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10 THE COBSTITUTIOH CURK HOWELL Editor ROBY ROBINSON Business Manager Eatared at the Atlanta PaatofTica ■■ Hecaud C’laaa Mall Matter, Nav. 11, 18»3. THE WEEKEY CONSTITUTION, onlv Si per annum. Clubs of five, SI each; clubs of t**n, SI each and a copy to getter-up of club. WANT TOU—The Constitution wants an agent at every postoffice in America, Agent’s outfit free and good terms. If you are not In a club, we want you to act as agent at your office. Write ue. ’MANGE OF ADDRESS-When ordering ad dress of your paper changed always give the old as well ae the new address. Always give postoffice, county and state. If your paper -• not received regularly, notify us and we Mill straighten the matter. IF TOU SEND US AN ORDER for new sub scribers, please allow us a week to get the names on the list and paper started before you write a complaint, as we are very much ciowded now. DO NOT FORGET to make your renewals in time. Watch your direction Lag and see when your subscription expires The next •lx month wil be full of interest, and you should nut miss a single copy of The Con stitution. »>end your orders at least a week in advance to make sure. It may not rake a week in every Instance, as we use the greatest diligence to get them on our mail ing list. The Booker Washington Riot. A riot between factions of his own color at a lectu ? by Booker T. Wash ington, in a church in Boston, comprise five points of a fresh phase of the ne gro problem in tne north. The fight was one of factions. One crowd'held with Washington and one with his opponents over the question of the proper sort of training that the race requires in its preparation for life, citizenship and independence from poverty and the ills that accompany it. Washington stands for industrial and moral education, thrift, good homes and law and order citizenship. In his programme he has the strong and impulsive sympathies of good men north and south. He has been encour aged in a thousand ways and by mil lions of serious voices to persist along the conservative and practical lines he has adopted as a leader and counselor of his people. The factions were both of colored men and women. There was a con certed plan by his opponents to go to the meeting and raise a controversy with Washington. The faction oppos ed to him was made up of the average Boston negro who has been coddled and maleducated by the social and po litical equality monomaniacs of that city until they can tolerate nothing short of the free admission of the race to every place and privilege with white people. They have been taught that the color of their skin, because it is a badge of special privilege, should ad mit them to even more distinction, rights and prerogatives than the aver age white man enjoys, until now they feel insulted when asked to look with honest ambitiou on the ways of work, of political subjection under equal laws and to doing practical things for the general uplifting of their race.. Their desire is social preferment and their dream is political domination and by these tv a supreme tokens they are a dangerous element in any com munity north or south. The personal pivot of the Boston razor riot was Booker T. Washington. This is emphatically significant. Wash ington has spoken before great audi ences, white and mixed, and said things of weight upon negro conditions that have won for him este m and nec essary co-operation from northerners and southerners honestly interested in finding the equitable and enduring modus vivendi between the two races in this country. The Constitution re marked some time ago up-n the repeti tious hardness of the experiences of Washington as the Moses of his peo ple. He has now had also the expe rience of Paul on Mar's Hili before an areopagi of his own blood. Or was it more like Paul’s experience in Ephe sus, when his own people '/allowed Demetrius, the chief of the silver smiths —in this case by the negroes fol lowing the politicians—crying. "He would ruin our craft and by this craft have we all our gain?” This riot happened in a church. The enraged negro, whether graduatt < form the end of a hoe in Georgia or from Harvard in Massachusetts, runs to blind and deadly violence without regard for God or the conventions of man. A church is just as good ftgb: ing ground for him as a slaughter house. Razors, knives ami hatpins were out and seeking blood. Ami so much of Professor James’ prophecy lias come to pass. The other will fol low and the day hastens to its dawn when a negro will be hung on Boston common, perhaps from the outstretch ed arms of Crispus Attucks statue, or maybe at the head of Commonwealth avenue with the bronze face of Wil liam Loyd Garrison looking down upon the scene with unchanging aspect. Lastly, the riot was in Boston. It would be a mean, uncharitable thing to tell Boston all the miserable steps bv which her people have led them selves and their negro guests to this disgraceful Irruption. It is to bo hoped that Boston will not need a wider and bloodier lesson to enforce an under standing of her mistaken education of negro aspirations and aggressiveness. It will not pay Boston to factor social end political dynamite as it has been doing This riot Is the first evidence of the fact and Boston seldom follows any craft that does not pay. The negro question is a southern onestlon. It >s understood here by both races and if Boston ami the north wBl let it alone it will be speedily set Xd with justice to both races, with- Southern History in Demand. The editor of an Important Indiana writes The Constitution JoncXng some recent historical pub- HcatSns in the south, relating to the hcation governed and yet gov- "n people^' l political affairs be coro and s?nce the civil war. He says: * ‘ n/iincv of Dr. Curry’s “Civil His- , 'of the confederate States” opened t o.-x of tn sac( . that W( , p oo pi e O s ' ' are inclined to misjudge the ,h we don’t know the real smith b ■ • istor y of the civil war. and V'am‘’anxious to* read more books by S °Wewouldbe pleased to respond rranklv to more inquiries of this sort • the north. It Is evident to us the extension of the circulation of our Sunny South magazine in the north and the orders we are getting for Tlie Constitution issues that con tain Watcou’s “History of the Life and Times of Thomas Jefferson” that there are numberless candid men in the north who are now as anxious as this Indiana editor to get. at the truth of the causes of the civil war and the subsequent policies of southern states manship. ’ There has not been a year in the period since the civil war when earn est writers were more engaged than in this year in searching for and assem bling southern historic records and we may confidently look in the near future for books that will enlighten the country substantially upon many subjects of southern polity now wholly unknown or Just as wholly misunder stood. A New Jeffersonian War. In the chapters of Watson’s “Jeffer son,” printed in The Constitution last week, the author makes some lucid and valuable statements of the ele mentary principles of democracy as Jefferson conceived them. At this present era of American af fairs it. is profitable to consider some of these fundamental truths, indispen sable to that form of righteousness in government which make it democratic and the absence of which make it any thing else that you may choose to call it. The revival of anti-democratic meth ods of government in this country af ter the Jeffersonian ideas had triumph ed over federalism and Hamiltonian isnt began with the appearance of the republican party. And, singular as it may seem to say so. the rapid growth of that party from 1853 to 1860, when it obtained a majority in the electoral college and named Abraham Lincoln as president, was due to its presenta tion of a programme more democratic than that of the democrats them selves. Jefferson’s democracy had its germ in his instinctive and thoroughly rea soned opposition to vested interests that claimed special privileges and higher rights than those possessed by the masses of the citizenry. But the democracy which stood for the de fence of vested interests in slavery was less Jeffersonian and democratic than the republicanism that denounc ed such vested interests and stood for the freedom and equality before the constitution and laws of all men who ought to be counted in the citizenship of the country. However, on other theories we may try to account for the first successes of the anti-slavery party, this democracy of citizenship was the chiefest factor in producing them. But times change and men change with them. The exigencies of the civil war, beginning with the need for money to support that war. forced the republican party to create vested in terests and support them to an extent, that no ante-bellum statesmen ever dreamed could be possible in these United States. Such are the national bank system and the tariff-built and btilwarkt d interests of the nation. These have been powerful enough to dominate its control since the restora tion of the union and are today the legs of. the republican party's power and pet iormanees. On the other hand, the democracy, having neither of liese vast vested interests in its lavor, deprived of any offset of equal strength in money and po litical machinery, has been forced back to the fighting line of Thom as Jefferson and has gained what ever favor and success it has had since the war by appealing to the com mon people as the champion of their interests against the encroachments and oppressions of vested interests. There is no hope of redeeming the gov ernment from the control of such spe cial interests except through the agency of a democracy fighting for Jefferson lan principles. One of the greatest interests of this or any other country it its currency. Like the blood of the individual there is danger in limiting it, danger in en larging it and danger in congesting it. It. is the life-current of national lite, health and prosperity. Impoverish the currency by weakening its volume or strength and you disease the body politics fatally. Ovcr-enrich it and financial gout and apoplexies occur that afflict almost as fatally as pov erty. Congest the currency in any one or more members and you chili ami perhaps paralyze all the other members. To make the currency am ple, stable and equitably distributed is the highest art of modern statesman ship. To do that requires the de struction of money’ monopoly and the encouragement o.‘ sound local banking in every section of the nation. The democratic party surely should be able to find statesmanship in its ranks adequate to this task. We be lieve the feat can be accomplished without violence to the public credit and without peril to any business in terest . The vested interests sheltered by the tariff affect wrongfully the second greatest interest of a nation —the tights of producers and consumers. These rights demand protection rather than the law vested rights of manu facturers and monopolists to special privileges expressed in trusts. And l>eth these interests of the com mon people today demand a party that will renew with zeal and patriotism the warfare and victories of the old Jeffersonian lines of battle for a gen uine American democracy. Vermont in the Pillory. The Constitution certainly poured hot water into a rat hole when it got after the Vermonters about their pecu liar suffrage system. The Rutland Herald, which last year was convinced that the law was bad, now tries vainly to justify it in the face of attacks from' many sources, north as well as south. The best thing it can say’ for the re quirement that every voter in that state must have “the approbation of the board of civil authority” of his town is that the provision has never been used to exclude any of the 250 negro voters in that state. But what about the disfranchise ment of irom 40 to 60 per cent of the white voters of the state at every election that is contested at all? How fairly does it work as between republi cans and democrats? What effect has it in cutting down the voting popula tion from a normal 140,000 to less than 64,000 in 1896 and little more than 51.000 in 1900? And those were the landslide and walk-over McKinley campaigns. The plain fact Is that tie whole THE WEEKLY OONSTITUTIONi ATLANTA, GA., MONDA Y AUGUST 3, 1903. country has, by the initiative of The Constitution, obtained a clear view of the most outrageous and brutal suf frage scheme now in vogue in any state of the union. It hurts the Ver monters to have their political rotten ness shown up and it hurts their co partners in the other states by taking the edge off the suffrage axes they had prepared to use oi the necks of south ern states. The Man with the Hoe. This year the man with the hoe has got a lory; lead on the man who de pends on manual arts and the opera tions of commerce in barter and trans portation. The farms of the west are teeming with crops that are record breakers or very near to that point. Anyhow, the railroads already have 'more < alls for cars than they can sup ply, although since last season they have largely increased their carriage equipment. In the south the prospects are brightening every day for a crop of cotton fully up to the average and for prices In the fall that will make smiling faces from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. All these favorable things for the farmer and planter are due to causes that make weight, on the other side of the national ledger and against the men who have to live by’ other arts and buy their living, clothing and raw stuffs from the men who draw on the reservoirs of Mother Nature. Aside from the natural increase of our own population we have this year more than a million new mouths to feed that have come to us from Europe. Only a small percentage of the owners of those mouths are going to the land in order to raise their own food. They come mostly from the congested manu facturing and city districts of Europe and are stopping in our cities to look for the sort, of work they performed in the old countries. Consumption of foodstuffs and cotton goods Is bound to increase every year, not only in this country, but abroad. The lands in the Orient and the increasing demands from overpop ulated districts in Europe are calling for all the surplus supplies that we can send them. The system built up in this nation by the Dingley form of protective tariff is responsible for the condition now and the worse conditions that will follow unless there is found away to keep an equilibrium between the producing power of the country and the purchas ing power of those who are essentially consumers. This is the problem which the labor monos America have to face and which cannot be settled by how ever many and however successful strikes for shorter hours and higher wages. Laws That Convert Criminals. Careful observation by experts and the unquestionable statistics produced seem to settle the moral value of what is known as the indeterminate sen tence law. The same is equally true as to the first offense probation law, administered at the discretion of the trial judge. Under the latter law first offenders, unless their crimes are peculiarly wil ful or amount to felonies, may be re leased upon probation with the re quirement of reporting for a stated pe riod th> ir plat es of residence and oecu pation to the court. This law has been found very practicable in cities, espe cially as to juvenile offenders. Wher ever it is in force abundant testimony Is given that but a small proportion of the offenders return under charges, but become industrious, law-abiding persons. The indeterminate sentence law al lows a minimum and maximum limit to the imprisonment imposed upon of fenders. A person convicted may, for instance, be sentenced for from one to three years. The convict, by good behavior and in dustry, can be released by the pris on authorities at the end of the first year; but if he Is unruly, troublesome in conduct and shows no signs of de sire to lead a correct life, he can be held for the maximum of the sentence. The best statistics at hand, combining those of Europe and those from our own country, show that the number of returns of criminals under this law have been reduced from an annual average of 65 per cent to 40 per cent. Considering that, these sentences are imposed upon the first offense class of felony criminals the beneficial signifi cance of the reduction can be readily appreciated. Such laws would have, doubtless, a very desirable effect here in the south, both in the cities, where juvenile of fenders are mostly found, and In the country, where the majority of the criminals are first offenders. These laws put. a state premium upon the self-reformation of offenders and con verts many persons from repeating crimes under the false notion that a penitentiary sentence is an insupera ble barrier to a future life of honesty and industry. These laws commend themselves to a fair trial by reason of the uniform good results that have followed their adoption in American and foreign com munities. The American Soldier. The country produces, perhaps, no more unique aud typical growth than the American private soldier. He is in a class all to himself. He no peer, no equal and no rival. No human in tellect could have conceived him for a romantic figure and no painter could have put him on canvas without the original for a model. The American enlists in the army cither from stress of need or as a lark. If a husky boy finds all the jobs occu pied and nothing doing ou credit at his boarding house he hies to a recruiting station, sells out to Uncle Sara for three years’ bedding, clothes and ra tions, with sl3 per for recreations on the side. Or, if he tires of the dull iteration of Ms local environment and wants to see the country and its pos sessions near and far, he stuffs into a uniform and — "On a government ship He takes a trip Ten thousand miles away.” He is “a rookie," which is the sobri quet of a recruit until he has had his baptism of fire or done time in “Q company,” after which he is a full fledged "regular,” and when he finishes his three years’ lour he is “a veteran.” But all the time he is the finest and most reliable soldier the world knows today. He would rather fight in a blue shirt open at the neck, bareheaded and with his breeches torn half-off by the cactus and the thorns than to eat pie In a Broadway restaurant. He has the quick, instinctive initiative of his American forebears who learned Indian tactics and beat the redskins at their own tricks. He takes fighting life in all lands, climates and conditions as his matter of course and hardly ever gets left. He knows that his chief business is to “get there” and uobody has yet been found to prevent him do ing so. Take him up one side and down the other, the American private is a peach and with all his foibles the American people admire him, pet him and are ready to back him against all comers. Are There Heathens in Heaven? Both the esteemed Washington Post and the likewise New York Sun are inclined, on occasions, to say dis counting or ribald things about the popularly applauded orthodoxy of The Constitution in matters religious. But recently they descanted with incredul ity about our faith in the unification of Christian creeds to the end that a man might, be classified as a disciple of Jesus without having to undergo some of the traditional and ought-to-be obsolete mummeries of modern church ism. Everybody knows that. The Consti tution stands for churches. By no manner of means do we desire their disestablishment. But. while there should be “differences of administra tion” there should also be “one spirit” and it is for that latter essential that we have pleaded and do plead. A Philadelphia preacher—and Phila delphia is famous for its good preach ers and bad politicians—has taken up our demand and, being a Methodist, i as injected it with a fire and frank ness that we hesitated t> employ. Rev. Amos Johnson is a brave and elo quent preacher, known to the Philadel phia public for a quarter of a century. He is of the straitest of his sect and a man of learning and spiritual acumen. It is worth any one's while to so think and so speak as to secure his indorse ment. At. Chester Heights camp ’meeting Dr. Johnson, on Thursday, preached a notable sermon in which he said: There will be all denomiations and kinds of people in heaven —even the heathen! Ail that is necessary to be done Is to follow the true light. We call the attention of our es teemed contemporaries to the fact that the above is true Paulino doctrine, readily provable by his epistle to the Romans. If that was sound doctrine for the Jews and converts at Rome it ought to be good, practical doctrine for us Americans of the present time. If the heathen has within himself a law of righteousness, revealed from the Creator, whereby they accuse and excuse one another, and so living up to their truest light are admissable to heaven, why may not a man of this age, living up to the light of the gospel revealed in the life of Jesus have an equal chance for salvation and eternal life? It is all a part to ask if the heathen can reach heaven what use is there for the gospel? If the ignorant man has equal rights under the laws with the learned doctor of the laws, what, need is there for education? And if another asks “what use is there lor missions to the heathen” the answer is found in the now sml .britor way of the gospels, than the instinctive righteousness of the he. ..hen, or the same instinct in the per on born in a Christian land. Both am weak and need the enlightenment and direction of the gospel, which in its purity of faith and uniformity of obligations is the suffeient Alpha slid Omega of a salvable Christian creod. A Befuddled Commentator. The Post-Intelligencer, of Seattle, is very sure that The Constitution does not fairly slate the attitude of the southern people towards the suffrage clauses and amendments of the nation al constitution. Then it proceeds to misconstrue them with a misunder standing of their content that would at once bar any man from being licensed as a lawyer in any state of the union. Our esteemed contemporary in the long-distance state of Washington still harbors the delusion that the four teenth amendment repealed the basis of representation in the house of con gress instead of simply penalizing the act of any state that unconstitution ally abridges the suffrage of citizens who are of the state and the United States at once. No act of any state in the union that wo know of has attempted to do such unconstitutional thing. Eminent republican authorities say that the southern constitutions and statutes have not done so, aud, unless it. bo Vermont, no state in tho north has done so. There is but one question in the air as to this whole suffrage dispute and that is: Have the war amendments stripped all the states of all power to regulate, limit and qualify voters upon terms that apply to all “without regard to race, color or previous condition of servitude?” If the amendments do not operate to that effect, then no state in the union is amenable to a reduction of its representation in con gress. • The Negro in the South. (From Leslie’s Weekly.) Who shall deny that truth and justice were on the side of our friend. Clark Howell, of The Atlanta Constitution, the other day when he declined to assist in manning a factory near Chicago with ne groes, on the ground that the prospects for colored men having skill in the trades were less favorable in the north than In the south, and also that the negroes, on the whole, were sure of more protection and fairer treatment where the most of them now are. “Southerners think too much,” said Mr. Howell, “of colored workers to urge them on to the north, only to have them return defeated and dispirited or in coffins, or not returned at all because they shall have perished in ‘pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness’ by honest toil in some of the cities and towns in the east, north, and west.” If this is satirical it is also just and true, and woof the north may well take the utterance to heart. In the discussion of the negro and hts rights and wrongs, w'e seem strangely to overlook the fact that the vast ma jorlty of the negroes are in the south, and that in proportion to their numbers and their ratio to the white population around them the cases of outrage and abuse perpetrated upon the negro are much fewer in the south than in. the north. Mr. Howell is able to cite a num ber of localities In Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois “where a negro is not permitted to live, or even to get off a train, at his town railway station." If there are lo calities like this in the south we have never heard of them. The north should cease its criticisms of southern lynchings and turn Its batteries upon the sinners at home. , Still rfrp. It seems to me that I had better answer some of those interesting questions through the far-reaching medium of the press. Here are three inquiries from among your readers who wish to know something definite about these so-called dog days. Os course, I know only what I get from books, but a vast multitude have not the books nor access to them. Whether tho advent and the influence of dog days be a superstition or a fact, all that is known should be disseminated. Pliny and Herodotus both wrote about dog days 400 years before Christ. An cient astronomers and modern ones agree in ascribing to Sirius a very malignant influence when it arises in conjunction with the sun, for it is the brightest star in the heavens and Its great head added to the heat of the sun increases and intensi fies the temperature as long las this con junction continues. But this rising with the sun is not a fixed day. It varies from the 3d of July to the 15th of August and heuce 'the almanac makers take an aver age day and set down July 20th as the first dog day. Some date it July 24th, but these dates may miss it two or three weeks. It is generally believed that these dog days continue for forty days, but in fact that is an indefinite period, for the conjunction of Sirius with the sun some times lasts for fifty-four days. The sum of the whole matter Is that about this time of the year we may look for very hot weather and showers almost every day, and to ciall It fodder pulling weather would be as good a name as any. Wheth er Sirius has anything to do with it or not we can only surmise, but Sirius is the dog star and gave the name. Sirius is the very brightest star in the heavens, and Is In the mouth of a big dog-a con stellation that the ancient astronomers named canis major. The ancient lag.' P tlns mapped off the starry heavens with imaginary animals and men, such as dogs, bears, dragons, bulls, Hercules, Orion, etc., and the names they gave to groups of stars have never been changed. There, is a big dog and a little dog, a big bear and a little bear, a big dipper and a little dipper. Right in the tip of the tall of the little bey.r In a very notable star called 'the Pole star, or North star, that navigators used to sail by and they called it Cynoskurous, which in Greek means a dogtail. From this name we have the word cynosure and so when we say of a beautiful woman in an assem bly that she was the cynosure of all eyes It is equivalent to saying that she was the dog 'tail of tho concern. Just how the sailors got to calling this star the doigtall is not known, for it is really in ursa minor, the little bear’s tall. Ihe ancients gave many names to the stars to fit things In nature that they resem bled. The word comet comes from come tus, which means a mare’s tall. Iho word lunatic comes from luna, the moon, for the ancients believed that tho mind was affected by changes In tho moon. Those old Egyptians were very imagina tive and superstitious, but they were very learned. How they goit so far ahead of the Hebrews, God's favorite people, we do not know. Their astronomy, mathematics and architecture have never been improved. The scriptures tell us that Moses was learned in all the wis dom of the Egyptians. Job asks; “Canst thou bind the sweat influences of Pleiades or loose the bands of Orion? Amos calls them the seven stars and mythology names them the seven sisters, but modern astronomers say there never were but six and there are only six now. Hence the superstitition about the lost Pleiad. Their “sweet influences” are said to come from the fact that whenever seen in the heav ens it is a sign of good weather and a safe time for vessels to sail, for pleian means a sail. It is like tho pretty word halcyon that literally means duck egg time, for the eider duck never ouilds its nest on the cliffs by the sea until pleasant weather comes to stay for the season. Hence the word els the sea and eon an But I reckon this is enough about dog days. Some notable person—I believe It was Lady Montague—said “There is no enter tainment so cheap as reading and no pleasure as Tasting. w Especially is this true nowadays when there is so much to read that is cheap, instructive and in teresting. Tit fact, reading is now the best part of a liberal education. A well read poison is wiser, happier and better fitted for the duties and trials of life than the scholar who has graduated at the top in the arts and sciences. Os course, I mean good reading—such as history, an cient and modern; biography, where we get bot't example and precept; good story books and standard novels that teach good morals; good magazine literature and good newspapers, whose editors are conscientious and fee! their responsibility. “As a man sows, so shall he reap.” and we might as truly-say what a child reads, so will bls or her moral and emotional character be. The schools educate the intellect only, but reading affects tho heart, the emotions and passions and establishes the character of the young for good or for evil. Man has been de fined to be a bundle of prejudices, and these prejudices most generally come from the books, magazines or newspapers that we read. Little stories like “Androcies and the Lion” or “Damon and Pythias" have molded the character of thousands of children, and just so have “Robinson Cruso,’’ and “Young Marooners” and the “Swiss Family Robinson” established the characters o’s children of a larger growth. Whether a man despises or admires Na poleon depends on whether ho has read Scott dr ’Abbott. Whether a man was a whig or a democrat in the old times depended on the newspaper he took. As great a man as Dr. Miller, who was an old line whig, had a contempt for Thomas Jefferson because ho was per-se the founder of the democratic party. “Jef ferson must have been a very great man,” said I, “for he wrote the declara tion of Independence.” “And what is that,’’ said the doctor, "but a series of ungrammatical platitudes that any school boy' might have written. The first sen tence is ridiculous, for it says a decent respect for the opinions of mankind. A decent respect! Who ever heard of an Indecent respect? Why didn’t he say ’respect for’ and leave out the decent,” and he scarified the whole document from a whig standpoint. Well I was ruminating about this while reading Percy Gregg's high-toned but merciless criticism of Harriet Beecher Stowe. "Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Gregg had sojourned in the south during slavery times and knew the book was a lie when it was written, and that it was written to inflame the northern mind and precipi tate a collision. That Beecher family was smart, unprincipled and malignant. It was Henry Ward Beecher who incited old John Brown to his reckless deeds and daring and who declared from his pulpit that Sharp's rifles were better mission aries than Bibles, and that to shoot at a slave holder and miss him was a sin against heaven. It was ttiat same Beech er who, while a preacher, seduced the wife of one of his members and broke up tho family, and after weeks of a mock trial got a whitewashing verdict from a packed committee. But I was ruminating about the far reaching influence and effect of that book and how it'fired the northern heart and the English heart against us, and how it was a lie and wholly misrepresented our people, and how the Lord cursed She maiah, one of the prophets, because lie made the people believe a lie, and how St. John said nd one should enter heaven who loveth or maketh a He, and so I was wondering where the Beechers are now. BILL ARP. Shrank Stanton, The Thankful Song. fjcts’ sing a song o’ thankfulness for all our blessings .past. Though the morning found the twilight and the blossoms met the blast: Let’s say that on the way We were happy for a day, And though wo mourned the winter, we knew the flowers of May! Let’s sing a song o’ thankfulness tor hearts that truly beat; Even if we missed the mountaintop, the valley's shades are sweet! Let's dream that God does best!— Though the thorns be at the breast. We shall dream His dreams of Silence, reap the roses of His rest! Difference of Opinion. ”1 think,” said Brother Williams, “dat de devil must be in de weather.” “Great mistake,’’ replied Brother Dick ey. "De devil is In you, en dat's what makes you sweat so!” The Lazy Singers. The folks that sing of fields of green, and meadows wide, and such. Ain’t never had to hoe a row—ain’t never plowed ’em much. It’s well enough to write ’em down in that ’ere city style, But, you bet they never leave the town to plow the fields a while! It’s all right—this here ringin’ about the fields an’ streams, When y'ou’re underneath your rooftree, from the hot sun’s blazin’ beams; But every one would change their tune and quite forget to smile. If they struck the fields In August, and plowed them fields a w'hlle! When the Rivers Find Sea. The world is lookin’ lonesome, But all the grief will go; Some day, in perfect music, The streams shall seaward flow. And we’ll reap undreamed-of roses when the Winter brings the snow’! What though the hills before us Seem ever dim and high? Tho angels brush, with wings of white. Their green crowns, from the sky. And they feed God’s flocks forever, and they'll rest us by and by! Just a Song of It. We’re thankful for the winter, when the frost Is all around And the squirrels send the hlck'rynuts a-pattering to the ground; And we’re thankful for the summer, when the birds and blooms abound— And God is God forever and forever! We’re thankful for the sorrow—though It saddens all the years, For, brighter for the tempest, still the Star of Hope appears; We catch a glimpse of heaven through the glimmer of our tears, And God is God forever and forever! O, best are all the thorn-ways where wounded feet may roam! The barque will breast the billows, and sight the shores of Home, And “Welcome!” in a chime of bells, will float across tho foam, For God is God forever and forever! In Watermelon Weather. Afar we’ll leave the dusty town, And skip the bloomin' And send the drippin’ buckets down In watermelon weather. The oak’s green branches bending o’er. We’ll seek the shade together, And carve the red fruit to the core In watermelon weather! A Flower Song. Roses for the lover — Let their thorns bring rue; Daisies for the dreamer, Violets for you! Yet never sweeter dreamer Reaped daisies in the dew! Star-loved fields of clover Where the brown bees roam, Gardens where Love’s lilies Fleck the dust like foam, — Lead us there, sweet dreamer, ’Till the heart sings “Home!” *«• * « Sic Transit. Fade file earth-scenes from our view— Swords in scabbards rust; Centuries are drops of dew; What are worlds that fleck the blue?— Like the fleeting life of you, Dreams—and starry dust! ♦ * • * * A Fishing Story, Flshfn’ in the river— Headin' fer tho lakes, Johnny hollers, with the jug— “ Look out fer snakes!” Chilly, by the river side— Old Malaria wakes; Tilt the jug an’ fill the mug:— “Look out fer snakes!” Homeward in the twilight— Crooked path he makes; Woman with a broomstick:— “Look out fer snakes!” The Leading Qtiestion. Dis Is de way de roun’ worl’ run:— Some got money, en some got none; But which er de lot is de happy one?— Answer now, believers! Dis man live in de mansion high, Dat man—yander, in <de desert dry; But which er de Jwo gwine ter shout bimeby ? Answer now, believers! Trouble knockin’ at de big house do’ Same ez de cabin, whar de wil’ grass grow; Who is de rich man, en who is de po’?— Answer now, believers! The World Moves On. Who stood upon the hills lies low Beneath the blossoms 'and the snow; Like dreams we come, like dreams we KO,— The world moves on! And this one leads the world, and men Look not to see his like again; He fades even in a breath, and then The world moves on! Poor shadows 'neath the eternal sun— Driftwood on streams that seaward run; The. word' is said, the task is done, — The world moves on! When Money Talks. Hush 1 good people—not a word! Not the chirpin’ of a bird— Let not even a breath be heard!— Money's talkin’! Listen—all ye rich and poor! Not the creakin’ of a door! Money—money has the floor, — Money's talkin’! From the winter to the May Sure he is to have his way; To the far-off Judgment D:W Money’s talkin’! * * ♦ ♦ ♦ If the Heart Sings. Sorrow comes in darkness, And 'fain would dim the day, But any time is Joy time If the heart sings on the way! Sarge iPtunkett. RELIEVE the loneliness. Institute good schools, and our women will be happy, the children cheerful, the farmer prosperous and the whole world blessed. It is a common occurrence for people to visit Decatur for a day or a week or a month to escape the discomforts of the city and breathe the fresh air of DeKalb, as pure as that of the mountains in iso lated and inconvenient places. While these visitors receive their comforts by coming to us, we very often learn things of profit from them and a knowledge of the world that many of us would have never known save for their coming. We had tho pleasure and the profit, we hope, of meeting an intelligent French gentleman at “Decatur Inn” and spending an afternoon one day last week in hear ing him tell of some of the customs across the water. From this gentleman’s account, France is a most wonderful agricultural country and, in his opinion, these hills of Georgia could be made just as wonderful in that lino. I wish that every farmer of the south could have heard him tell of just how tho people of France live and farm, remarking Incidentally that from what he could see in a visit to our coun try, the lands here were just as good and would yield as well under the same treat ment and methods as is practiced in France. To start with, the schools are brought to tho children instead of the children having to go to the schools. The churches also and tjje conveniences of village life are brought to tho people and the loneli ness of living in the country and pursuing agriculture is done away with. These French farmers, from this gen tlemiain’s account, live in villages some thing on the order of plantation negro quarters of before the war, saving, of course, that the houses are of brick in stead of logs, and. tho place has the air of comfort and freedom rather than that of the quarter for slaves. Instead of the farmer building to be In the midst of his work, they build for the covenlences of their families. Instead of the chil dren: having to travel three and four miles along lonely and dangerous roads to arrive at school, the school is at home, and tho men travel tho distance to their work. Instead of tho go'xl wife having to remain, in a lonely home day after day by herself and little children, she is given the sociability of village con tact and the conveniences thereof. To • hear this gentleman talk, should | fall as a suggestion to the land owners I of the south. No one can doubt but that ; the loneliness of country life in Georgia has much to do with tho dissatisfaction that has appeared in our country homes. This is so true that we may talk about other things as much as we please, but it will do no good till country life is re lieved of its loneliness, and has the other adviamtages of people Jiving close together as in villages. The truth is that if rough, strong men had to Stay all alone in some of the houses where frail and timid women do stay day after day, and often at night, there would lie no living in the country—men would never stand the loneliness, much less the I fear, that lurks in the conditions of life on the farm here in Georgia. Then, 1 say. as I have said before in other con nections, these drawbacks must be re lieved; it should be every man’s desire to correct every drawback that attaches to farming, and how to do this is the greatest question that confronts the southern people today. These suggestions from strangers with in our gates are well worthy of consid eration—this is the way to learn. The northern vlslte>-s laugh at out implements, at our lltth's mules and Texas ponies and slip-shod harness, and so on. 'i hey al. agree that people in the north would starve under such methods and thus pay a deserved compliment to the soil and climate of the south. But the making of greater quantities of produce is not the most Important thing. How to re lieve the anxiety and loneliness of coun try life >s the more important. What matters it if abundance in produce is everywhere upon the farm if the good wife lives in loneliness and constant dread. Os course an abundance of prod uce is to be desired, and we should consider every suggestion that points to that, but other matters must be con sidered, also 1 . Schools), churches and something of conveniences as attach to the village idea is just as important as the abundance of produce and the dread and loneliness must be relieved or this abund ance fails to satisfy and agriculture stands a crippled industry. I have been impressed from listening to this French gentleman that this farm ing from a village is entirely practicable here in Georgia. Concentrate the homes of a settlement in some central location without reference to tlie roads as they now stand—the roads will regulate them selves. Say that the farmers in a radius of 4 miles get together and build a vil lage in the center of that radius and work the land from there. It is much better for the men who work the land to labor under the inconvenience of going a distance to their work than for the women and children to spend their lives where a loneliness tnood.s and a fear is upon them. And the importance of thus regulating our schools is illustrated from the fact that the people move as they do move to the villages to secure these school conveniences. As we stand today rural schools are worthless. Concentrate the homes and bring the schools there and let every’ community pay its own teacher, while the public money’ now thrown away or our schools could be used to better advantage in building roads that would have to be built under this suggested system. I learned much of the difference in economy between ourselves and those French people. There is more waste of produce here than the French farmer makes. They would be horrified to see fine crab grass and weeds that cattle relish go to waste and lie and rot as it does rot everywhere in Georgia. They save every- sy rig of grass and weeds in that country and their fuel is secured by cutting the twigs from the Italian poplar. These trees are trimmed at a certain time of every year, and so the Frenchman’s fuel is secured. What would those people think of the waste in our woods? But we have it to waste. The Lord has done more for us than for them, and while we are thankful for these favors, we should all strive to gether to profit by any suggestions of the conditions that ire there No oom plaint can be brought against our sols aud climate, ’’’hey will do their part; it is for us to do our part. We all desire to make agriculture a great success. To know bow is the question. When these strangers from a distance come among t.s we should listen and learn from then, the secrets of success and profit by their examples. So mote it be. SARGE PLUNKETT. Gray Is Coming as Arbitrator. Wilmington, Del., July’ 30.—Judge George Gray decided today to accept his ap pointment as fifth member of the Ala bama coal strike commission and so tel egraphed to the other members of the committee at Atlantic City. He made his acceptance conditional, however, upon ths commission's work being done during Au gust, as he will have to preside over a session of th.' United States court of appeals beginning the second week in September. In order to attend to the committee work he will have to forego bis usual August vacation.