Georgia Historic Newspapers

    CONYERS WEEKLY.
VOLUME VL
i SOUQ OF SFOW.
He?i trees.
K ll l5r aue the with browsing a gruesome oreeze, groan,
echoed
p Poet" e rU g|ui' g coruscant core,
r UOt ,vThe t emeof this thingiet be?
i tun
jfa suoff.” brig'ttsoine
III.
HEBE LIES
A
SNOVT POET.
—Chicago Newt.
RTS WITH COAL-MINERS.
Escapes? Yes, sir; I’ve had one or
near shaves; and I don’t suppose
s'saman on the colliery but what
d say the same.”
ie speaker was a hardy, toilworn
miner, who had come to see me
some parish business. And
iy is the thrilling tale which, by
Kimble pressure—for be it known
most of these men think lightly
[speak but little of their dangers— from
country parson may extract
“fellow-men in black” among the
pits. sir; I’ve had Once
nes, one or two.
[s of let water.” down into the sump in eight
fiis man was a “shaftman.” The
Itknow-isthe aft,” as you know—or perhaps you
eirciflar perpendie
f “ well by which access is gained
he horizontal beds ot coal lying at
ous depths below the surface. The
a ot the shaft in various mines
’4 te nS hu nd i: eds
Jtie r1 duty + of f a, the shaftmen 1 is
l-o™ p . ! s V* re P®'! T r - m ( !^ en 0ne tbeir le f
t 16t ^ t0 U 6 Stee1 ,. '
'2vrr mrip h -,?r y are draw n U p
b ' fco°'£22 ™ 2 ( ? “ de °J ° f n th a ? s, sbaft; - “P , 1 ( e
f i^i and H
idv (jL nerve to "? r c placidly, sus
n „ pi . „ rL Vd&m a bundl ed
ioms (|pen ortbnar A- y nmde, ,
(ever KtWW-lt: Cn ( ,f mnmo “ t ■ 5i,i
"“ “' f?l died to
lie Ihaft, depth, and fixed to the ttithYof
I must also explain that the
PP' : is the bottom
I shaft very of the s wt
is sunk a few fathom« low er
Ithe lowest seam of coal thnii'Q he
I'vorked. I shaft, Into this lowest nsrt nf
Pit” euphoniously termerl the
Lies the water which oozes wT from
of the shaft finds Us
p !ll s constantly bein<r nnmned nut
F'-ent the Hood in ’
K could"be a- of the nit
Up a man let down-hUn Zlf!
and escape alive
m to ire. “How on emuh sinnnS did
? et out?” I asked “T
dlWT the cage at ?” PP
f {ne '- said the up on, e
by shaftman accident “The
ght mi stake or ran
n down into the ’
esh e "tuck, while sump othe?’ and
^.t the caire
‘Power up at the pulleys and? The en
her up. was lost, he couldn’t
jUwilhtaly. how did ui you escape?” I
Ie, J e answered with a grim
vt out fi',2 1 con]d 1 managed
of ‘ ea e There - only
room ° ’ was
ibed 5 aB : the Si'S? 6 of ? the sump, between and the I
m, 17 he ,;rabers to the
top of
! 2 and dZ 'then oL fw? had r 4 to 0Iie travel Wh ?° round I S° t
a by
mZ ho Urs ° 2° re 1 a s tapple. It was
J? 2 got home. The
Were nea % 1 oft las head
pseekimTaK about h was hilled, and
° °w to get the cage
’ 1 “Didn’t t**? l° U g° in £ down?” head?” I
ca a toft ° y°ur
e hown with U 11 was The cage
-
, Ner 1 run d clashed
h\V ]j 2 k(1 , ’ an into
ap of thunder.”
feryouk Fell’’ 12 Pt4 think? 0ur senses.” ” I asked. “I
N h« 11 wh* 1
- to happen cmFn heu new wbat was
w -ter r 1 feifc her going,
^as ftht: St 7 above and I “knew
“W n b it me; and I
eonie d $ a queer thing if
? lo m - v thick leaS nf h t0 3acket he drowned.”
*ed a Jet Ct0i ter; on i and I
wa but I scram-
Independent in All Things.
CONYERS, ROCKDALE CO., GA., JANUARY 25, 1884.
bled out somehow. But it wa* a near
thing, “Oh,” I can tell you.
he continued, “there are
queer things happen. Once, another
man and I were drawn up over the
pulley. That’s not the big pulleys, you
know, sir; but the little wheel with the
small rope, a few feet above the shaft,
which we use for shaft-work. This oth¬
er man and I had been at work, sitting
in the loops hanging on the rope; and
when the engine drew us up again, she
“ran pulley. away,” and drew us right over
the At least, I went over; and
the other man hung on the other side,
balancing. My hands were cut with
the wheel; but I held on till they got us
down. But it was a roughish ride, was
that. Well, good-night, sir.”
I wondered how many lives this man
had, and how he could go away so
cheerfully to meet day by day the per¬
ils of his toil.
I was emigration. talking the other day to a man
about “I’ll tell you,” he
said. “When I was one-and-twenty I
settled to leave the pits and go to Amer¬
ica. When the time came I said to
mother: ‘Well, mother, I’ll make this
America.’ the last day’s work here, and be off to
Mother, she was sore cut
up, and she says: ‘Bill, I’d as soon see
you lying in your grave in our church¬
yard as that you should go to America,’
Well, sir, it’s Gospel truth I’m telling
you. I went down the pit at ten o’clock
that day, and before twelve I was car¬
ried home smashed all to pieces. I never
left my bed for seventeen weeks. A full
tub of coals caught me on the incline,
by the neglect of the man working with
me. The tub ran away. There was no
room to pass. I ran for my life; but
the wheels passed over me and smashed
me up. And that’s all I’ve ever thought
about going to America. I thought it
strange, sir, mother’s having said that,
and settled me being nigh killed the very day
I’d to go.”
Can we call these brave men heartless
or unfeeling because they speak rarely of speak such
things as trities, or indeed
of them at all? No; their lives make
them familiar with danger, but none the
less is their silence that of a noble
courage.
The following mav show that grati
tude to a Higher PoVer is oftener felt
tban expressed to the outer world,
Pardon little preliminary detail,
Square tubs, on four wheels, running the on
tram-lines along the workings of
are used f or drawing the coals to
the shaft. On some occasions, as when
going to a distant part of the workings,
one or two lubs wil1 be draivn by a
pony, each tub carrying perhaps there four
men. When the seams are low,
will be a space of only a few inches be
tween the edge of the tub and the
“ balks” of timber placed crosswise to
support the roof of the coal-seam; thus,
tlie men must keep their heads down to
the leyel of the edge of the tub.
^ttoVo? _
S “ rotS'd
ant “a tS & m wmc dom
pony going tel1 at a
walk U P a sli S ht rise ’ 1 can ’ c 7°!!
Low it happened, but I must have raised
my head unconsciously above the level
of the tub. I felt my forehead touch a
crossbeam in the roof, and before I had
time to reflect, 1 knew that I was in
fatal peril. The forward movement of
the tub jammed my head between the
beam an(1 the ed J e of the tub ’ 1 ^ ive
myself a wrench, trying to get free; but
1 couldn’t. All this of course passed in
a fraction of a second, and 1 gave my
self U P as dead ’ F°\ comci tbe most
wonderful part. At the very time my
head tollched the r ?°t’ m the I?' 7 TT
° s ! f tuafc!< my - 7 ag0D 1 dasbed J °l T' IU °“ ’ t £ e 2onv
sto PP ed N ? °f b f d . b „d L it or
-
^ okeD t0 ! f ' v d 22 1
^ne pony and cmouclied stopped. ] almost T I dre 1 ".down f d Ln mv y
beac ', am
th told ® tub - companions My ht ® was until we 'J™ came out, o llt ^
my remarked how pale I look; d.
when they down the
For weeks, whenever I went
pit, I was almost unnerved by this teiri
ble recollection. And 1 leli you, sir,
I’ve read of drowning people
seeing as at a glance i all the
past scenes aa d ' °
their lives—1 never thought , ] t muen cb oi G f ii ; t
-but I tell you, every scene and deed
of my life seemed to come before me in
a have flash never of light. forgotten, I saw J^^leve?
forget, the feeling of that day. How it
was that pony stopped and my life was
saved, I can’t say; but if it wasn 11 rov
idence, I don’t know what else it can
be.”
A similar miraculous escape was told
me by oue of the managers ot a pit. with
“I was down making a survey V. sat down a
man and a young assistant. e the
to rest side bv side, our backs against
wall of the coal. The man was sitting
on my right hand, the assistant on my
left. After we had sat a few sec
onds the assistant, with no apparen
reason, got up and went and sat at the
other end of the row, next to the man.
He had no sooner sat down t.rnn, witn
out anv warning, a hutre mass of sU)ae
crashed down from the roof onto the
verv spot where the assistant had been
sitting! Part of it graced my arm. but
did nS injury. • A near ifaye to, ‘It [ y»n.
we both said to the assistant. was
a near shave,’ he replied, somewhat
nervously. Perhaps We went on with our work.
we spoke lightly; but I believe
not one of us could have said all he
thought.— Chambers' Journal.
How a Hair-Pin Made Trouble for Mr.
Jones.
Jones, “ Jeptha, suddenly what is this?" asked Mrs.
tleman he reading. confronting that gen¬
as sat
“That is a hair-pin,” answered Jones,
book. quietly, apparently absorbed in his
“Is it, indeed?” retorted Mrs. Jones,
“and not one of mine, either! A twist¬
ed hair-pin! May I ask what has become
of the rest of the woman?”
“Maria,” exclaimed Jones, looking
up with the fearlessness of conscious
guilt, disagreeable “why these unnecessary and
hair-pin questions? What is that
to me?”
“That is just what I would like to
know—what I am trying to find out,”
said his wife, turning white around the
mouth, and leaning faintly against the
mantel.
“Where did you find it?” asked
Jones, looking at it as if it were a Gat¬
ling gun directed toward him.
“I f-f-found it in your overcoat
pocket,” sobbed Mrs. Jones, “that’s
where!”
“Then you put it there!” suggested
Jones, carrying the war into the en¬
What emy’s camp. “I don’t use hair-pins!
do y r ou suppose I want of the
thing?” and he assumed an obstinately
virtuous look that might have deceived
even a woman. But it didn’t deceive
Mrs. Jones, who suddenly .changed her
tactics.
“Jeptha,” seal-skin-cloak she said, in a soft, per¬
suasive, tone, “if you
ever loved me in the s-s-sweet days that
gard are past —if—if—you have me—tell the least re¬
for me now, tell me
where you got that hair-pin!”
She could not have chosen a more
forcible The way wretched of appealing to twined his feel¬ his
ings. fingers in his hair, man dug his in¬
gray toes
to the Amsterdam nerved rug, himself anct gritted tell the his
teeth as he to
truth, the whole truth and nothing but
the truth—“s’ help me M’ria!”
He began, with his eyes cast down,
and in a low, troubled voice, condensed that trem¬
bled with canned and mis¬
ery. “It only yesterday,” he said,
was
feeling before; as if “I it might had been have to been the a restau¬ cent¬
ury
rant--”
“Oh! oh! oh! you told me you never
ate a mouthful all day,” interrupted
Airs. Jones.
“--to collect a hill owing me,” con¬
tinued Jones in hollow speech, and “as
I came out I saw something what glittering
on the walk. I thought of my
good m-m-mother had told me years
before:
“To «. . pin and let it lie
You ’ n be sure to have good luck ”
“Maria, I had no thought of evil
when I stooped down to pick up the
pin, as I supposed, but it was that mis
erable hair-pin. I—I—wasn’t it, An
thony?-and I picked it up—a thing any
' do with perfect impunity.”
man might all?” asked Mrs. Jones,
*q s that
calmly. is all,” asserted Jones, with
“That a
truthful smile.
“Then where did this blonde hair
come from?” inquired his wife, holding
p up for his i nspe ction. “Did you find
this on the sidewalk?”
Then Jones realized that the way of
the transgressor is hard, and he owned
up, and really did tell the truth; how
that he «%P ed into a dl 7-g°°4 s store kid
0Q the aV enue to get a pair of new
g] OV es; how a pre tty girl buttoned them
tor him with a hair-pin; how she gave
. t tQ bim because j t wa s more conven
icn( . than ff ] ove -buttoner, and that he
)io , to die if b( y d know her again that
as ; de Q f sole-leuther—a story
anv / reasona ble woman would see car
ri d ^ on the lace of it.
^ Jfrg Jones complained bp]ieve it? A-hem!
The neighbors next morn
v aekot k and sa i d ;f Jones
’ theatri
^ ° tQ eh earse private they’d compel
ai thig winte r
him to move-see it they wouidn’t.
Detroit Free Press.
A Remedy for Insomnia.
We have seen a great many recipes
for in^mnm^lmt^not^on sleep and tQ
the , man wtiowann wants' to go to }
a elJow
' but
S, ®1 d EOme of them,
, We vvl ; s h to suggest a
~ that will in
. r( , medv one cure
“ refunded. It is
case or money employing
_ Fp j to' e cons j s tino- in
c , n bodv rap on your chamber door
" the night and veil
• ona ‘ llv key-hoTe during
- that it is time to
YL ^y e have known noon” boys to this be
p V V, untd near ly mention by this
* » ex J ed ient. We
V . _ omedv may be used with
| . A OV er-dose mav prove
oston
Brooks as SewerJ.
When a natural water-course trav¬
erses a town, and its banks become
built upon, the easiest way of getting
rid of tilth and house wastes is to throw
.them into the stream. Every man’s in¬
stinctive impulse is to get rid of what
annoys him, and not to mind how his
neighbor will be affected. After awhile,
vvhen the water-course has become suf
ficiently nasty, the people come to a re
alizing sense of what they have brought
upon themselves, and then they tiy to
devise , . a remedy. , In , this , . they begin .
usually at the wrong end. They look
upon the stream as creating the nui
lance, and don t consider that it is
their abuse of the stream that is the
source of the trouble. $o they go to
work and cover the stream up and call
it a sewer. What is the result? Simply
that the stench of the foul matter
in the channel is bottled up somewhat,
to be vented through every man-hole,
every inlet and every house-drain, and
probably do filth more real exposed injury than when air
the rotting was to the
and the sun, and diffused its aroma
through the whole atmosphere.
The channel of a small natural stream
through a town or village ought never
to be converted into a sewer for house
wastes. This will strike a good many
people as an odd doctrine, but still it is
a sound doctrine. The functions of a
natural stream and of a sewer are so
diverse that one can not be made to do
duty for the other.
A natural water-course serves for the
drainage of tlie land all made along water-tight its course.
Its banks can not be
without obstructing the natural progress
of the water in the soil and backing it
up and retaining it where it ought not
to be retained. A sewer, on the other
hand, is intended to carry off foul mat¬
ters which must be gotten rid of as
quickly as possible, and the channel for
conveying them must be absolutely im¬
pervious, so that nothing can soak
through it to the soil. As the level of the
water in the soil rises and falls with the
season and the amount of rain, an open
jointed or pervious channel would
sometimes admit water from the soil
and sometimes permit liuids Hewing in
the channel above the level of the
ground water to flow out, and thus
pollute the soil and the air in the soil.
Again, a natural stream draining a
considerable territory is subject to great
variations in its volume. A channel to
carry its extreme discharge in floods
must be many times larger than can
ever be necessary for the carriage of the
greatest amount of sewage that can be
brought to it, A large channel is not
suited to the rapid removal of a ■mall
flow of filthy fluids, and, moreover,
costs a great deal more than a sewer of
the proper size. Even if the large
channel for a fluctuating stream is built
through a village, the s wage from the
houses should not be turned into it, un¬
less the minimum volume of the natural
How in the driest seasons is large scoured. enough
to keep the channel thoroughly small
There are a good many along towns with
which have for years gotten
out sewers, arid have arched overnatu
ral water-courses running through the
heart of the town, revival” but are now impelled
bv the “sanitary to construct
sewers for removing household wastes
The first imoulse is to utilize the cov
ered streams to #;vve the expense of
constructing a few hundred feet of
sewer. They should be very careful
how they proceed. It is better to than spend
a little more money and be safe, to
economize in first cost and spend and ten
times the saving in doctor’s fees un¬
dertaker’s bill *.—Sanitary Engineer.
-
The Vegetarian’s Stum cling Block.
There is one inherent weakness in the
creed of vegetarians, and that is that they
ean not get on without animal food—
namely, milk and eggs. Of course the
fact stares vegetarians in the face that
nature lias provided an’mal food for all
young mammals, and that is a very
awkward and untoward fact. Vege¬
tarians, however, in the face of it. have
thought it wise to include milk as an
article of vegetarian diet. But milk can
not begot without cows, and as the con¬
sumption and of milk said may matter be expected of fact to to
increase, is as a
increase, where little or no other animal
food is taken, the number of cows must
be expected to increase under a vege¬
tarian regime, bnt then there must also
be calves, and these calves will grow up
and become cows, and even bulls, and
cover tbe whole surface of the globe in
t ; me if they are not killed; but one of
the f great arguments for animals. vegetarianism No¬
is tF e cruelty of killing animal
body, of course, desires that any
shall be killed but with the minimum
of cruelty, but it would seem that if the
vegetarian yields on the sub[eet of milk
he must also yield on the sub,eet of kill
ing animals, and if animals must be
killed it is diflicult to see why they
should not be eaten, seeing that there is
no doubt they make excellent food,
Milk, therefore, seems to us to be the
vegetarian’s stumbling block, and until
he throws milk overboard vegetar amsm
has little in it but a name .—Saturday
Bmw.
NUMBER 46.
PERSONAL AN© LITERARY.
—Theodore Tilton is living quietly ii*!
Paris, attending to his literary work .— 4
N. Y. Times.
—Hon. Edward McPherson, ex-clerk
of the House of Representatives, retired
recently, just twenty years from the
date of his first election.
—The Boston Public Library is to re
C eive $50,000 from the estate of Arthur
Schofield, notwithstanding there is a
flaw in his will.— Boston Herald.
—Will Carleton, the writer of farm
ballads> is said to be worth $i 5 0,000.
There’s no danger of his going “Over
the Hills to tlie Poor House. "-Chicago
j ovrna [
—Washington Irving once said to ed¬ a
ladju “ Don’t be anxious about the will do
ucation of your daughters; they
very well; don’t teach them so many
things; that, teach Mr. them Irving?” one thing.” she “Whafc asked.
is
“Teach them,” he said, ‘‘ to be easily
pleased.”
—James Converse, of Chili, N. Yi.,i
and Miss Mary Chatterton, of Roches¬
ter, were married in the large show
window of a Rochester clothing estab¬
lishment recently. A large number of
wedding presents were displayed in Tho the
window previous to the ceremony.
whole affair was an advertising scheme,
presents included, but it paid I he useful.! young
couple, the gifts being very
Many Rochester firms contributed.— M.'
Y. Host.
—The late Joseph Swift, of Philadel¬
phia, left a fortune of about $1,000,000,;
and among his legacies was one of $&,
000 to his daughter Alary, widow of the
late Charles R. Thorne, Jr., the actor,
and an annuity of $1,600 to Horace GJ
Browne, from whom Mrs. Thorne was
divorced. The bulk of the remainder]
of the estate goes to Mrs. Thorne’s clrrT
dren by both her marriages, and to her
sister, Airs. Emily Balch, and her chil¬
dren .—Philadelphia Record.
—Colonel John Hay, who was Presi¬
dent Lincoln’s private secretary, testi¬
fies that the martyr-President had no
assistance in the preparation of hi*
speeches and addresses. For instance,!
Mr. Lincoln, on his way from Washing¬
ton to Gettysburg, composed and his famous it
address at the latter place After put arriv¬ om
paper while on the train.
ing there he revised and perfected whatl
is now generally composition regarded as and a master-j Amcr-»
piece of English .—Chicago Herald.
ican oratory
HUMOROUS.
—Between Bohemians: “Will it me?’ givo y
you pleasure to breakfast with
“Certainly.” “Well, put an extra plata
on your table and in a quarter of an houn
I will be at your room .”—Boston Tran¬
script.
—During the thick fog the other even¬
ing Com Com took a poor blind man!
bytne arm and led him to his door.1
Telling the story to a friend on the fol¬
lowing day he cried: “It is terrible to
be blind in such a fog!”—Pam- PaperJ
—“I understand they are getting up
another art imposition, said Airs
Blank the other day. “But they needn t
expect me to loan em anything. Last
year the clumsy things broke an arm oit
of my Venus de Medicine and then had
the cheek to tell me it was that way at
first. Just as though I was foolish!
enough to pay $15,000 for a second
hand statoo—the idea. han Trancis*
CO Post.
—Three Western people, an old mam
and two daughters, happening to be in
Boston the other day, entered a store in
idle curiosity. The first object to at¬
tract their attention was the elevator
silently moving up and down with its
cargoes of passengers. “What’s that,
pan?—that thing going up and down
with sofys in it?” asked one of the
daughters. The old man gave the ele¬
vator a long, calm, deliberate stare, andl
exclaimed with an awe-struck voice:
“It’s a telephone! the first I ever saw!”
—Boston Post.
—A short time ago a London pawn¬
broker was aroused about one a. m. by
a vigorous pounding at his street doorJ
Hastily throwing on a dressing-gown demand¬
he rushrd to the window and
ed: “Who’s there?” “I want to know
the time,” came the response from the
pavement in the familiar tones of a
frequent customer. “What do you mean
by calling me up at this time o’ night
to ask such a question as that?” re¬
plied the irate pawnbroker. “Well, and
to whom else should I come?” was the
rejoinder, in husky accents; “you’ve got
my watch.”
—Two Austin sporting men abilities. were
bragging about their shooting charge
One of them said: “I can shoot a
of shot through a sieve, and not injure
the sieve in the least.” “Is that so?"
said the other; “that’s nothing of buck¬ to
speak of. I ean fire a charge all the holes
shot into a sieve and plug
so that the thing will hold water.”
“But that would utterly spoil the
sieve,” said the first liar. “ Not at
all,” returned prevaricator No. 2, “ I
just load up with smaller shot and
shoot holes right through the buckshot
every time.”— Texas Siftings,