So when they stepped ou shore.
We should kuow them both and take them
home.
Never to wander more.
As the seasons changed, so we did—
In spring we dreamed of fame.
And in summer of autumn's riche*.
And wnen October came
We stripped the yellow gold tree*
And *ent our illgot gain
In caravels to Andaluce,
Across the Spanish main.
That lovely brook. I know not
Just where it comes from now.
But in those days it wandered—,
As Margie could avow—
Bight out from far Cipango,
And merrily ran on
Tiii it came to the fairy fields this side
The valley of Avalon.
It heard in Sherwood forest
Brave Honin'* bugle calls.
And carried oft the musio
To d**U it ou the walls
Of the city of Munoa,
Ami could lor seen afar
In clearest air from Samarcand.
And near to Candah&r.
Sometimes I see the windings
Of that brook, as in a dream.
While it flows away to the sunset;
Ami hero ami there the stream
I* touched with a light ho tender
That it seems to my loving eyes
The course of a !>eautiful human life
Finding in Paradise.
And plan* and arhemes arc the vessels.
And hojie is the wind that blows.
And all good aim* are the harbors.
And time is the fide that flows;
Ami then again all changes.
And 1 see ourselves once more—
l>car Margie and a little boy
Playing along the shore.
—Henry Auk a Blood in Youth’s Companion.
Thf Original Tyson.
The caterer has, of all tradesmen, the
most dealings witli wlmt the Americans
call "cranks,” and probably always
* will have unless those who provide
, day blic refreshment all become Tysons,
original Tyson opened the first res
Spirant in Manchester A man of in
himself, lie cheeked indi
' viduality in others. He would not pro
vide vegetables, telling those who asked
for them to go toSlnnlehill market; he
would allow neither reading nor trniok
Ing; anyliody who came into his place
of business had to eat what was pro
vided, without being too particular
about the cut or the amount of fat, and
without moving any of the chairs, and
then to clear out and make room for
other customers, or else he was asked
to go. Such was Tyson's, but other
times, other manners, and, moreover,
competition is now so keen that we
may see another Wellington before we
see another Tyson.—London Tit-Bits.
A Kn Huiient Ilogwen.
The gentleman who was condnetor
on the first car that ran over the Fiftli
ami Sixth street lines in the antebellum
days tells how the old time conductors
had a wonderful chance to "knock
down," uutrammeled as they were by
or bell punches. Finally e
=ew superintendent called all the con
k ‘tors before hiui, beginning with the
of car No. 1 Out of the
■tOsid conductors on the line about
of them admitted that they
been in the habit of taking the
■Pmpaity's money These honest rogues
*were not discharged, but the three
fourths who “never took a penny”
[ were not allowed to remain on the cars
f mother trip. - Philadelphia Record.
How StHrfinh Arn KIII*d.
It has been stated that the oyster's
deadly enemy, the starfish, has been
most successfully subdued in the Long
Island beds by putting down within its
reach an instrument very much like a
long handled house mop. As soon as
touched by it the starfish invariably
grasps the strands, and can be cap
tured and destroyed by the thousand,
for it will not let go until it has been
held out of water long enough to so
cure the impossibility of its return.—
Joel Benton in Drake’s Magazine.
Speaking with a Spanish lady about
eating grapes, she exclaimed; ‘‘Why, I
never swallow grape seeds! I should as
soon think of swallowing so much shot.
In Spain no one swallows the seeds of
grapes. ”
General Maury Is the third distin
guished Confederate officer to have a
desk iu the war records office in Wash
ington. The other two are General
Marcus Wright and General George
Field.
THE OBLITERATING FIEND.
Handiwork of an Fver Present Charac
ter In Kvery Public Highway.
The obliterating fiend, like the poor,
is al ways with us.
We do not, of course, mean the pos
tal authorities of the Russian empire,
who obliterate in ail publications enter
ing the kingdom every description of
matter obnoxious to the czar and his
nation.
We refer to the man or the boy
(most frequently tiie latter) who the
moment his eye catches the sight of
printing is seized with an irresistible de
sire to change the meaning originally
intended.
On private property may often be
seen the legend, “No bills allowed
here,” but after a passing visit of the
fiend the warning to the bill sticker as
sumes the form of a caution to the
medical profession regarding an im
aginary patient, for does it not read,
“No pillsallowed here?”
And, again, the familiar placard, “No
smoking allowed," usually exhibited in
public buildings, appears, after the
first word has been erased, as a wel
come invitation to indulge in a wiiiil.
Rut we know better, so we just smile
and say he’s been at it again. When
lie has occasion to travel by rail the
confinement seems imprisonment to
him, and to enliven the tedium he
forthwith sets his ingenuity a-going.
Staring him in tiie face is tiie rail
way company’s beseeching appeal that
passengers are requested not to put
their feet on the seats, and it is not
long till lie finds comfort in removing
tiie objectionable little word “not."
Quite on a par with this is the nuda
cious notice to be seen in one of the
Glasgow and Southwestern railway cur
riiiges mnning out of Glasgow, on
which appeared, “Passengers aro par
ticularly requested to put their feet on
the cushions and eat the carriages."
Needless to add, the company asked
the public to forbear putting their feet
on the cushions or scats of the carriages.
The name of the neighboring line af
fords a tempting morsel to the habitual
obliterator, as witness the heading in
their coaches changed from “Cale
doninn railway" to "Ale on u railway.”
The fiend, be he ever so clever witli his
pencil or knife, seldom succeeds in liuv
ing his work passed off as genuine, al
though there is one case In which a
poor foreigner is said to have suffered.
A Frenchman, newly arrived in the
metropolis, found himself on a particu
larly wet morning compelled to patron
ize one of the circle trains of the Metro
politan railway in order to pay a visit.
He Was about to alight at his station
when, looking above the carriage door,
he was struck with what appeared to
him to be the friendly interest the cow
vvany took in its passengers. He read
and reread tiie words, “Wait till the
rain stops,” and passed his destination
several times before attempting to dis
regard tiie warning and venture out,
never for a moment imagining that tiie
erasing of the letter “t” bad been the
cause of making him lose his time.—
London Tit-Bits.
Sh* llrnk n the Spoil—nml tlio Hat.
“No. I'm not superstitious,” said a
citizen in conversation, -'but my wife
is. Bhe went out yesterday and forgot
her parasol, so siie euine back and laid
down tier pocket book to get her para
sol, then went out and forgot her
pocket-book; so hack she came the sec
oud time and sat down.
“ ‘Aren’t you going outf I asked.
“ 'Yes, but if l went out tiie second
time without .sitting down to break tiie
spell I would have bad luck.'
“She got up and went out. and I saw
that she had sat down on a brand new
silk hat that cost me eight dollars and
had ruined it. That was not very good
lack for me." —Detroit Free Press.
WEE CANNIBAL LOBSTERS.
They Dig Cave* (n Sand, Whence They
Isfttie to Do Fearful Battle.
By invitation of a well known natu
ralist ! had not long ago an opportunity
to witness a curious sight in an aqua
rium in which about a hundred young
lobsters had been placed.
Young lobsters are cannibals of the
very worst type, and can give points to
the most terrible rnaneaterin all Africa.
Tiie lobsters hud just passed out of
tiie swimming stage and were seen
crawling about in the tank. Tiie tank
had glass sides, giving nn excellent
chance for observation, and it had a
capacity of about fifty gallons of water.
At one side of the interior of the aqua
rium bad been piled large stones, with
flat sides, resting on sand. The sand
was about two inches deep, covering
the bottom.
My informant said that the first per
forniances of the young lobsters when
put into the tank were very interest
ing. They gathered around the sides
of the roeks, and with their antennae
almost against tiie stone, crossed their
claws in front of them and moving
iiackward dragged pinches of sand
away from the stone. This was re
peated again and again until a hole
had been made big enough to hold the
little lobster witli space to spare.
Then the crustacean dim bed over
HOMER, BANKS COUNTY, GEORGIA, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1891.
tne neap ot sand into the excavation,
and, turning his tail to the stone, pro
ceeded to push the particles from the
liottom of the hole to the top of the
heap by placing its two claws together
with tlie tips lapping so that the sand
could not slide back. In effect the
claws served as a shovel
After the lobsters had in this man
ner built for themselves caves for de
tensive purposes they planted them
selves with their backs to the stone
and kept their little black, beadlike
eyes roving outward in every direction.
When I took my place to watch
nothing was stirring.
Now and then a lobster would climb
out of his retreat and explore the im
mediate neighborhood.
Suddenly, finding an intrenched lob
ster, the errant adveuturer would as
sault it. Then would ensue the biggest
kind of a rough and tumble, catch as
catch-can coutest. It wus a fight to
the death.
When the struggle was between only
two lobsters the result was usually a
druwn battle, eacli retreating to his
hole with the loss of a claw or of one
or two antennflß.
Hut when two or three lobsters at
tacked one iu his shallow cave the
tight was soon over. The miserable
victim was dragged out on the arena
by the sharp pincers of the besiegers,
and in a trice lie was killed. It re
quired but a few minutes for the can
nibals to dismember and eat up their
victim, dragging the bits to different
parts of tlie aquarium, as dogs would
bones.
These attacks are always made at
night. I was so fortunate as to see an
other raid, but it was not like that de
scribed above. One of tlie lobsters
that had emerged from his lair iu pur
suit of food was himself pursued in
turn. Caught napping away from his
castle by three or four enemies, it scut
tied over tlie sand toward one corner
of the aquarium. After him went the
pursuers belter skelter, and while tlie
pursued resorted to dodging tactics
that would be admired by a football
rusher, the pursuers separated and
closed In around the doomed creature.
It is by a curious instinct that the
pursuit is made in the night, because it
is evidently to the advantage of the
pursuer, on the principle in war that
night attacks are more successful than
those by daylight.
Marks of these midnlgh* imys were
to be found in the morning in the frag
menta of shells. Tiie result of canni
baiisiu among the young lobsters is
that out of a hundred about twenty
five survive, a demonstration of the
Darwinian law of tiie survival of the
fittest.
In the cannibal stage of their ex
istenee they are about three-quarters
of an inch in length, and when thesur
vivors grow to be two and a half indies
in length from tiie tail to the tip of the
daws they have outgrown their blood
thirsty instincts.—New York Herald.
Sleeping ot. * Cl>r.
An old gentleman living in India said
to his wife one morning:
“My dear, i have had a very strange
dream. I dreamed I was sleeping on a
oobra.”
“What nonsense!” was her retort.
“How coulif that be?”
“Well, my dear,” lie responded meek
ly, “I did dream it, and I only hope it
wasn’t true."
The next night he had the same
dream, and in the morning announced
the fact, only to encounter his wife’s
ridicule on tiie score of iiis weak nerves.
Nevertheless he had the same dream
once more.
Thereupon tiie mattress was ripped
open, and there, snugly coiled in its
middle, was a cobra. He had entered
one day through a rip in the cover
while tiie mattress was lying in the gar
den to air. Probably his luxurious
writhiugs beneath the sleeper had given
rise to the dream.-- Youth’s Companion.
Apes Hite Off Kach Other's Fingers.
Orangs have a very curious method
of fighting. In their conflicts among
themselves, which are frequent, their
effort is always to seize tiie fingers of
their adversaries and bite them. A
very beautiful group of these animals
at the National museum, mounted by
Mr. Hornaday, admirably illustrates
a typical encounter of the sort. It is
owing to this method of battle that it
Is almost impossible to procure a skin
which does not lack some of the fin
gers. If defending itself against a man
the beast will always attempt to grab
the arms of his human opponent, so as
to chew off his fingers. For this pur
pose its jaw is excellently adapted, be
ing enormously powerful and equipped
with huge incisors.—lnterview in
Washington Star.
Ice on Still Water*.
You would naturally suppose that
Ice would be thicker on still water—a
lake or reservoir, for example—than it
would be in the midchannel of a swift
river But it is not. According to ob
servations made by the Davenport (la.)
Academy of Sciences, when ice is nine
inches thick on the lakes tiie channel
ice is eigliteeu inches thick on tiie Mis
sissippi river.—St. Louis Republic.
SAM JONES ON A DRAY.
K*rly Life of the Kxhorter and the Hors©
That Canned the Change.
Before Sam Jones took to preaching
lie ran a public dray at Cartersville, his
native town. He was a familiar figure
around tiie depot, and he at that time
hauled all the drummers’ trunks from
the depot to tiie hotel. Many veteran
drummers still remember Sam as a
drayman.
His outfit was a small, rickety, rat
tling, ramshackling wagon and an old
sorrel horse, that was old and experi
enced enough to have come down from
from tiie Revolutionary war. This
horse was a character in his way and
some people say lie wax tiie cause of
Sam’s reformation. He was as humble
a horse as ono would wish to see.
He submitted to ail Sam’s cuffs and
rebuffs without any protest other than
mildly backing his flea bitten ears. He
had an nil - of one who was always
deeply engaged in thought and looked
upon tiie frivolities of this life with
supreme disdain. And then Sam’s
horse was extremely unsociable in his
temperament. He never eared to
xmke any new acquaintances and
seemed desirous of treading tiie wine
press of sorrow alone. For many days
lie went on in tiie same quiet way,
drawing Sam’s rickety old dray with
tiie subliiuest fortitude. It was never
necessary for Sam to tie him when lie
left him, for lie had such insurmounta
ble constitutional objections to locomo
tion that there was little danger of him
taking his departure. So Sam thought
and so it was for many, many days.
But things do not always remain the
same, alas!
One day Sam’s horse was seen, to the
most extreme surprise of tiie Carters
villians, tearing down Main street fol
lowed by tiie dray, wliieli was rolling
about from one side to the other. Down
the street lie went like mad, and it
seemed wonderful to those who knew
him intimately that fie could acquire
such speed. Sam, who had left him
for some purpose, stood watching his
>iad career eagerly.
“He’s decided to emigrate,” Sam re
marked, as the horse continued in Ids
wild Wight.
Presently the horse swerved to his
rigb' and tiie wagon struck against a
tree, and, witli a crash, came to a
standstill.
The spectators all went down to sur
vey the wreck. It was a complete one
indeed. Sam stood and looked at it
silently for some moments in deep re
flection. There was a pathos in his
voice when lie finally turned around
and said:
“I guess I’ll have to find some other
way to make a living.”
In a few weeks Sam left Cartersville
and went down near Columbus.
"Tiie next 1 heard or saw of Sum,”
said the gentleman who told the story,
“he came back to Cartersville and
preached a sermon. I went out to
hear him, and 1 never saw such a coin
plete change in a man." —Atlanta Con
stitution.
Knew of No Such Holes.
“I was coming down from the moun
tains the other day on the Ontario and
Western road. All the cars were crowd
ed. There was a child in a seat near
a gentleman. Tiie conductor, seeing
ladies standing, went to the gentleman
and told him, loud enough for those
around him to hear:
“You’ll have to take that child on
your lap, sir—rules of the road.”
“I know of no rules of the road that
can compel me to travel witli a child
on my lap,” replied the gentleman in
dignantly. “That child isn’t mine.”
And theowner of the young vagrant,
just then taking in the situation, led
tiie child back to tier seat, whence it
had wandered, amid the laughter of
the auditors.—New York Herald.
Improve Your Razor.
The simplest method of sharpening a
razor is to put it into water to which
one-twentieth of its weight of muriatic
or sulphuric acid has been added, and
allow it to remain there for half an
hour. Then lightly wipe it off, and
after a few hours set it on a hone.
The acid supplies the place of a whet
stone by corroding the whole surface
uniformly, so tiiat nothing further than
a smooth polish is necessary. This
process never injures good blades,
while badly hardened ones are often
improved by it, although the cause of
the improvement remains unexplained.
—Detroit Free Press.
still Hire.
First Little Girl (in art gallery)—l
heard a lady say these pictures of old
violins were studies in still life. What
did she mean ?”
Second Little Girl—Why, you know
a picture of a violin can’t make any
noise —Good News.
A*kf I Ou‘Ktioi)ft.
“Is that ea >r; Highbred?”
“Yes.”
“How much do you want for him?”
“Five dollars."
“Why, do you sell a whole eagle for
a half eagle?”—Harper's Bazar.
; Showers of Blessing-.
The showers of blessing, for which
we look so expectantly, are showers
from heaTen. But, though heavenly,
they aro to nourish the earth ami its
growths. Tne grass on which the
flocks are fed is grown upon the earth,
ii watered from the skjn It is not
otherwise w ith spiritual blessings.
God sends down his Spirit from above,
not as something altogether alien on
the earth, but rather as a power that
shall touch the earthly and quicken
it to new life and richer fruitfulness.
Our life, apart from God’s Spirit,
may be like a wilderness, but when
his Spirit descends on it, the parched
land becomes a pool and the thirsty
land springs of water; the whole as
pect of life is changed, and all that
before was a weariness to the flesh
becomes the occasion of glad songs of
praise. The world without God be
ing recognized in it may be a dreary
place enough, and our daily duties
monotonous enough. But the yorld
in which God is everywhere seen, and
the duties of which—due indeed to
human masters —becomes services
rendered to God, can be neither
dreary nor monotonous: it is a good
land that drinketh water of the rain
of heaven.—The Quiver.
Is Wealth n Passport to Fame?
The cry that a man to be success
ful in public affairs must, have proven
himself successful in his own affairs,
was and is a cunningly devised falla
cy. It was enunciated by a class
whose sole aim in life was to amass
wealth. It was born in travails of
insatiate greed for gain. It is per
petuated solely by those who worship
at the shrine of the dollar and spurn
the humanity of the soul. The grand
men of this nation, the noble men of
this world, despite the present ten
dency of making the dollar supreme,
are the men who cared not for wealthy
were oblivious to hll except the purifi
cation of the heart, the elevation of
the mind, the salvation of the soul.
When the glare of pageantry and the
blaze of gold has disappeared, and
the man is judged on his merits,
through all history the memory of the
man who devoted his life to better
the condition of his fellow men is kept
green and reversed, while the man
who devoted his life to accumulating
dollars to gratify his miserly appetite
has sunk into oblivion, or, when his
name is mentioned it is with con
tempt. A Rothschild may pass away,
a passing notice in the press, and he
is forgotten. The death of a Glad
stone wo dd stir to the depths every
civilized spot on the earth.
John Jacob Astor, after generations
of accumulation of wealth, can leavo
the United States, and except for the
associated press notices his departure
to make his home in a foreign land
he would not have been missed. Ilis
rent roll to the uttermost cent will be
destrained as usual. The head of the
house of Vanderbilt dies, and his
memory would have been utterly for
gotten were it not for his pithy ex
pression of contempt for the public.
Now when the name of Vanderbilt is
mentioned, at once there flashes in
the mind, ‘‘The public he ,”
and a feeling of loathing and con
tempt for the name fills the soul of
humanity loving people. What a
contrast. A Lincoln dies and the
nation’s, aye a world's business even
stops to contemplate the loss, and the
torrent of a nation’s tears is swelled
by the flood of thfe wor d’s tears, and
through all ages of the world’s history,
when the name of Lincoln is men
tioned, at once the heart heats quicker
and responds with a brotherly feeling
for all mankind. Mention the name
of Vanderbilt, and a feeling of con
tempt takes possession of the mind,
mention the name of Lincoln, and
the flood of affection fills the heart,
and reverence the soul.
Young men, you who arc just on
the threshold of the world’s battle
field, your future rests on your decis
ion now. Your ambition should be
to leave the world better than you
found it. You may amass wealth at
the expense of the soul, and leave a
name that will be contemned, or you
SINGLE COPY THREE CENTS.
may work for the elevation of human
ity, and leave a name that will he re
vered. Study the history of the past
as a guide for the future, and you
will see the utter folly of the position
taken by the plutocratic press, that a
man must first accumulate wealth be
fore he can be trusted to look after
the welfare of the community. The
very opposite is the truth. The man
who will selfishly try to amass wealth
to gratify liis personal vanity or appe
tite, is not likely to change his nature
when given an opportunity in the
larger field of public life. The great
reformers and patriots of all ages were
the unselfish man who cared little for
this world’s goods. The greatest re
formers that ever lived on earth, the
spirit of God in a mortal body, our
blessed Saviour, “had not where to
lay His head.” Which path will you
take?—Dakota Ruralist.
Mistakes.
Everybody is making mistakes.
Everybody is finding out afterwards
that he has made a mistake. But
there can he no greater mistake than
the stopping to worry over a mistake
already made. The temptation is
irresistible, when one has slipped on
an orange peel, or a banana-skin, to
turn back and see just where and how
he slipped. But if a man is hurrying
to the depot, along the average city
sidewalk, he would do better to look
out for the next slipping place, and
guard against it, than to turn round
and walk backwards, with his eyes
on the place where he slipped last,
and his mind full of worry because he
did slip there. And a man would
stand a better chance of catching his
train, by letting the old slippiing
places alone. “Forgetting those
things which are behind,” includes
the forgetting to worry over the ir
remediable past. “Reaching forth
unto those things which are before,”
is the “one thing” for every child of
God to do in spite of the many mis
takes which at the best he has cer
tainly made.
What is Humility?
Perhaps no Christiaa grace is less
understood. It is not thinking mean
ly of one’s self. It is not a voluntary
humbling of one’s self for any par
ticular purpose. We can understand
what humility is when we study our
Lord’s washing his disciplds’ feet.
He was conscious of his divine glory
and dignity—he was never more so
than he was that hour. Yet when a
lowly service was needed and there
was no other one to do it, he was
ready for it, and performed it, not as
an exhibition merely, but as a part of
the duty of the moment—sweetly,
chee’fully, lovingly. Humility, then,
is the spirit which is ready always to
use its best powers and its richest
gifts in the lowliest service of love.
Love is at the heart of it. When we
truly love others, we are interested
in them, and will do them any ser
vice, however hard or costly or lowly
it may be, not considering ourselves
too fine to serve them, nor any pos
session of ours too good to he used in
their behalf.—\\ estminster Teacher.
The deadly opium scourge in India,
lucrative as it may be to the revenues
of the Christian empire of England,
and as essential as its revenues may
seem to certain English public men,
leceives another stroke at the hands
of a large number of the women of
India, who have addressed a letter to
the Christian women of England,
urging them to use their influence
for the enactment of laws checking
the use of the drug. They say in
their letter: “We have heard, on un
doubted authority, that the sale of
opium is conducted under the strict'-
ests restriction possible throughout
Great Britain, and is only permitted
to oe sold by licensed chemists in
good standing, and in small quanti
ties. But here in India it is placed
within the reach of all, without auy
restrictions to speak of; even the
commonest women have access to it
at all times! Why is this? Cau it
be that our souls are reconed with
out any value iu your country?”—
Christian Advocate.