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THE WEEKLY CONSTITUTION, TUESDAY, MAY 16, 1882.
1 fr-,E CONSTITUTION.
Entered at tlie Atlanta Post-office as aecoud-daa
nail matter, November 11.1878.
WrH.tr prlre #t..’>0 per annum.
Clubn of twenty, 620, and acopy to the getter up
the club.
WEEKLY CONSTITUTION, SIX MONTIIP.tl.CO.
ATLANTA, GA., MAY 16, 1882.
Over 50,000 people now read
THE WEEKLY CONSTITU
TION.
Our aim is to have it go to
every fireside in the state.
Do you take it ? If not, send
in your name at once. Don’t
force your family to borrow it.
The more readers we get, the
better we can make the paper.
We promise that it shall be bet
ter, brighter and fuller than ever
before this year. Send in your
name.
‘Ties of the nation's generosity, and it word to lung discuses, makes the new field of inqui-
“be in the worst of taste for us to insist upon ry one of great importance. If Professor
General Wheeler, of Alabama, is the next
democratic congressman who will have to go.
The republicans want a working majority,
and they will hesitate at nothing that stands
in the way of their geHing it.
Arizona is indignant. The president has
thought proper to enforce the law, and to
some prominent frontiersmen nothing worse
could happen. The usual resolutions have
been adopted and forwarded to Washington.
Ciiet has placed his sign-manual to the
Chinese bill, and the Mongolian must rest
from his migration toward the golden gate.
Tlic news comes from Hong Kong, however,
that they are coming by shiploads while they
have the chance.
Making returns of wild lands for purposes
of taxation has hitherto been a source of
much annoyance in this state; but a new ele
ment of discord is now pointed out, being the
payment of taxes on the same property by
several claimants, thus afiording the tax col
lector a possible temptation in the handling
of funds.
The first shipment of cotton via the
Georgia Pacific was received in Atlanta yes
terday. That hale will play an important
part in the commercial history of the city
when the receipts over that road shall have
rolled up into the thousands, and the thrifty
inhabitants of the newly developed section
shall contribute their resources to our volume
of trade.
Mr. Blount, in the composition of the
committees by the new speaker, was ousted
from a field of labor in which he had won
merited distinction. In his new field, how
ever, his versatility as a statesman has been
tested, and lie is to-day a more prominent
figure than ever before. His cross examina
tion of the oily Shipherd has attracted gcti
oral comment.
This is the day of religious conventions.
The Protestant Episcopal church has dio
cesan convocations in session at Athens.
Georgia; Spartanburg, South Carolina, and
Nashville, Tennessee. The Southern Baptists
arc discussing matters at Greenville, South
Carolina; the Southern Methodists are get
ting fairly to work at Nashville, and the Pres
byterians will, on the 18th, assemble at Co
lumbus, Georgia.
“making the terms on which we will consent
“to be benefiWed.”
THE AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENT.
The house has passed the bill to make an
executive department of the agricultural bu.
reau—in other words, to make Dr. Loring a
cabinet officer, and his department equal to
anyone piesidedoverbyt.be other secreta
ries. The bill provides for four bureaus un
der the new department—one for the collec
tion of agricultural statistics, one for animal
industries, one of forestry and timber, and
one for commerce. It is proposed to institute
system of gathering crop reports that will be
productive of valuable resul ts. At presen t the
crop reports of the agricultural bureau com
mand no respect whatever. No one has any
confidence in them. This can undoubtedly
be changed, but it is very doubtful whether
any official reports of growing crops can be
bad that will equal in accuracy those gathered
through private sources. The effort to secure
authentic information should, however, be
made. The whole country is just now wait
ing to hear how the crops of the year are
likely to turn out, and any help in this direc
tion of an official nature will be welcome.
The new secretary is to be an agriculturist,
and his powers and duties will be
enlarged from time to time, especially if the
secretaryship is filled by a man who is able to
command the confidence of the great interests
that he is to supervise. The fate of the bill
in the senate is somewhat doubtful, but if it
is not passed at this session, it will be at the
short one. While Mr. LeDuc held the fort
such an enlargement of the office was impos
sible. Mr. Loring has won the confidence of
the country, and there is every reason to be
lieve that he will step into the cabinet if the
bill becomes a law.
Koch can continue his developments from the
discovery of the parasite to the compounding
a remedy to kill it, his name will deserv
edly rank with those of Jenner and Pasteur.
After reading the latest developments in
the Ilountrce case, as detailed by the Atlie ns
Banner, the whole people of Georgia, and
of Athens particularly, will be gratified to
recollect that in a perilous moment judicious
counsels prevailed, and that what would have
been a public disgrace was averted. Lynch
law is never justifiable because it is alway
iable to be unjust, while the law of the land
if properly sustained by public sentiment,
will always prove equal to every emergency.
MR. STEPHENS ONCE MORE.
We announce with pleasure this morning
that we are just placed in possession of infor
mation we cannot doubt that Mr. Stephens
in the most thorough accord with the organ
ized democratic party of Georgia—that he
will accept its nomination for governor if it
is tendered liiih, and that in default of this
lie will not be in the race for governor as the
candidate of any faction or party. We make
this statement upon the most direct authority,
and with the fullest indorsement of its relia
bility.
Mr. Stephens himself has made no state
ment since his name has been mentioned for
governor that would cast any doubt as to his
position in this matter, but tbe use that has
been made of his candidacy by others who
are relentlessly opposed tc the democratic
party, mado it the duty of Tue Constitution
to speak plainly on this subject, and to lay
down an alternative line of action if our
doubts should be materialized.
It is not calculated to strengthen any man
with the democratic party to have the pnblic
indorsement of Colonel Henry P. Farrow, but
if he car take Mr. Stephens with the an
nouncement made above, there is a possibili
ty that the democratic party will continue to
iltcrease in size until thero is no opposition.
We certainly have no objection to this.
TEN MILLIONS A YEAR FOR EDUCATION
The half-dozen bills introduced to give
federal aid to education have been set aside
by the house committee on education and
labor, in favor of one to annually
appropriate $10,000,009 for five years.
Tbe money is to be' distribu
ted to each state in the proportion which
the illiterary of each state and territory bears
to the total illiteracy of the country, as shown
by the last census. It must be divided pro
portionately between white and colored
schools and pupils. The southern states will
receive $7,556,773 out of the whole amount.
The committee says in the report that it is
not in any manner interfere with the educa
tional machinery in the states. The money is
to be expended through state officers under
the terms of the bill, every one of which is
reasonable and just. On this subject, the
.New Oileans Timea-Democrat very properly
says: “The United States occupies toward us
“the relation of a benefactor—of one who de
motes for our benefit a certain gift, and who
‘•stipulates that the gift shall be bestowed
“»nd enjoyed in a certain manner and under
“certain conditions. We are the beneficia-
THE TARIFF QUESTION.
The readers of The Constitution surely did
not overlook the fact that Mr. Speer alone of
the Georgia members voted for the tariff
commission bill. The members who voted
against the bill undoubtedly represented the
sentiment of the state on the subject For
the commission bill is, in the first place, one
of delay. It gives the monopolists an exten
sion of two years, whereas if congress had
done its duty by taking up the subject
at once, a reduction could have been
effected in the tariff before the close
of the present fiscal year. Congress once ad
ded ten per cent to all duties; why could
it not take off 20 per cent in view of our im
mense surplus revenue, while an investigation
of the entire subject is proceeded with? But
the protectionists objected to any such bill
They wanted delay, and so, to a man, they
supported the commission project.
In the second place, the new commission is
a snare and a delusion. It will be made up of
protectionists with two or three alleged free
traders or revenue reformers thrown in. No
free-trader of force and knowledge will have a
seat among the nine. Already the pro
tectionists have protested against
the appointment of Mr. David A
Wells, and they will doubtless be able to in
duce our high-tariff president to conform to
their wishes. No good, immediate or remote,
need be expeted from the commission. The
whole scheme was devised and put through
by the monopolists, and beyond serving as
means to keep up the agitation over the sub
ject, it will come to naught. The agitation
of the subject will, however, lead to a proper
settlement of the matter. The schemers in
and out of congress may delay a revision
and reduction of duties, but they cannot
prevent the people from overhauling in
the long run the bundle of jobs that tbe war
and reconstruction period put upon the
country as a measure of public revenue. The
three parts of private grabbing will be stricken
out, leaving one part of legitimate taxation
But that will not occur this year, or next
year unless the people speak in a manner that
will be plain even to those who do not want
to hear.
THE LIVING PARASITE.
In seeking a cure the first element of knowl
edge required is as to the exact nature of the
disease. Without such knowledge, all efforts
to apply a remedy are but leaps in the dark,
just as liable to work injury as good. The
discovery by an eminent French physician
of the parasite, or baccilli, from which erup
tive fevers are germinated, led the way for
the discovery of remedies which have well-
nigh robbed all such diseases of their terrors,
and which make science master of the situa
tion.
The investigation of Professor Koch, the
great German physician, into the origin and
development of tubercular diseases, as de
tailed by such an authority as Professor Tin
dall, and treated seriously by the British
Medical News, but leads the way in a mighty
revolution by which that most wasting and
fatal of diseases may yet be made to yield as
readily to the physician’s skill as the most or
dinary fevers. It has been demonstrated, by
tests on animals and the regular operations in
the dissecting room, that consumption, pneu
monia, phthisis, and similar diseases, are
caused by the presence of a poisonous para
site, which continues its depredations upon
the lung until it results in the death of its
victim. The further fact has been demon
strated that in many ways these diseases are
communicable, the most remarkable case
believed that this sum will enable these
states to support schools for six months
every year, when added to the amount raised
by state or local law, and in some of the
states for a longer period.
This bill which was reported to the house
on Thursday commands the unanimous sup-
A NEW DEPARTMENT. .
The house has passed with only seven dis
senting votes the bill to change the argicultu-
ral bureau that Dr. Loring has charge of into
an executive department. The course of the
debate and the votes in the house show that
this is one of those bills that everybody who
has political ambition prefers to support; and
there are, therefore, no grounds for expecting
its rejection in the senate.
We have the bill before us. It provides
that the new secretary shall organize four
bureaus, namely:
First. The bureau of agricultural products
which shall include divisions of botany, ento
mology and chemistry, and the chief of which
bureau, who shall be a practical agriculturist,
shall investigate the modes of farming in the
several states and territories, and shall report
such practical information as shall tend to
increase the profits of the farmer respecting
the various methods; the crops most profit
able in the several sections; the preferable
varieties of seeds, vines, plants and fruits;
fertilizers; implements; buildings, and sim
ilar matters.
Second. The bureau of animal industry, to
be in charge of a competent veterinary sur
geon, who shall investigate and report upon
the number, value and condition of the do
mestic animals of the United States; their
protection, growth and use; the causes, pre
vention or cure of contagious, communicable
or other diseases; and the kinds, races or
reeds best adapted to the several sections for
profitable raising.
Third. The bureau of lands, the chief of
which shall investigate and - report upon the
resources or capabilities of the public or other
lands for farming, stock raising, timber, man
ufacturing. mining, or other industrial uses.
And all powers and duties vested in the com
mission now known as the geological survey,
together with all clerks, employes, and
agents, and all instruments, records, books,
papers, and so forth, are to be transferred to
the department of agriculture. And the sec
retary may, through this bureau, institute
such investigations and collect such informa
tion, facts, and statistics relative to the mines
and mining of the United States as may be
deemed of value and importance.
Fourth. The bureau of statistics, the chie
of which shall collect and report the agricul
tural statistics of the United States; and, in
addition, all important information or statis
tics relating to industrial education and
agricultural colleges; to labor and wages in
this and other countries; to markets and
prices; to modes and cost of transporting
agricultural products and live stock to their
market; to the demand, supply and prices in
foreign markets; to the location, num
ber and products of manufacturing estab
lishments of whatever sort, the sources ot
raw material, methods, markets and prices
to such commercial or other conditions as
may affect the market value of farm products
or the interests of the industrial classes of
the United States. And the secretary is au
thorized to establish such divisions in this
bnrean, and to make such monthly or other
reports, as he shall deem most effective
the prompt dissemination of such reliable in
formation respecting crops and domestic and
foreign markets as will be of service to the
farmers or other industrialists of the United
States.
The bill was reported and pushed through
by Representative Anderson of Kansas, who
by the way is not a practical farmer. He
was, however, for six years president of ihe
Kansas agricultural college, and has carefully
studied agricultural matters. Most of the
speeches in favor of the bill were delivered by
lawyers; but this fact serves to show that the
bill will encounter very little opposition in
the senate, and that Mr. Arthur will soon be
called upon to nominate an additional cabinet
officer.
An Attack Upon a Woman.
From the Gwinnett Herald.
The quietness of a community about two
miles below Stone Mountain has been no lit
tle disturbed of late by a series of outrages
committed by one Seab R. Brown, a notorious
character, upon a widow woman, Mrs. Sarah
Gariuley. Some few weeks ago Brown went
to the residence of Mrs. Gamley enraged about
some little difference that had arisen between
her and his wife, whereupon he assaulted her,
knocked her down, inflicted some wounds
upon her person with a knife and even, as I
learn, attempted to cut her throat. Brown
was put under arrest, but by some mysterious
means the matter was compromised. The other
eveuing Brown’s wife met her in the road.
no words particular were passed, and she
stabbed her in the side with a knife which she
had concealed about her person. Mrs. Gam-
ley immediately had Mrs. Brown put under
arrest, Brown again became enraged, threat
ened Mrs. Gamley’s life, and as she lived
near Brown, many persons advised
her for her own personal safety and
that of her fatherless children to leave
to leave home and go to some neighbors. She
did so. Last night about 8 o’clock p.m., her
house was fired, and it and all the contents,
ncluding provisions, clothing, etc., was con
sumed. A widow woman and fatherless chil
dren are now homeless, without anything,
turned out upon the world. Great indigna
tion is manifested everywhere.
A Baby Elephant.
From the Montezuma Weekly.
We have been to the home of a colored
mother on one of our back streets and found
remarkable monstrosity in a week old babe.
It is partly enveloped in an elephant’s skin,
and could not be told from the hide of this
animal unless seen on the child. It has a
thick, rough, scaly exterior, covered with
‘list enough long hair to easily discern it.
The child has a long, pendant ear on
that side of the head covered by this
skin, we view it as a fac simile of the
ear of a baby elephant. This skin protrudes
a quarter of an inch above the natural skin of
the child. Its cries are low and plaintive like
an animal, not a human being. The mother
states that she attended a circus last fall, was
frightened by the elephants and regards this
as the cause of the child's strange deformity.
This child, or animal as it may turn out to
be, is large and healthy and seems likely to
live. What a curiosity it would be if it should
live. One of our citizens has offered the
mother a thousand dollars for it. It is daily
visited by hundreds.
TAKING HIS WORD FOR IT.
From the Detroit Froe Press.
A Randolph street saloon-keeper, who had long
been bothered by a dead-beat, tapped him on the
shoulder the other day and said:
“My friend, I don't want you here any more.
“Don’t you? I can hardly believe it, but of
oourse I shall take your word for it. I suppose
you’ll set out the drinks on this rad occasion?’'
“Oh, yes. Walk right up."
The saloon is t had taken some forty-rod and added
a liberal supply of cayenne pepper, dashed in some
vinegar and poured in enough molasses to maze
the drink slip down. The beat poured out a stiff
dram and tossed it off without stopping to breathe,
and as he set down the gloss and let the tears course
down his bronzed cheek be asked:
“Do 1 weep?”
”1 should rather think you did!"
“Well, sir, I want you to distinctly understand
that I am not weeping on account of any trifle that
has occurred here—not by a jug full! My emotion
is occasioned by hearing of the death of an aunt,
Good-day, sir.”
HEIGHTENING THE LANDSCAPE.
From the Brooklyn Eagle.
They were strolling together in the moonlight by
the water’s edge at the foot of the garden. Taking
advantage of their fancied seclusion, the young
man gently encircled the maiden’s waist with his
arm and. drawing her to him, for the first time in
tbe course of their love partook of that refreshment
which is fabled to surpass in sweetness the most
exquisite cranberry jam. The next moral g after
breakfast her father took her aside and coldly re
marked :
“Mary, you were walking with Walter last even
ing.”
“Yes. papa.”
“What was he doing while you stood so close to
gether at the foot of the walk?”
The maiden blushed deeply, but quickly recov
ering her presence of mind, answered:
“Papa, you have a right to know. He was only
heightening the effect of the landscape.” .
CURIOUSF ACTS.
1 From the Montezuma Weekly.
| A colored boy near town has six fingers on
1 ohe hand.
port of the committee; but it has no chances j Fr i l ™ the Sparta Ishmaelite.
ol gtaaagp -to. i. c b, . q«eU or- ”h? pb^oX
der, which requires a two-thirds vote. It is I moon when they plant, sow, reap, hunt, fish,
not known whether this can be done. There ! kill hogs, or start new enterprises.
is a verv favorable sentiment on the subject From the Swainsboro Herald.
* In Swamsboro we have fleas of every na
tionality—the Chinese, the Russian, theJew,
etc., and they are getting so thick that the
American fleas are thinking about having 1
bill passed to put a stop to so much immigra
tion. The bill will receive our support.
From the Montezuma Weekly.
Mr. John H. Robinson is a great man for
curiosities. Recently he produced a four-
in both houses of congress, but whether that
sentiment is strong enough to carry the bill
through out of its order remains to be seen.
Let us hope that when the bill is taken up no j
outh ern member will vote against it It does
being one in which the disease was intro
duced through the aqueous matter of the eye.
THE SPENT BULLET.
TH FAILURE OF SCIENCE AND
THE FAILURE OF PRAYER.
Another Failure of Law lor the Assassin Still Ltvte
—A Spicy Review of the Scenes by the Bedside of
the Dying GaiCeld—Gail Hamilton
Enlarges Up.n tha Subject.
Uncle Dave at the Bee-Gum.
From the Oglethorpe Echo.
Last week Mrs. Richard Silvey caught a dog
sucking some of her eggs and wisely conclud
ed to chain the animal to prevent further
mischief. So she procured a chain and fas
tened tlie rogue near a hive of bees. After
remaining a short while the dog concluded
that iie would have some honey, and upset
ting the bee-gum lie was at ont e covered with
these biting Rule creatures that made
him yell to such an alarming extent that
the good lady became excited and called
for help. Uncle Dave Pi Hard was passing the
road and went immediately to her calls, and
rushing up to the sufferer to obliterate her
had one or two of the bees to find their way
to the lower extremity of his back next to the
skin, and our informant says that the last
seen of Uncle Dave on that occasion he was
making his way at the rate of one mile in
three minutes to a thicket with the lower end
of his shirt ir> his hand elevated to an angle
of 45 degrees, yelling at the top of his voice,
“Don’t look this way. if you please, ma’am.”
A Pretty Hard Recor d.
From the Swainesb.ro Herald
If there is a town in Georgia that needs a
good marshal, good, wholesome laws and
council to have them enforced, it is Swains-
boro. Every other civilized town has some
municipal law to be governed by, why can’t
we? We need it—society demands and is en
titled to it. There are times when your
wives, your sisters, your daughters, or your
lady friends wish to take a walk or go
shopping, but are frequently deterred from
fear of meeting some drunken man.
and having their ears assailed by his terrible
cursing and very often obscene language, or
acting in some other disorderly manner. No
law to control his actions. Cursing and swear
ing, ripping and tearing, blackguarding and
disregarding overything that tends to law
and the good order of the community. Such
conduct should be frowned down by every
law-abiding, peace-loving citizen of the town,
and the most effectual way to stop it is to in
stitute laws by which they may be arrested
and put in jail or made to pay a fine for their
behavior.
The Anger of Caesar’s Wife.
From the Thomasville Enterprise-News.
About 10 o’clock on Sunday morning Bella,
the wife of Caesar Sharpe, a colored man liv
ing on Mr. J. S. Smith’s place, cut her hus
band in two places with a butcher knife.
Both cuts are on the back—the first and most
dangerous is just below the left shoulder
blade. The knife struck a rib and glanced
downward, passed between the fourth and
fifth lower ribs and entered the left lung.
The outer portion of the cut is about three
inches long, and the incision large enough to
admit one or two fingers between the ribs.
The other cut is about two inches below the
small of the back and about an inch and a
half wide, the knife striking the hip bone.
There was very profuse hemorrhage from the
upper wound, and air passed freely from the
lung through the orifice.
Chased by the Sisters.
From the Waynesboro Citizen.
An old colored woman came lo town on
Monday, and made complaint to the officers
of law, that on Sunday she had been chased
“trn de swamp and de bamboo briar” by some
of her colored sisters, with the intent to do her
violence. A “want” was promptly issued,
and the parties were brought before Judge
Lovett on Wednesday, who allowed a settle
ment by paying cost, at the request of all the
parties.
An Old Grindstpne.
From the Ilinesville Gazette.
Mr. J. D. McCranme, living near Nashville,
owns a grindstone that was bought by the
citizens of Troupville when that place was
first settled, and used for sometime as a pub
lic grindstone. He lias owned it nearly forty
years.
LOVE’S TRIUMPHS.
Now for the remedy. Il surely cannot be j „ c! '!d f CI ?l n ,? w a £°? d
, , .. , . ... . . ■ healthy calf that won’t suck, it weaning
that the medical skill of the world, having ^ itsel{ a short whUe after binh This ^
a positive knowledge of the cause of the dis- j must be in sympathy with the milk drinkers,
ease, will fail to find a means of killing the J We have in our possession the tooth of _
parasite, or by some sort of inoculation, great- ; epon, an inch and a half in length. His-coon-
sumption. The fact that nearly one-third of : sire. He could have been master of ceremo-
the adult deaths of the world are due solely ’ nies in a dog fight
On the 30th of April last,* at the residence
of Mr. H. C. Appleby, were married Mr. J.
B. King and Miss Mattie Hawkins, all of
Jackson county.
At the residence of the bride’s father, J.
W. Reid, of Pike county, on Sunday last, Mr.
T. B. Lyon was married to Mrs. Anna Cook
by Rev.' L. J. Davis. The wedding was a very
quiet one; very few besides those attending
knew anything about it. Mr. Lyon is well
known in commercial circles as being one of
the most successful merchants of middle
Georgia, and is universally respected. In the
selection of a helpmate he has made a choice
of which any man might be proud.
At Cass station on Sunday 7th instant, Mr,
L. C. M. (Chap) Quillian was married to Miss
Kate McKelvey, Dr. W. H. Felton officiating.
Fiom. the Berrien County News.
We are informed by Elder Charles Roberts,
that Mr. Henry Jewell, age 96, and Miss
Chaney, age 16, both of Cofiee county, were
united in matrimony a few days since. We
fear their earthly treasure will not be made
up of jewels.
ENGAGED.
From the Griffin News.
The engagement of Mr. Julius Mack, of
this city, to Miss Rebecca Isaacs, of Macon,
is announced. Mr. Mack is one of our en
terprising young merchants, and is popular in
Griffin society. Miss Isaacs, we learn, is one
of Macon’s most accomplished ladies, and her
coming to Griffin will De an accession to the
society. * The marriage will be sometime in
the early autumn.
Never again let this generation, at least
hear one whimper from science against re
ligion. In the long warfare religion has often
chosen her ground with stupidity, selected
her weapons with ignorance, and wielded her
forces with passionate feebleness; but she
never made so pitiful a display and so futile a
use of her resources as science made over the
deathbed of President Garfield. When the
question is of nebula?, of atoms, of the rock s
growth and the earth’s age, of the spirit s sub
stance, of life’s origin, of the infinite in
space, the inconceivable in time, the unknow
able in eternity—science has it all her own
way. We cannot bridge the chasm between
mind and matter. No man hath seen God at
any time to prove Him the Creator. From
the grave no being has arisen to our eyes, and
from the stars no voice comes to our ears to
dispute whatever the wise men may say.
But here was solid ground for science to
stand on and demonstrate her power. She had
nothing to do with the remote, with ihe past,
with abstractions. Beiore her eyes, under
hea hand, lay a human soul in sore strait—a
human lite hunted into the valley of the
shadow of death, longing to come out into
the sunshine of the lair and open day. ihe
whole nation, the whole world, shared in the
longing. Whatever love and wealth could
proffer was ready to the hand of science.
Everything that ‘gratitude could inspire,
everything that ambition could desire, lay m
wait to reward the man who should conduct
the august sufferer back through the gates of
life.
And science accepted the trust manfully.
The most celebrated and the most accom
plished brought to that darkened chamber
their highest knowledge with ever renewed
and unwearving effort. The railroad and the
telegraph were put under their control. No
cost hindered any experiment or curtailed
any care. The nation stood behind, not only
permitting, but urging every expenditure of
brains and money; to the same end, urged
their own self-interest, patriotism and Human
ity. Day and uight-lhey ceased not to work
and watch, and the result was—failure—abso
lute, thorough, undisputed fuilure—iailure so
minute and complete tbat only its terrible
gravity kept it from being ridiculous, and not
even its terrible gravity could keep it from
being grotesque.
Science can spin the world back between
her thumb and linger a billion j ears, and we
go spinning with it because we cunuut help
ourselves. Science can locate the soul in
tne grayish matter of the brain, and
we submit because we cannot dig deeper than
that grayish matter to search for u deeper
soul. But when science comes into a practi
cal realm where we can prove or disprove her
accuracy, her keenest scent lor truth, her
finest touch of skill is to grope till the mun is
dead, and then find the bullet in a washbowl.
Nescience could do that. What availed
science to Garfield? She never treated or
touched the wouud which the bullet made,
and which she was summoned to heal. She
never even found it She made two ghastly
wounds herself, and for eighty days she
clawed at them. The bullet which the sur
geons could not find nature carefully en
cysted. The bullet wound which they never
touched, nature sal'ely and silently healed.
Surgical science is reduced ;o the pitiful
claim that she alone kept Garfield alive for 80
days. This is a suicidal sell-relegation to the
unprovable. Routed on the tangible field of
fact, flees to the cloud-land of speculation
and again throws up intrenehmenis. So
claimed the pious and thrifty Winchester for
bluff King Hal—
“1 he church’s prayers made him so prosperous.”
And as grim Gloster thundered back:
“The church! Where is il?
Had not the churchmen prayed,
His threads of life had uoi s*> soon decayed"—
So in response to this claim, wnich can
never be demonstrated, is it equally irrefuta-
able and perfectly fair to say:
Had not the doctors prayed,
His thread of life had not so soon decayed.
Nescience has precisely the same right and
the same reason to speculate; take a man in
perfect health, and give him into the control
of surgeons, unwounded, and let them make
two such wounds as Garfield suffered at his
surgeons’ hands, and let them bore into these
wounds every day as Garfield’s wounds were
bored into—sometimes with seven different
catheters of different sizes at a single dressing
—and let them feed the man as Garfield was
fed, and furnish him with the malarious air
that Garfield breathed, and sequester him as
Garfield was sequestered—and not one man
in 10,000 would survive the horror of it for 80
days.
Nor is it surgical science alone that suffers.
Electricity came forward—stimulated by the
common grief, and love and longing—with an
ingenious scheme to discover the ball by
some mystical metallic affinity. The world
was proudly bidden to bend itsearand heark
en to the hum and buzz of the obedient bullet
responding to the summons of the marvelous
machine. How it did hum and buzz! We
heard it from Maine to California, and did
obesiance to science.
But when the weary soul had fled, and this
fine and far-reaching science could fall to
work like a butcher in the shambles, the
bullet was not there! It never had been
there. Science was so wholly blind to the
bullet’s location that she took an hour and
a half to find it, even in the shambles. The
bullet lay remote, concealed, where kindly
nature wove around it the curtain of harm
lessness, while a malignant and mischievous
pus-pocket was personating it to the credu
lous surgeons and laugning science to scorn
for eighty dajs. Life guarded her secret well.
Death did but toss up a flattened leaden ball
to a useless and senseless scalpel. t
I touch upon these dire facts, which all
men shudder to remember, not from hostility
to the surgeons, but in utter repudiation of
the vain, glorious boasting of science. I fully
believe that the surgeons did, with patriotic
as well as professional honor, their very high
est best And because it was their highest
best, religion has a right to demand of science
—an infant of days, and now self proven to
be a meal ng and puking infant—to cease her
random interference with religion, and to
give herself exclusively to sharpening her
own eyes and strengthening her own muscle.
But while her foe, science—falsely so-called,
nescience rightly named, since true science
and true religion are not only not foes, but
two phases of one truth—while science is thus
humiliated, religion, if never again, can af
ford to be frank and admit that her preten
sions, too, were a good deal shattered by that
ta-eacherous bullet The faith cure was ap
plied, and it failed just as egregiously aiid
just as conspicuously as the science cure
failed. It was appealed to, not with skeptical
and sneering intent, but with sincerity and
humility. The nation fell upon its knees in
a common grief and a common desire. Men
were not content to pray in secret with indi
vidual earnestness. They wanted- to intensify
their earnestness with an allied enthusiasm.
They would besiege the throne of grace in
battalions. They took the Almighty at His
word, literally, and every day the sick man
traveled toward the tomb till be sank into its
darkness. Then the spokesmen of religion,
instead of recognizing the facts and recon
structing theories upon them, straightway
turned about and began to explain them
away. They refused to admit that their
prayers had not been answered, and beean to
argue that they were answered, only in
another way. This is neither scientific nor
religious. It is not frank. It is not sensible
it is not scriptural. If a man ask bread shali
God give him a stone. St. James says square
ly, the prayer of faith shall save the sick—not
make it on the whole best-that he should die.
The Lord shall raise him up—not reconcile
the nation to seeing him cast down. The
Bible is not a straightforward and honest book
if its words must be thus twisted to make
them true. The nation in good faith asked
for the president’s life. It is idle to say
that we wanted it if God saw that it
was best That goes without saying. If
God saw that it was besi, He would order it
Himself. No one supposes that God will ever
do less than best. Tiie directions are simple,
i’he contract is easily understood. St. Janies
docs not hedge. The prayer of faith shall
save the sick and the Lord slflill raise lnm up.
We prayed the prayer of faith and it did not
save the sick. The laird did not raise him up.
Must it be said that it was not the prayer of
faith? It was all t he faith there was. Every
thing of religion in the land was in that long-
drawn summer of pain and prayer, and the
only prayer answered and the only plan ma
tured were Guiteau’s. He said tie was di
vinely inspired to remove the president—and
he dici remove him -by the most cowardly of
murders. He said he would harmonize the
republican party, and over that couch,
of suffering all factions were hushed
for two silent months. _ A liar from
the beginning, a monster of intelligence and
iniquity, sprung from the dregs of an ances
tral blood whose revolutionary force and re
ligious fervor had left this horrible sediment
of malignity and murder, his hand slaugh
tered a lofty life and reversed a national
movement. Religion may well shudder to
behold the man, but he is hers. He is not an
infidel. He is a Christian. It is a ghastly and
loathsome skeleton, but it is the skeleton of a
pure ancestral Huguenot faith, perfect in all
11s parts. Heavenly influence, Divine protec
tion and Providence, communion with God,
companionship with Christ—there is not asa-
cred truth, a solemn trust, which Guiteau has
not beslimed with the acrid poison of his
tongue. Naming every name which the
church holds holy, he stands before the
church and the world totally depraved,
proving, by the horror which we re
gard him, how little the church has ever
Relieved in the doctrine of total depravity.
Let us be frank. The church stood ready,
waiching, eager to leap up and claim for
prayer the credit of Garfield’s recovery. She
prayt - . —
coaid not wait the issue. >\ lien the cloud
lifted a little and let a momentary gleam of
hope shine through, the church sang softly,
tentatively, timidly, as needs she must, her
delight in the answer to prayer. But if Gar
field's recovery was answer to prayer and jus
tification of the church’s theory, then his
death was the non-answer to prayer and the
destruction of her theory. If the church
founds her philosophy on the sand, that
philosophy must crash when the sand is
washed away. When James, a servant of God
and of the Lord Jesus Christ, senthis greeting
to the twelve tribes which were scat
tered, and assured them that the prayer
of faitli should save the sicx, it
may well be that he spoke the truth. I can
easily believe that He by whom the worlds
were made was perfectly acquainted with all
the properties and forces of matter, and could
certity himself to His leebie and ignorant
followers by combinatious and appliances
which science has taken thousands of years
to feel after, and will take thousands more to-
command. But to say that He does it now,
to say that, lu response to the prayers of the
church, He did it last summer tor tne United
States ot America, is a statement which in
telligence cannot accept, and which ecelesi-
osticisin cannot enforce. Science, indeed,
reaped a haivestof humiliation, but theology
won no laurels from this solemn summer.
When surgery had relinquished the tortur
ed body, and theology had tried to readjust
herselt from the shock of the released soul,
law came to the front to avenge violated jus
tice and to protect menaced society. The pro
cess had not been fragrant, nor does the re
sult betoken a brilliant triumph. I do not
presume to pass judgment upon lawyers any ■
more than upon ministers and doctors.
W hat is to be said of the law is said, not
relatively to its administration in other courts
or countries, but to the administration of the
law in itself considered. And thus consider
ed, the fact remains, unquestioned and un
questionable, that a bad man—a liar, aswiud-
ler, a malignant from the beginning, canker
ed with conceit, inflamed with egotism—mur
dered a man in open day, in presence of many
witnesses. The penalty of murder is the
rope. Wide, one might suppose, would be
tbe gate, and broad the way, and swift the
march of that man to the gallows.
The days passed into weeks, and the weeks
into months, and the air whose sacred hush
received the last breath of the beloved presi
dent was foul with the obscenity and profane
ness, the gibes and jeers and joKes, tne rage
and the boasts, the impudence and the au
dacity of this cowaid, murderer, assassin; all
the dignity of the court, all the formality of
law, all the reverence due to learning, to vir
tue, to position, to womanhood, was not able
to restrain him within the bounds of decency.
To one thing only he proved amenable, and
that was rough western justice—a Leadviile
miner’s threat: One man who had siuuil faith
in eastern formula, stood behind his wue and
made to the cowardly Guiaeau the simple
statement that one word in derogation of tlu.fr
wife, and he would shoot him 011 the spot It
was enough, and the assassin’s threatened ex
posure crumbled into maudlin praise. Bench
and bar, and jury could not defend them
selves against Guiteau’s noisy and vulgar
scurrility.
And what did the law accomplish? What
new reverence for its metuuos and its tri
umphs did we acquire who watched its slow
progress? Guiteau, with his clear, shrewd
mind, knew at the outset that his danger lay
from mob law rather than from statute law.
He madeall his arrangements to flee from
popular justice, which would have tom him
in pieceihnstantly, to legal justice, which is
loitering and uncertain. And Ins faith was
justified. The way of tlie law, instead of being
short, sharp and*decisive, was not only loud
with his rant, but tortuous and inconclusive.
Mountains of testimony were heaped up
around facts which were admitted to begin
with. A great clcud of expert witnesses were
summoned to investigate Guiteau’s brain with
as childlike a faith as if an equally great cloud
of experts had not been brougnt to shame
over Guiteau’s body. And with all the time
and talent, and money expended, not a single
important fact was discovered, not a single
new relation was developed; all theformsand
solemnities of the law only came to the point
that the public had reached in four and twenty
hours—that the assassin was a human mon
ster who should be hung by the neck till he is
•ead.
Thus—in the presence of death let us be per
fectly fearless and perfectly frank—thus
besmeared with all the mud that politca'.
fury can fling, suddenly, without a mo-
ment’s warning, without a single instant
to hide his iniquity, to cleanse himself from
sin, or to fold his robe Roman-wise about him,
thi» man was struck down to helplessness
and death. As instantly all the smirch and
smear vanished into non-existence, and ho
lay u prostrate figure of purity, and patience,
and patriotism, the shining- image of domes-
nobTt^ Ue> heroism, of political
For eighty days
—In stern silence,
HU thraldom he bore,
Till the last morning came
And Death opened the door.
And never under any test did one jot or tit
tle of manhood fail him. Every republic on
this earth, and-every soul that turns wistfully
toward freedom, gazed with infinite interest
upon Ins long struggle, to know wnat
manner of man a republic nurtures; and
every republican heart thrilled with joy, in
... lta heaviness, to see that never king nor
kaiser bore himself more royally.
Rice Birds and Fried Chicken.
From the Sandersville Mercury.
las/vrhKt 126 ?. chickens sold on our streets
ens»re^V ttwe ? ty ' six cent each. Chick-
ens are in demand.
From the Milledgeville Union.
_..-‘ e , I ? ce birds have been troubling the small
P 88 * few days. Great numbers are
restaurantsP 0rtSmen ’ and readily 501(1 to **