Charlton County herald. (Folkston, Ga.) 1898-current, June 04, 1908, Image 2

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- . £ Greed of Gain Kills; S i ouls Starved to Get Rich A S 1 U A Sl By the Rev. Dr. Donald Sage Mackay, The Rector of the Collegiate Church of St. Nichoias, Urrrmtts et New York. Sgt o ) :WIOU might as well talk about the mysterious Providence of e % a suicide as speak of it in the case of any man who, in : % gaining his world, forfeats his physical life and energy in 5 : the attempt. Is money of so much matter to any man that f: Y :he should make himself a suicide for that one end? * & We are living in an age which is steeped in the com :«——~ mercial spirit. Commercialism has invaded every sphere * eveppopeadd Of human activity, The professions, the arts, our social conditions, as well as our business enterprises, are tagged all over with the money label. The.typical man of the hour is he who knows the intrinsic value of nothing, but can tell you the selling price of everything—from the conscience of a politician upward. “What doth it profit 4 man?”’ has come to be the supreme standard of success. “What is there in it for me?” is the test by which the average man to-day estimates the oppor tunities of Jife. Is the surrender of that life of yours, with which God has endowed vou, a failr exchange for any achievement or success, whether in the realm of wealth, or fame, or power? As a question of profit and loss what does it profit any man if he gain the whole world and forfeit his life? But again, there is the moral side of life, which, in these latter days es pecially has been ruthlessly sacrificed by €0 many on the altar of material success, This past year, in American public life, will be memorable in our history as a year of reappreciated ideals. It has been, in truth, the year of a great ethical revival, and men who not so long ago sneered at guch things have been compelled to acknowledge the sovereign authority of conscience agserted by the woice of the common people. It is not too mueh to say that the revelations of these past months, following one after another in almost every branch of commercial and industrial enterprise, shocking as they have been to the moral sense of the community, kave nevertheless cleansed the moral atmosphere so that the voung man of today enters npon his publie career in a more wholesome environment than at any time in the past twenty five years, What then shall we do to save this faculty of immmortal life within us' As a question of profit and loss, the soul of every man is worth saving. How are you going to save it? I reply, simply by giving it a chance to live., Give your soul a chance to live. Give it atmosphere so that it can breathe, and remember that prayer is the atmosphere of the soul. The day that prayer dies in a man's soul he commits spiritual suicide. Give it room. o that it can expand; and remember that service for God and your fellowmen will expand the narrowest soul, G / i ambling the Curse of - Racing-- . Racing the Cause of % G ] ambling ss 8 . ¢ CrwvmstninNye By john Gilmer Speed. e e :“‘.“‘ @MY interd#¥™in eel 16l by A great varfety of peo ple, while the practice is as old as eivilization, It has al ways been regarded primarily as a sport, and it is generally 80 looked upon ioday. But in New York the laws that have been enacted to regulate it put the question of sport in the ©OOO6O background, and declare that its encouragement is “for the purpose of raising and breeding and improving the breed of horses.” 'This quotation is taken from the first section of chapter 570 pf the laws of 1895, This statute is popularly known as the Percy-Gray law, and it establishes a state racing commission and regulates the mothods of race meetings within the state. By this law, ana under the decisions of the courts interpreting it, gambling. thongh distinctly forbidden, is made permissive. Without such a legal paradox there could be no bookmaking on the race courses: withoui book making, which enables those who attend the races to bet on the results, the breeder of horses, the owners ol racing stables and the proprietors of race courses, are all agreed that the sport, as conducted at present and for many years past, could not exint, Granting this fact, the easy conclusion is that horse racing is conducted for the sake of the gambling, and that the horses are used merely as part of the gambling machinery—as a roulette wheel, for instance. The daily news papers, which give columns and pages day in and day out to the reports of the races, strengthen this easy conclusion. Much more space is given and much more emphasis laid upon the doings of the "betting ring” than upon tgy performaace of the horses that furnish the sport. The reporters, with great industry and immense exaggeration, tell of the great wagers won and lost: and the conversion of a “shoe-string into a banl: roll” is evidently regarded as a greater achievement than breeding or training a stanch race horse or riding it to a well-earned victory, This conclusion is easy, but it is not fair. Gambling is the great handicap to racing—indeed, it is not too strong to sav.that aambling is the curse of rac ing: but racing is a cause of gambling rather than the desire to gamble is the cause of racing.—l From The Century. - Diet-Cranks A a——_ W S O By 0. 5. Marden. } GOOO 0C O~ T is o wonder some people ever have any health at all The way to get the most out of one's ability is to trust it, to believe in it, to have confidence in it. But 'some people seem to think that the best way to get the best results out § of the digestive apparatus is to constantly distrust it, pity it. eooe o 0 They s'\\'ullm\'. & mouthful of fear and dyspepsia with v\'m“_\' mouthful of food, and then wonder why the stomach does 00 0e not take care of it. Before the child can even speak plainly it is taught to talk about its “poor ‘ittle tummic,” and this nonsense is kept up through life, We often hear men talking about taking the best care of their health when they are really doing the worst thing possible for it, They are the worst possible enemies of their stomach when they are always talking about their digestion and expressing a fear -that they cannot eat this and they can not eat that, when they are thinking all the time about how many hites they must take of every mouthful of food, and how long they must masticate it before they swallow it. What do you mean by taking good care of your body? Just to bathe it, ~2d to weigh and measure your food with the same precision that a drug #ist would dangerous drugs. concentrating your mind upon what you eat and thinking about what will hurt you-—that is not taking good care of your body. Do you wonder that your stomach ache s, that it is inflamed, when you are all the time thinking about it, worrving sdout it, and expecting that ev erything vou eat is going to burt you?—¥Mrom Success Magazine. ;6 RIDING THE FROST D ;'a LAKE DAM. : 25eSESes AN INCIDENT OF EARLY DAYS IN MICHIGAN. 3 E&WH} % By T. R LEOY g They were blamed idiots, both of 'em. But I'm not holdin’ that up against any man when there's a girl in the case. Nell was all right, too, mind yer, as girls go—red hair, full form, fire an’ all that sort of thing— but she couldn't play soft. Had to be things doin’ when she handled the bow—with her novel-readin’ no tions of heroes and trusty swords and ridin’ into death’s ways before you could kiss the tip of her finger. Oh, shucks! 1 hate bein’ harsh on the child, but good men are too blamed hard to lay your hands on these days, to want to see them go under before their appointed time, al] along of a whim and a little lace. All right, I'm gettin’ there. The drive had come down pretty slick that spring, no serious accidents or nothing, and we were just holdin’ the logs above the last dam till we had got enough water to float them out onto the home stretch. The boys lied around in the shade of the cook-house and chewed their pipes and cursed a little and waited—thinkin’ on the settlement only thirty mile away and ’ pay-day just 'round the bend. The - second day we heard the squeakin’ of wheels and Nell appeared on the - scene, havin’ buggied out to wish us luck and with greetings from the home folk—that's what she said. I'm guessin’ different, and seed later I guessed right, We all jumped to our feet, bein’ mighty starved for the sight of a pretty face,, but Angus Carmichael was Johnny-on-the-Spot all right and had the honor of liftin’ her out and receivin’ a smile that would ’ave softened a pike-pole. We were all right envious of Angus, but’ big Jim Connors was the only one weak enough to show it. They’d been run-i nin’ neck and neck for favors all that ‘ winter and weren't too friendly about it either. The other boys had long since dropped out and were just waitin’ around to hold the coats and pick up the pieces. Jim butted in between Angus and the smile and grabbed her hand so she winced, . “Right glad ter see yer again. Nell,” says he. ‘Ain't yer goin’rter lét me have the pleasure of drivin' ver back ter the settlement thie af ternoon? Yer said I eould sometime and I'm not needed here jest now, You know.” : Nell looked up at him out of the points of her eyes: ‘Maybe, Jim, we'll see.” i . Angus was lookin’ sort of pale in ~Bpite of the tan. “‘She's alggag, Jiomisede, Umubut of courd el nows what she ‘wants, and I'll step aside if she says the word.” Connors swung ’round quick, blazin’ mad. *'Go to blazes, you! and - mind yer own business!” His fists ~were stuck out in Carmichael's face. and we looked for things happenin’ right there. Nell did too, I guess, for the look of scorn on her face when Angus jest gave a gasp and stepped back wasn't pretty to see. “I'm thinkin® yer didn’t hear straight, Mister Carmichael,” she said softly. "I wouldn't be feelin’ safe with a coward at the reins!” “No, I'm not a coward, Nell, and ver know it. If Jim wasn't a heap sight better man with his fists than 1 be he wouldn't be so free with his speech. Now ask him if he feels like runnin’ the dam with me or no and we'll see whose scared.” We held our breath when we heard that, for though Connors was abolit the best man on a log in the province, mnot barrin’ Carmichael either, the devil himself couldn’t do the trick and live. Nell knowed it as well as we did, but by Jimminy she jest stood there with the hot sun flamin’ on her red hair and a little smilg on her face that said plain as day: “Will yer let him dare yer, Jim?” Yer could hear the throbbin' of the dam comin’ up under ver very feet, though it was really round the bend below, and it didn’t sound pretty ter Jim's ears as we could see. He pulled the battered felt off his head and mopped his forehead with a red bandanna, but I guess none of us felt mwuch sympathy for him, seein’ as he'd got himselt into the hole. There was a twenty-eight foot head of water behind the dam. Then there was a sluice sixty foot leng and ten wide where the water ran smooth and swift as greased light ning, till it shot out on the apron and was carried some eighty feet far ther over a ledge of rocks. Near the lower end of the apron the water was that shallow that though a small log would shoot out straight and drop into the pool below almost horizontal, the big sticks would drag and tip and go over head first and not rise to the suctace for a couple of hundred feet Pelow. The pool was as ugly a bit of wa ter as I've ever seen. Boilin’ and eddyin’, and chock full of undertows that would drag a human body down | among the jagged rocks on the bot-! tom and sweep it back under the apron and spit it out hundreds ot‘ feet below in a condition that weren't pretty to see, | As Angus had given the dare, he had to go first, and the rest of us climbed out onto the’ rocks close to the water as we could get, with pike poles and ropes tor life-savin’ duty, Nell stood on the top of the hank - where she could see good and pizin. A small spot of red burnt in each cheek and her eyes were shinin’ bril liant. “Take a rough, solid-barked log, Angus,” vells out Boss Murray. “It'll give yer a better grip if she dives, and for God’s sake hang on to it till she clears the eddies! We'll git you then.” “I'll keep on the sunny side of her, Jack, don’t worry,” and Angus runs lightly out on the loose floatin’ logs that are held back by a boom from goin’ through the sluice. He picks one out, pushes it through a gap where the chain joins a couple of the boom logs and jumps aboard. “*Ain’t ver goin’ ter use a pole?” hollers Terry. *“Naw—by-bye!” and we see the blamed goat is runnin’ it empty handed. The log now began to step along lively and entered the upper end of the sluice. As it dipped to the in cline, Angus bent forward with his fingers touchin’ the rough bark and his eyes on the boilin’ caldron below him. He sure looked cool and steady crouchin’ there, while the log rocked from side to side and plunged through the sicty foot of sluice. At the foot of this where the water struck the less steep apron, the back surge made a wave that jumped up most eight feet high. As the timber struck this, Angus leapt into the air, cleared most of it and lit on his stud again as fine as you please, Murray yells, ‘“Pretty work!” and then we holds our breath. The log as it neared the end of the apron begun to drag, but be cause of the weight on the back end didn’t go over perpendicular as we feared. It shot far out, dipped sharp and plunged into the roaring mess of yellow water. But Angus kept his head, you bet! At the last moment he threw himself flat on the log and wrapped his arms and legs around it, and crash! they ‘disappeared, and the foam swished over. He told us later that it weren't much fun down ther. He seemed to be goin’ right on down tohades, while the currents tore and bit and wrenched, and pieces of bark and chips and sawdust cut and bruised him every place at once. And his one little thought all the time was jest to hold on till he bust and trust in God. After a few years of this sort of thing he begun to see sky-rockets and hear cannon crackers and then a flood of sunlight hit him in the face and he knew he'd come back to the family. I reckon it was nigh as long a time to us as to him before the log hove in sight and we were allowed to move our lungs again. We certainly let out one Indian ear-splitting yell | that made the noise of the dam sound | pale. Angus climbed right side up,} sprang onto a jutting log and walked ashove and into our arms. ; Nell stood up there and waved her serghief at him. but his eyes were so w‘wt&fi& h:" -rgékon “eMaidnt see it, for he never so much as glanced in her direction. 4 The first words he said were: “Don’t let Jim try it, boys! God ain’t goin’ to give two return tickets to hades, and that’s certain!” | “You're too late,” says Little Bill, “he's a-comin’ now.” o And he was all right, with his hair blowin’ back and his face white as milk—slickety-pelt down the sluice, till he struck the wave, made a spring that miscarried somehow and fell plump on his back three feet behind the log. Didn't look any too cheer- ‘ ful for Jim, just then! San The rest of the way down they didn't change their positions none, though Jim kept clutchin’ wildly at the log beyond his reach, knowin’ that he didn’t have no chance for life if he didn’t get it. We couldn’t do nothin'—jest watch! Then the stick shot into the shoaler water and dragged just a bit, and as it went over we seed Jim catch up and clutch the log, then his hands slipped, his arms straightened out with a jerk and beth of ’em sunk be neath the foam. » Well, we were right certain he had got a grip and again stopped breath in’ and waited for the log to show up. After a time it did saunter to the surface and we seed a hand clingin’ to a projection on the side of the timber, and then slip off. Angus hitched a rope around him and jumped into the pool and made a desperate fight to get out, but in a couple of strokes he was jerked clean under and we started pullin’ him back again. Yer can imagine our amazement when we discovered we were draggin’ the two of them in! The blame ecross-currents had ham mered Jim plump into Angus’ arms and couldn't get ’em apart again. Well, Connors was pretty nigh all in and we lugged him off to the bunk house, but Angus was as chirp as a sparrow after we'd poured a little stimulant down his gullet. We were crowdin’ around shakin’ hands with him and congratulatin’ him when Nell pushes through, lookin' mighty ashamed of herself and rather scared, too. .1 guess she'd been gettin’ a bigger dose of real life than she had bargained for. “I'm right proud of you, Angus,” she begun gentle, ‘‘and reckon I spoke a little too quick a few mo ments ago. I ain't forgot what I promised you, and am ready to start whenever you say.” c . “Thanks, Nell,” says Carmichael, lookin' her straight. ‘I knows yer didn't mean what yer said, but the truth is I'm all tuckered out after so much excitement and bathin® and guess I'll let one of the other fellows drive yer back to the settlement.” Angus turned and walked up the bank.—From the Outing Magazine, The Story of an Ancient Mine. By HERBERT W. HORWILL, M. A. The modern graduate of a technical school who has specialized in mining would probably be cble to give a sat isfactory list of tHe most important recent publications on his own sub ject. It is not so certain that he would be ready with an answer to the question: What is the earliest recorded description of mining opera tions in the literature of the ancient world? He would naturally excuse his ignorance by the plea that the scientific portions of the ancient slassics are of no practical service to-day, and that, such as they are, ihey belong properly to the domain of the philologist or the antiquarian. As it happens, the passage in question does not occur in a technical book or indeed in an out-of-the-way and obsolete volume at all, but in a poet ical composition which is easily ac cessibie, which is still read by a large number of persons, and which is sup posed to be more or less familiar to every man possessing a fair general education—the Eooix of Job. The fact that this most interesting passage is so little known is largely due to the obscurity of its translation in the Authorized Version. One might easily read through the twenty eighth chapter of Job in that version without the least idea that it con tained a detailed account of the pro cesses by which the miner earns his livelihood. The first two verses, it is true, point to something of the kind, but at the third the writer appears to diverge into a not too intelligible panegyric of Divine omnipotence as shown especially in floods and eéarth quakes. Turn to the Revised Version, and the puzzle at once becomes a pic ture. From the ‘first verse to the eleventh inclusive we are now able to follow an exact description of the metheds employed by the ancient miner, and still pursued in the main wherever there is discovered a de posit worth working. The key to the whole intarpreta tion is in the meaning of the word “he” in the third verse. In the old version it appeared to denote God; the Revisers apply it to man. Ac cordingly, the passage refers not to Divine omnipotence but to human en terprise. “Man,” we read, “setteth an end to darkness, and searcheth out to the furthest bound the stones of thick darkness and of the shadow of death.” Here we see the miner with his lantern bringing light into a re gion hitherto sealed from man’s gaze and searching not only near the sur face, but, as “stones of thick dark ness” seem to indicate, the very gloomiest recesses of the earth's in terior. ; “He breaketh open a shaft away from where men sojourn; they are forgotten of the foot that passeth by; th.eymWAwinz to and fro.” " This Is¥severely scien tific, but it is poetical also. As Dr. Samuel Cox has said, the writer brings out, in a few deft strokes, “the pathos of the miner's life and occupa tion—its peril, its loneliness, its re moteness even from those who stand nearest to it.” The ancient poet had probably in his imagination the wil derness of Arabia Petraea, but the same feature of distance from ecrowd ed cities has usually been a charac teristic of the beginnings, at any rate, of a great mine, whether in Cali fornia, or in Nevada, or in Australia. And even if it is not so utterly re mote from human habitation, the casual passenger goes on his way ig norant or oblivious of the burrowing far beneath his feet, where the miner “hangs” or “swings” at his work, hav ing been lowered to the desired spot by some primitive cross-bar slung be itween ropes or chains. The picture is now relieved by a suggestive parallel. The earth, on its surface as well as in its recesses, con tributes to the welfare of man and supplies a sphere for his industry. “As for the earth, out of it cometh bread; and underneath it is turned up as it were by fire.” Man, the worker and magician, both cultivates the soil that it may yield him his food, and pierces far below in quest of hidden treasure. The second clause of the verse is generally interpreted as a reference to the Egyptian method of removing ore by “fire setting,” i. e., by lighting a fire at the base of the rock to be removed so that the heat might split the harder pertions and make cracks in which a chisel or pick could be inserted. The value of the miner’'s finds is next indicated. “The stones thereof are the place of sapphires, and it hath dust of gold,” or, as the marginal rendering gives it, “he winneth lumps of gold.” There follows a graphic contrast between the boundless ingenuity of man and the limited sagacity of the brute. “That path”—the road which the miner hews out for himself—*“no bird of prey knoweth, neither hath the falcon’s eye seen it; the proud beasts have not trodden it, nor hath the fierce lion passed thereby.” Man's detection of the secret gems of ‘the earth is keener than the acutest predatory instinet of hawk and vul ture. His strength in pursuit of his spoil excels that of the tyrants of the jungle or the forest. For “he putteth forth his hand upon the flinty rock: he overturneth the mountains by the roots.” The last phase of the description reminds us of the cleverness of the underground explorer in preserving himself and his operations from dis aster, and of the persistent thorough ness of his Investigation. “He cut ‘eth out channels among the rocks: =nd his eye seeth every precious thing. He bindeth the streams that they trickle not (Heb., from weep ‘ing); and the thing that is hid bringeth he forth to light.” The miner is here depicted as using mechanical expedients for preventing leakage through the roofs or walls of the passages in which he works, and as cutting canals to drain away water that may have percolated through. An alternative explanation of “he bindeth the stream from weeping” is that a reference is intended to the damming up of the waters in the river while the auriferous alluvial gravel is dug out. In either case the result is that nothing escapes his scrutiny, and that his energy and skill are rewarded by the discovery of the riches he seeks. The whole passage is thus a strik ing poetical representation of the art of mining as practicel in early times, and, except for the absence of elab orate machinery and powerful ex plosives, as still carried on to-day. And it is a picture with a purpose— lm impress us with the wondersg wrought by human enterprise so far [exceeding the utmost marvels of ani 'mal instinct. As we read further on jin the chapter, we find that this ex ulting tribute to the achievements of man is introduced into the poem that it may emphasize the limitations of even his intelligence. The close of the above description is immediately followed by the question: “But where ;shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?” There are some darknesses of which man cannot make an end; some priceless treasures that baffle even his re search. Wisdom and understanding, of far greater worth than rubies, are neither to be purchased by the gold the miner discovers, nor are they to be attained by the exercise of his most penetrating ingenuity. The date of the book in which this remarkable passage occurs is by no means a settled question among Bib lical scholars. The traditional view which ascribed its authorship to Moses is now generally abandoned. The majority of modern eritics place it somewhere between the seventh and the fourth century B. C., so it may be accepted as of a sufficiently remote period to make its description of the mine one of the earliest, if not absolutely the earliest, to be found in any literature. The four metalg mentioned in the beginning of the chapter—silver, gold, iroen and brass (or rather copper, as a more exact translation would render it)—are those which were discovered and worked in the first ages of whieh we have a record. It is thought that the writer of this book was best ac quainted with the mining operations of the Egyptians, who worked gold and silver mines in upper Egypt, and copggg@w:‘quoise mines in Arabia Petraea o the Sihiatic penfusuia. There were no mines in Palestine it self, which explains the faet tha} this is the only reference to them in the Old Testament. The Egyptian copper mines in the Sinaitic mountains are known to have bheen carried on suc cessfully as far back as the times of the early Pharaohs. Shafts, slag heaps, smelting-places and cther dis tinct relics of the working of these mines may be seen to this day in some of the “wadis,” or channels of dried watercourses. Many of them appear to be in the same condition in which they were left by the Egyp tian workmen four or five thousand Yvears ago; “the very marks of their tools,” it is said, “being so fresh and sharp in that pure, dry atmosphere, that more than one traveler has felt, while looking at them, as though the men had but knocked off work for a spell and might come back to it at any moment.”’—Scientific American. Newspapers as “Personal” Organs. In Leslie’s Weekly Charles J.. Bon aparte, Attorney-General of the Uni ted States, writes an article on this subject. Mr. Bonaparie states his views as follows: ‘*As soon as a paper is recognized as somebody’s ‘organ,’ as expressing the views and wishes and opinions of any particular man or set of men, its healthful influence as a newspaper is gone; it may, indeed, have another kind of influence, for those who con trol or conduct it may be powerful men, but its editorial utterances are simply their ‘open letters.’ In ny judgment, this is a matter of very se rious and urgentconcern to the Amer ican people to-day. Certain of our newspapers, including some whose in fluence within my memory—indeed, within a comparatively few years— Wwas a power, and a power for good, in the community, are now firmly and widely believed to bhe virtually, or even literally, owned by well known ‘interests’-—or, in other words, hy wealthy men engaged in far-reaching enterprises, This widespread and very confident belief as to such own ership makes them virtually ‘trade organs,’ with but little more influence than the papers published avowedly as such.” How Very “Radical.” They order some things with a sterner sense of justice in France. In Paris a Professor having been run over and killed by a taxicab, the chauffeur was sentenced to three months' impriscument and damages of SIO,OOO were awarded to the vic tim’s widow, together with SSOOO to an unmarrvied daughter. Four other children received SI4OO cach. The total cost of the accident ta the com pany was $25,000.-~New York World. SR