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TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PRINCIPL E: “EQUAL RIG HTS TO ALL MEN AND SPECIAL PRIVILEGES TO NONE.”
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; j , v ^ ulll ber 23
A TOUCH OF NATURE.
U folded sw* tremor goes
» >Up ~*
FAIR somnambulist.
“Second class, sir! Here you are.
r!” railway porter,
* 4nd the speaker, a second class
ned the door of a com
artment on one of the Scotch mails,
bid) was already beginning to steam
ow l y ou t of Peter boro station.
The traveler addressed bustled into
ie carriage with more energy than dig
iity of motion, and sank back on the
ushioned seat very red in the face
nd panting vigorously. Mr. Joshua
leParson was an oldish man, rather
tout Lily, and accustomed to move deiiber
Hence the necessity of running
to catch the mail had “taken it out” of
him with some effect. Indeed, it was
Lily Lined ten minutes before condition his lungs of respi¬ re
their normal
ration.
Looking round the compartment, he
jaw that it contained only one occu
bant besides himself, a young lady, seat¬
ed in the opposite corner. A second
fiance tit her, as she reclined with her
bead back, her eyes closed, and her
!ips parted, breathing with monotonous
regularity, showed him that she was
isleep. And lie took the opportunity
>f a careful survey.
She was very pretty, and remarkably
well dressed. Everything about her
raveling appliances suggested affluence
ind eomfort, from the costly fur rag in
vhich her feet were wrapped to the sil
ter fitted traveling bag which stood
(pen on the seat at her side. Close to
he bag lay a pile of newspapers and
>eriodieals, surmounted by a “yellow
lack” novel.
The old gentleman glanced at the
file, and as lie noted it a look o.
stern disapprobation appeared upon his
iaee. He knew the book by reputation
as one of dangerously Hippant tenden¬
cies, and being a pillar of the Scottish
kirk, and severely puritanical in his
views, he regarded with scant favor
even the soberest works of fiction.
Of course, the scathing glance which
be cast at the objectionable novel and
then transferred to its owner was quite
lost on the slumbering young iady.
And Mr. Joshua McParson, feeling, no
doubt, the futility of thus wasting his
“sweetness" on the desert air, took up
his rimes and began to peruse the
money market intelligence assiduously.
He remained absorbed in this study
for some time, too much taken up with
it to have any thought to spare for his
traveling companion, until he was
aroused again to an active conscious
Dess of her presence by hearing her
make a sudden movement. Glancing
quickly be saw that over she the had top of opened his newspaper
her eyes
^ sat U P- She was looking rather
bard at him, surprised very likely at his
presence in the compartment, and won
dertng how he had come there. At
ae bled rate, with ^ shyness, le did not appear to be trou¬
Rawing her for, instead of with
gaze when he looked up at
er, she continued to stare at him in
Hie face with the most perfect
froid. And each sang
minutes time, during the next
that he peered at her round
e screen of his paper, he found her
yes turned upon him in the same
M r -'i'-I'arson began to feel
comfortable. rather
He had a constitu
ona horror of boldness in women,
n - l v °us dread of being made the
, .
j-'-t of any attempted familiarity—
v„ * n a railway carriage. Per
r * i!ls dressed
v ^ n f young ladv nii"ht
ic re! ' s or some abandoned
^ ’ crea
0 f that description,
•s-peculations and
sudden were interrupted by
movement on the part
tort', ’ >CUn * which caused him
lU “ er once more. She
jj ^standing ow was
up, but her eves still
at him in the same un
•bo"? i'wi tf ~ &2e struck ' Something, hiuj however
fce this time which
was a V Dotieea before. There
ligeugg E E badness, a lack of intel
hutitvi l6la ’ ^ or though they
uectiv - were
unon himself, they did
Conyers, Georgia, Saturday, July 4, 1891
not appear to see him. Could it be
that the girl was blind?
He cleared his throat, coughed and
rustled his newspaper; but her face re¬
mained absolutely unmoved, giving no
token that she had heard the sounds, or
was in anywise conscious of his pres
ence. That w;is very unlike blind
people, who were always so quick
to notice. Besides—as his eye fell upon
the novel and the magazines—a blind
person would not take works of litera
ture for her traveling companions.
No. Blindness could scarcely be the
explanation of her very strange de¬
meanor. But if not that, what then?
Was she in a state of coma? Or was
she, perhaps, a lunatic?
The notion of this last possibility
made him decidedly uneasy, and his
heart began to beat with increased
speed in his portly breast.
He watched her narrowly and anx¬
iously, In a minute, steadying herself
with one hand by the rail of the rack,
she began to walk slowly across the
compartment. Then the truth seemed
to dawn upon Mr. McParson. She had
never awakened at all, but w r as now
walking in her sleep.
This conviction did not bring much
comfort to flie old gentleman’s mind,
for, though it was a shade better to be
shut in a railway carriage with a sleep¬
walker than with a lunatic, still even
the former condition of affairs was
sufficiently awkward, and he fervently
wished that he had got into another
compartment.
However, there lie was, with no
possible chance of escape. So there
was little use in wishing. He had bet¬
ter devote his energies to making the
best of the situation. Only, wliat was
lie to do? The young lady was moving
slowly toward the door of the carriage.
Supposing she should try to open it and
get out! lie should be obliged to stop
her by force, with the almost certain
result of waking her up. And that
(as he had heard) was liable to cause
fatal consequences. He was on the
horns of a most embarrassing dilemma;
and as he realized its full horrors, a
sickly pallor succeeded to the previ¬
ously rubicund hue of Mr. McParson’s
countenance.
But when the young lady reached
the door of the carriage, and Joshua
McParson, with his heart in his mouth,
was about to lay a detaining hand upon
her arm, she suddenly turned round
and began to walk the other way. The
old fellow noticed now that she was
lifting her feet unnecessarily high, like
a person ascending steps, and he con¬
cluded that she imagined herself to be
going up stairs. This view was soon to
receive confirmation of a strange and
startling kind.
While he was still watching her with
anxious alarm, in ease she might try to
get out of the door at the other end of
the carriage, he saw her, to his immense
relief, stop her peregrination and sink
down upon the seat. “Thank heaven,”
he murmured. “I hope she will now 7
wake up before she attempts any more
walking.” But he soon found that he
had been somewhat premature in his
expression of gratitude.
The young lady’s first act after sitting
down was extraordinary, perhaps,
though not at all frightening, being
merely to take off her bonnet and lay
it upon the seat beside her. But it
soon became clear to her horrified com¬
panion that this had only been the
prelude to a far more alarming and em¬
barrassing purpose. For, after calmly
divesting herself of her outside jacket,
she next proceeded to unbutton and
take off the bodice^pf her dress! What,
in the name of horrors, did this mean?
What on earth did the sleeping young
lady dream that she was doing?
tier next move threw some light
upon the matter. She commenced
with great deliberation to take the hair
pins out of her hair and let it down
about her neck and shoulders. Then,
possessing herself of a hairbrush from
the traveling bag at her side, she pro
ceeded to eomb her long, thick tresses
very energetically.
Mr. McParson was not a genius in
point of penetration, but by putting
two and two together—that is, by com
paring the young lady’s former action
of appearing to walk up stairs with her
present occupation-he had sufficient
intelligence to divine the motive in
fluence at work within her.
She imagined herself in her bedroom,
just retiring for the night; and the no
tion of disrobing, with which her
ing thoughts were busy, had set her
unconscious hands performing that task
£n very earnest.
The old gentleman did not arrive at
this conclusion all in a minute; but
when he did arrive at it he felt no
doubt whatever that he had hit the
right nail on the head. And as he be¬
gan to realize the consequences likely,
nay, certain, to result from such a sit
nation, he felt something more than
embarrassed and horrified.
The worst part of it was, he felt
helpless to do anything, He dared
not wake the young woman up, not
only because of the danger to her life
involved in so doing, but also because,
even if she got over that safely, she
would be so startled, taken back and
overwhelmed at finding herself in such
a situation that, before he had time to
give any explanations, she would prob¬
ably shriek out for help. And should
the train be stopped and they two be
found under these equivocal conditions
alone together in the carriage, why
matters would look rather bad for him.
to say the least.
On the other hand, to let her pro
ceed further with the work of disrobing
was to make his present position even
more distressingly embarrassing than it
was. And, of course, the more ad
vanced the slate of deshabille in which
she found herself when she ultimately
woke up, the more intense would be
her agitation and horror. Yet, what
could he do to stop her? He was, in
this respect, as helpless as an unborn
babe.
There is no denying, indeed, that the
situation was sufficiently awkward, and
calculated to make the most bold and
reckless of men wish themselves safe
out of it. But an ordinary person can
scarcely realize the overpowering hor
ror, trepidation and dismay which it
produced in this prim and pompous old
Puritan. He sat motionless in his seat,
wiping the clammy moisture from his
forehead and looking the very picture
of helpless desperation, his eyes riveted
in a horrorstruck gaze upon the un¬
conscious young lady.
By and by she stopped brushing her
hair, and put back the brush in the bag.
Now would come a still more embarrass¬
ing condition of things. Of course she
would proceed with her disrobing. But
no I Apparently, she was under the
impression that she had completed that
task. For her next move was to stretch
herself at full length upon the seat, and
draw up her railway rug over her—like
a person getting into bed.
As Mr. McParson watched her go
through this latter evolution lie was
conscious of a considerable sense of re¬
lief. It was something that she had
stopped so soon in the process of un¬
dressing, and had not carried out her
unconscious task to the bitter end.
Besides, she was now for the present in
a start 1 of quiescent repose, thus giving
him a minute or two in which to con¬
sider his position without being mo¬
mentarily agitated and distracted by
some fresh vagary on her part.
But due reflection did not bring
much comfort with it, after all. Look¬
ing at his watch, he saw that in twenty
minutes they were due at Grantham.
What if the young lady did no tresume
her garments before the train stopped
at that station ? To say that it would
be highly embarrassing for him to be
discovered alone with her under such
conditions would only be to put it
feebly. For, though there was noth¬
ing absolutely improper in the young
lady’s present state of undress, except
conventionally, still, in these matters,
the conventional standard was every¬
thing.
And Mr. McParson was conscious
that if lie himself were to discover a
brother elder of the kirk alone in a rail¬
way carriage with a young Iady, whose
hair was down her back and the bodice
of her dress off, revealing a particular¬
ly white neck and a nicely rounded
pair of arms, he should regard that
brother elders conduct with decided
suspicion.
Five minutes passed, and the young
lady slumbered peacefully on, wliile
Mr. McParson felt with a sinking heart
that he was being helplessly hurried
forward to his doom.
“Good heavens!” he groaned miser
erably, “I wish she would now take it
into her head to dream that she was
j getting up, and would put her clothes
on again. What would I not give at
this minute to have the controlling of
her fancies!'
He consulted his watch again. _
ters were getting more and more des
perate. In less than a quarter of an
hour they would be at. Grantham,
all of a sudden, an idea dashed
across tils mind which made him "bring
his hand sharply down upon his knee
and exclaim determinedly:
“ ’Pon my word, I’ll try it. It's
desperately unlikely to succeed. But
I do believe it’s the only chance. And,
at any rate, it can do no harm.”
After a minute or so of close re¬
flection, during which he bit his nails in
11a most agitated and excited manner,
Mr. McParson prepared to put his idea
into effect, lie had heard that the
sleeping fancies of people in the young
lady’s state might sometimes be shaped
or modified by external circumstances.
And iie now intended to make a des
perate effort to influence liis slumber
big companion through these means.
His first experiment was to rap
sharply with his knuckles on the door
of the compartment, anxiously watch¬
ing the sleeper’s face as he did so. With
a thrill of excitement, almost of tri¬
umph, he saw her lips move, and heard
her drowsily murmur, “Come in.”
This preliminary success stimulated
him to persevere with his intention.
And with a look of grave and breath¬
less anxiety, which showed that ho was
quite unconscious of the irresistibly
comic part he was enacting, he raised
his deep voice to a piping falsetto, and
said, with as good an imitation of a
chambermaid as ho could manage:
“Time to get up, ma’am I Here’s
your hot water, ma’am 1”
Ills desperate and unlikely designs
succeeded beyond his wildest hopes.
The slumberer threw oil her rug, rose
and stretched herself; then, after going
through certain inexplicable move¬
ments which Mr. McParson guessed to
be imaginary ablutions, she proceeded
carefully and deliberately to do her
hair ,up. This step completed, she
donned her dress bodice, then her trav
eling jacket, and, finally, her bonnet;
the old gentleman watching her as she
went through these several grades ol
her toilet with an ever increasing sense
of relief, triumph and self congratula¬
tion. And certainly there is no deny
ipg that ho owed his escape from a
most embarrassing situation entirely to
his own ingenuity.
The jerking caused by the application
of the brake to stop the train, as it ran
into Grantham, at last really awoke the
young lady. She sat up, rubbed her
eyes, and stared about her in a dazed
sort of manner, appearing rather star¬
tled to find another passenger in the
compartment. But she soon regained
her composure, and regarded Mr.
McParson with a perfectly unembar¬
rassed gaze—a thing which she would
have found difficult to do had she been
ever so dimly conscious of the figure
which she liad presented to him a
quarter of an hour ago.
As for the worthy Scot, he was much
too thankful for his escape to run the
most remote possibility of further risk;
so he left the carriage at Grantham,
and continued his journey northward
in another compartment, hugging him¬
self not a iittle on the ready wit which
had won him salvation from an ap¬
parently inevitable fiasco. —London
Truth.
Rapid Bridge Building.
The quickest bridge building on rec¬
ord was done by an engineer named
Dredge, who, in eight days, put an iron
span across the Biackwater, in Tyrone
county, Ireland. It was 74 feet in
length. Dredge died before the popu
lar agitation was begun in Philadelphia
for a modern bridge across the Schuyl¬
kill at Walnut street. That project lias
been iliscussed for a quarter of a cen¬
tury. The Schuylkill, at this point, is
deeper than the Bronx and nearly as
deep as the Harlem river.—New York
Sun.
Footprints of a Giant Steed ano Rider.
There is a fiat rock near the old
Echols mill that covers an acre of
ground. One of the strange features
of the rock is the track of some huge
beast of burden, also the tracks of the
rider of this queer antediluvian mon¬
ster. It seems that the rider and his
steed made a tour across the rock,
leaving their tracks impressed in the
solid granite.
About midway of the stony surface
can be seen a place where the girth of
the rider’s saddle broke and lie dis¬
mounted to fix it, leat ing his tracks as
plain as if made in a sand bed. The
baud of time has not erased them, but
they are there now, showing the form
of the animal s feet and the precise Iru
pression of the giant’s feet impressed
therein, with toes and all as perfect and
distinct as a schoolboy’s bare foot track
of today. Crawford Cor. Atlanta Con
stitutiojc
Price per Year, $1.00
EXTRAORDINARILY GRATEFUL.
A Dude Offers a Brave Rescuer a Ciga¬
rette for Savins: His I,ife.
Slain I Bang!
These were the noises 1 heard the
other day as I stood alone on the plat¬
form of the Union depot, watching one
of the Central Hudson flyers come in.
The sounds attracted my attention
the more because a dude with his col¬
lar half torn off and a big grip in his
hand landed almost beside me, and
then went whirling along the platform,
while his cane went rolling in the op¬
posite direction.
At first I thought the poor chappie
had been struck by the train, but the
attitude of a stalwart yardmaster just
this side of the thundering locomotive
explained the situation. The dude had
been thrown bodily off the track.
For a moment the human missile
seemed bewildered. Then he merely
exclaimed “Awl” and gathered himself
up and sought his grip and stick.
He approached the railroad employe
with a countenance filled with mingled
wonder and gratitude.
“Aw, wailvvoad man.” he drawled,
•‘you ah a wondah.”
“Yep,” replied his rescuer.
“Aw, ef it liawdn’t been foil yaw I’d
been a mangled corpse. ”
“Yep.”
“Yaw, aw, pweeipitated me from the
pawth of a wusliing locomotive, and
I’m, aw, gweatly obliged to yaw.”
“Yep.”
“Y’aw handled me wather wuff, but
then the impulse of the mawment, I
suppows, made you do it.”
“Yep.”
“Have a cigawette?”
“Nope.”
The dude rearranged his apparel and
disappeared in the parlor car.
Had it not been for the courage and
coolness of the yardmaster the dude
would have been a subject for a coro¬
ner’s inquest.
He was standing directly between the
rails looking at the locomotive, as if he
were trying to make out what it really
was. *
The yardmaster had thrown him
completely from the track just in time,
for the locomotive almost grazed them
both as it whizzed by.
Such an occurrence happens every
day in the week. People will persist in
staying about the yard and getting
mixed up just at the wrong time.
Sometimes it is an innocent looking
countryman, sometimes a woman who
is bound to do just as she wishes in
spite of all the railroads on earth, and
sometimes it is the very clever man who
thinks he knows it all.—Albany Argus.
A l}oy Alrao xt Sivallotved bj' a I’vtlioa.
At Judan, a village six miles from
Muka, a man and his son, aged from
ten to twelve years, were, sleeping in
their house inside a mosquito curtain.
They were on the floor near the wall.
% In the middle of the night the father
was awakened by his son calling out.
The lamp was out, and the father
passed his hand over liis son, but found
nothing amiss, so lie turned over and
went to sleep again, thinking the boy
was dreaming.
Shortly afterward the boy again
called out, saying that a crocodile was
taking him. This time the father,
thoroughly aroused, felt again, and
found that a snttke had closed his jaws
on the boy's head. He then pried open
the reptile’s month and released the
head of his son, but the beast drew the
whole of his body into the house and
encircled the body of the father.
He was rescued by the neighbors,
who were attracted by the cries for
help of the terrified couple. The snake,
when killed, was found to be about fif¬
teen feet long. The head and forehead
of the boy are encircled with punctured
wounds produced by the python’s teeth.
—Sarawak (Borneo) News.
J. P. McMurray, a farmer living near
the Trinity river, has a curiosity in the
shape of a pig with five well formed
legs. The fifth log is between the two
forelegs. It seems to suffer no incon¬
venience whatever in the manipulation
of the same. It uses all five legs in
walking.—Cor. Dallas News.
Pretty Certain.
A well known Detroit millionaire was
saying to his confidential clerk the* other
day, “Now I’ve arranged those papers
for my wife and children all right so
that if I die”-
“If you die,” interrupted the seere
tary, say when- you die; there's no if
about flying.”—Detroit Free Press.