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THE DALTON ARGUS
Dalton, Georgia.
11. A. WRENCH, Publisher
ONE DOLLAR A YEAR
THE SHADOWLESS LAND.
We sat In the shadows of trees,
Where murmuring waters were heard;
We caught the perfume of the bloom from the
breeze,
We heard the soft hum of the laboring bees,
And song of the twittering bird.
No weird, rustic beauty was there,
Hut cloudless blue skies and green sod;
And hues of sweet violets, placidly fair.
And tints of ground Ivy—its fragrance so rare
Seemed borne from the gardens »f God.
Beyond where the violets green,
Beyond where the ivies were spread,
A peopleless city was dimly in view,
The tenants were hidden from sight—yet we
knew
The shadowy land of the dead.
Aloof from their burdens of care.
Just under the sod and the sand,
The tenants lay silent and motionless there;
Their spirits adrift in a far region—(Where! 1 )
A far away, shadowless land.
Bnt where can this vague region be?
This region of shadowless skies,
They say it is over a limitless sea.
But how can we cross the expanse and be free?
Or how can we know where it lies?
How far through the shadows and gloom,
All pent in the sod and the sand?
How far through the dark, dismal shades by the
tomb?
How far to the region of brightness and bloom?
How far to the shadowless land?
—S. S. Gorby, in Indianapolis Sentinel.
ELOISE.
How the Cruel Flood Revealed to
Her Her True Love.
They had parted coldly.
Richard Holmes had walked rapidly
up the street to his boarding-place with
a white face, sternly set lips, his hands
•clasped tightly behind him, and his
whole frame quivering with wounded
pride and keen disappointment.
Eloise Ellison had turned her pretty
face homeward with a proud little toss,
and a look of something like triumph in
her coquettish dark eyes.
That she was a spoiled and petted
beauty, every one in the village knew;
and that she was as willful and capri
cious and exacting, as she was bright and
pretty and bewitching, every one knew
as well. The only child of the wealthy
mill-owner, from her very infancy in
dulged in her every wish and fawned
upon by admiring friends, it was no
■wonder that she was, when she chose to
be, a most tyrannical specimen of young
womanhood.
She had chosen to be such the after
noon she met Richard Holmes, her fa
ther’s book-keeper, on the street, and
allowed him to turn and walk beside
her. It was raining, and she graciously
closed her own elegant little umbrella
to share the larger one he carried.
They had gone on together enjoying
the rain, laughing and chatting gayly,
gossiping in their light w'ay about this
and that happening in the social life of
the village.
Perhaps he had chosen an inauspi
cious moment to declare his love and
offer her his hand, but, inauspicious or
not, he had spoken and received his
answer.
They had exchanged a few hot words
and then parted in a sudden frigidity
which seized them both. She had added
such scorn and disdain to her refusal
that it was more than he could bear in
silence. She had even insinuated to him
that it was not herself he loved, but her
father's wealth. She had wounded him
cruelly and intentionally, and he had
left her suddenly with a cold adieu.
Eloise raised her own umbrella with a
defiant little laugh, and a glance at the
retreating figure, and then turned home
ward humming a fragment of the latest
opera.
Her father's bookkeeper! Presume to
offer her his hand! It was absurd!
Thus she communed with herself as
she went on up the street to her home.
She tried to be angry at the presump
tion of the man, but in spite of herself
she could not. She had always ad
mired him —yes, in away she had quite
liked him, and it was pleasing to her
vanity to know he loved her—but, mar
riage—tl.at was another thing, indeed,
and quite out of the question!
For days and days it rained. It grew
monotonous and wearisome,
Eloise, wandering aimlessly about the
drawing-room, looking over a book ab
stractedly; striking a few chords on the
piano; going from window to window to
look out at the falling rain and the dis
mal landscape, was wretchedly lone
some and ill at ease.
Why did not some one come! Even
Richard Holmes would be a welcome
caller, if only to quarrel with. He used
to drop in so often to play a game of
chess or listen to her music. She wished
she had not treated him quite so badly
the other day. Why could she not have
said, as other girls would have said,
that she would be a sister to him? It
had never occurred to her to say that.
She wdshed that she had been less un
kind that day—wished that she had
held him off a little longer at least—it
used to be so pleasant to have him drop
in for an hour or twa
The day w’as closing in dark and
stormy. Eloise from the window looked
at the swollen river, and the pools that
stood here and there.on the lawn.
Suddenly she stood erect and looked
eagerly at a well-known figure coming
toward the house. It was Richard
Holmes
I The girl stood watching his progress
oagorly, as he picked his way among
the pools of water, her lips parted, her
pretty head thrown back, her dark eyes
glad and bright.
“1 am glad he is coming,” she said,
softly to herself, as she stood surround
ed by the creamy draperies of the win
dow waiting for him. ,
She heard his firm step on the piazza.
She heard him ring the boll and then
speak a few words to the maid who
opened the door.
Suddenly a great roar filled all the
air, drowning the voices in the hall,
drowning the silvery chime of the little
French clock, drowning every thing,
swallowing up every thing in its awful
volume of sound. There was a terror
in it unlike the heaviest crash of thun
der —a strange and terrible menace in
the sound, swelling and gathering and
growing louder every moment.
Eloise stood paralyzed with fear. She
was powerless to cry out, to move her
self; she could only stand and listen to
that awful, all-pervading roar.
She did not think what it might mean.
She had heard vague rumors of fears
for the great dam above, but had not
heeded.
In a moment it was all over; the
sound had come upon her in all its
awfulness. She fell back, overpowered
with terror, and became unconscious.
A violent blow on.her head roused her
to herself. She found herself floating
on the strong current, borne along at a
sickening speed, upheld by the strength
and fury of the roaring waters.
Near her she saw the great elm-tree
that had stood before the house ever
since she was a child. It must have
been a branch of that which Struck her
and brought her back to life.
With great, dark eyes dilated with
horror, and a face white and ghastly as
the faces of the dead, the girl flew along.
She had caught hold of the branches of
the great tree, and was clinging with a
grasp like death itself. Life was sweet
—too sweet to lose. In her first mo
ment of consciousness, she had thought
of Richard Holmes. Where could he
be? Drowned? O, God forbid—not
droicned — the thought was dreadful to
her. In a flash she was revealed to her
self. She loved him—loved him with
her whole heart—had loved him all the
time without knowing it. What had
he come to the door for that night? It
seemed ages ago to her now—to bring a
message of warning? Her father —was
he safe? O, heaven, that appalling
darkness —that dreadful roar of rushing
waters!
She raised her voice and called,
“Richard!” It was lost in the roar of
the flood. She tried again, summoning
all her strength, and sending her clear
voice out over the waters —“Richard!
Richard!”
She thought she heard a human voice,
faint and far away—could it be his? He
was near her when the flood struck the
house; he might be somewhere near her
now.
She raised her voice again, and called
his name with a desperation born of
fear and love. A dark object was float
ing near her, tossing up and down on
the resistless current. She could see
that it was a man, clinging to a mass of
boards. Thd face was turned from her,
but the head looked familiar. She
called again, and the man turned and
looked at her.
“Is it you, Eloise?” he screamed; and
then she barely heard him “you,
Eloise? Thank God!”
She breathed a sigh of relief. She
felt safe now —safe, even on the bosom
of this rushing ocean of fierce waters
and crashing debris —if he were near.
She saw that he was trying to get to
her, but could not; that he dared not
loose his hold on the boards and trust
himself one instant in that mighty cur
rent. She could see his face, white and
agonized, turned to her —always turned
to her. Something had struck him, and
cut a gash in his head, and the blood
was trickling down his pallid cheek;
she could see it from where she clung in
the branches of the elm-tree.
She did not know that one beautiful,
white arm was bare to the shoulder and
bleeding from a cruel blow she had re
ceived —she did not realize the pain in
her head where the tree had struck her
—such things were trivial now. Life
was the only thing to be thought of—
life—and death—if death should come.
A house came reeling down and struck
the mass of boards to which Richard
clung. The shock loosened his hold
and tossed him far out into the water.
The horrible undercurrent sucked him
in and he sank from sight. The next
moment his white face showed above
the water. Such horror and despair
Eloise had never seen as she saw there.
One last appealing look at her, one cry
from her white lips, and he was gone
again. Eloise prayed—prayed as she
had never dreamed of praying before;
crying aloud for help and pity in this
time of need.
Richard came to the surface again—
near her this time. Could she reach
him? Only a little nearer—he was
half unconscious and could not help
himself. She leaned far out over the
dark torrent, holding to the tree firmly
with one arm and touched him with
her hand—caught him by his collar, and
held bis head above the water as they
were borne along. She called to him
wildly. He heard and understood,
made one great effort to seize the
branches of the tree, and at last, with
an almost superhuman strength, drew
himself up into the sheltering arms of
the old elm.
There he clung with what frail
I strength was left him; but he was too
weak for words. It was no time for
speech. The scene was more terrible
than any of the imaginings of Dante.
Great masses of timbers, that ten min
utes before had been houses and homes,
came rushing by with shrieking wom
en clinging to them, and little children
borne along upon them. Strong men
were tossing like egg-shells on the
waters, and horses and cattle were
plunging madly for life among the
ruins of great barns that came crashing
by. Now and then, some wild shriek
or unearthly moan would mean the
death-cry of a human being goingdown
to eternal sleep under the roaring
waters.
A great mass of timbers came tearing
along down the highway of death; with
one blow it sent the elm-tree spinning
far ahead on the waters. Eloise and
Richard were hurled into the air and
fell together, clinging to whatever they
could find—a door, a fence—any thing
to keep afloat. At last they climbed to
the ridge-pole of a house and clung
there. All night they floated, bruised
and cut by heavy objects striking them,
almost losing their hold many times,
but never quite—tossing, plunging, fly
ing with a speed that was terrible.
In the first gray dawn of morning
they were rescued. Friendly hands
drew them from their perilous position
and bore them to a place of safety.
There they lay for days unconscious.
The shock had been too great—human
endurance had been too sorely tried.
The physicians who dressed their
wounds and the nurses who cared for
them shook their heads gravely over
the young strangers given so mercifully
into their bands.
Richard woke to consciousness first,
but lay with closed eyes, resting and
trying to think why be was there and
what had happened.
All at once he heard a voice he knew
and loved. It was Eloise, delirious
wdth fever. “Richard,” she was saying,
“I love you now’, I loved you all the
time, but I did not know it. Richard,
did the horrible waters drown you? O,
my darling!”
He opened his eyes and looked across
the room toward the weak voice dying
away into silence. What he saw was
Eloise lying on the snowy cot with
closed eyes and flushed cheeks—Eloise
pitifully thin and changed, but Eloise
still, despite the streaks of silver in her
dark hair, and the lines of pain on her
white brow, left there by the agony of
that fatal night.
Richard, looking at her thus, loved
her all the better for these marks of
sorrow; they made her tenfold dearer
to him; their mutual distress had weld.-
ed together their souls forever.
It was a very quiet, very brief cere
mony that made them man and wife.
It was no time for merry-making and re
joicing. Death and poverty w’ere every
where. Her fatheis»A'as among the lost;
the servants were missing; many of her
friends were gone from human sight for
ever. Every dollar of her father’s
wealth had been swept away. She
was penniless. The beautiful home
w’as entirely destroyed. Nothing that
had been hers remained.
Nothing she had loved in the old days
W’as left her. Nothing? Yes, thank
God, her husband —her good, brave
Richard! They had gone together
through that dreadful night, their
paths henceforth through life lay side
by side.
Eloise was a changed woman. What
had been wrong in her became good.
What had been viin and foolish be
came beautiful and pure. Her whole
nature was changed—her heart en
nobled and uplifted, made sweet and
womanly and good.
It is no wonder that her husband,
tenderly stroking the dark hair with
its streaks of silver, smiles and is
thankful for her, rejoicing in her as the
gift of the flood, which desolated so
many hearts —glad and proud that she
is in his home and at his fireside.—
—Harriet F. Crocker, in N. Y. Ledger.
Curiosities of Chemicals.
Certain substances which are deadly
in their effects upon man can be taken
by animals with impunity. Horses can
take large quantities of antimony, dogs
of mercury, goats of tobacco, mice of
hemlock and rabbits of belladonna with
out injury. On the other hand, dogs
and cats are much more susceptible to
the influence of chloroform than man
and are much sooner killed by it. If
this invaluable anaesthetic had been
tried first upon animals we should
probably have never enjoyed its bless
ings, as it would have been found to be
so fatal that its discoverers w’ould have
been afraid to test its effects upon
human beings. It is evident, then,
that an experiment upon an animal can
never be the means of any certain de
ductions so far as man is concerned.
No scientist can ever know’ when trying
some new drug or some new’ operation
whether or not when he comes to try it
upon man the effect will be the same as
that upon an animal.—Chicago Herald.
—A Marcellus (Mich.) man wrote the
following self-explanatory note to
a school teacher there the other day:
“May the 6 18.90 when my Roys are
Staing away from School I have Work
For them; and when They are dare you
Teach them, and when They are to
home that is non of your Business you
hant rening My Shenty Not by a dem
Side, at my home.”
—Alice was eating a large slice of
bread and butter. “You’re a little
pig,” said a teasing uncle. “No, I not,
1 a little bread-and-butterfly.”
SINGLE TAX DEPARTMENT.
SINGLE TAX THE INSTRUMENT.
Addres* of William IJoyd Garrison Be
fore the Unitarian Ministerial Union at
Channing Hall, Boston. April 28, 1890.
It was Madame De Stael who said to
a British statesman, “Tell me all about
the British constitution in ten minutes,”
but my friend, Rev. Mr. Barrows, pro
posed a harder task when he asked me
one day to explain to him the single tax
in a sentence. If I should say in reply,
“The single tax means equal and exact
justice for all,” or “to secure the earth
for the use of all its inhabitants,” or
“to yield to the laborer the fruits of his
toil,” or ‘ the exemplification of true
Christianity,” I am afraid I should be
charged wdth uttering “glittering gen
eralties.” To be illuminating I shall be
forced to use many sentences and yet fail
to be understood at my conclusion. For
how can one in forty minutes express
what has taken him years to compre
hend? The very brevity and concise
ness required for a concrete presenta
tion of the subject will permit only an
outline of the great theme.
The single tax was deliberately
chosen as the name of a reform which
is based upon the most solid ethical
foundation. It describes the instrument
to bring about a result and not the ob
ject to be attained. It is the method to
be pursued in the solution of the labor
problem. The reason for adopting the
name is this: It has a clear, specific,
practical meaning. It is not nebulous
or indefinite. A single tax is intelligi
ble to the common understanding. Its
aim is to abolish all taxes on property
and to raise the entire revenue of the
country by a single tax on land values.
It is necessary to understand terms
clearly. The single tax is not a tax on
land, but a tax on the value of land. If
land is worthless because undesirable or
remote, it would not be taxed. If of
small value, then the tax would be small.
All value is given to land by the pres
ence of people who require it for use.
Remove the people of Boston and place
them on a spot where the land can be
had for nothing and the land values of
Boston will fade away and on the new
.sight spring up full-armed, like Miner
va, from the brain of Jove. Therefore
remember that not land but site value
is to be taxed. It is a value made by the
community, and justly belongs to the
community. “Economic rent” is its
scientific appellation, and “ground
rent” the familiar term.
I wonder how many of you are familiar
with the ninth chapter of Herbert Spen
cer’s “Social Statics,” that fampus chap
ter on “The right to the use of the earth.”
For the moral statement of the cause
we advocate, it leaves nothing to be de
sired. It is complete and it seems to
me irrefutable. You have doubtless
seen the recent controversy between
Spencer, Huxley and others on the very
chapter, which Mr. Spencer, shrinking
from the application of his teaching,
suppressed in later editions. Even bad
he recanted his philosophy, which he
did not, the philosophy would still re
main to be judged on its merits, regard
less of his altered opinion. To alter a
little Arthur Clough’s lines:
“It fortifies my soul to know
That, though men perish, Truth is so,
That, howsoe’er they stray and range,
Whate’er they do. Truth does not change.”
It is upon this right that the single
tax plants itself. Its advocates hold
with Spencer that every human
born into the world has an equal right
to the use of the earth upon which he
must subsist, but it is imperative that
no one shall use it in such away as to
prevent others from enjoying a similar
use. Equity, therefore, forbids proper
ty in land. “For if one portion of the
earth’s surface may justly become the
possession of an individual, * * *
then other portions of the earth’s sur
face may be so held; and eventually the
whole * * * may be so held; and
our planet lapse altogether into private
hands.” It follows, logically, from this,
“that if the land owners nave a valid
right to its surface, all who are not land
owners have no valid right at all to its
surface,” and they can exist by suffer
ance only. "They are all trespasser.”
They exercise their faculties and can
exist only by consent of the land own
ers, and consequently exclusive posses
sion is an infringement on the law of
equal freedom.
Mr. Spencer finds further reason todeny
the rectitude of property in land on ac
count of defective title and refers the
doubter to the chronicles. “Violence,
fyaud, the prerogative of force, the
claims of superior cunning—those are
sources to which those titles may be
traced. The original deeds were written
with the sword rather than with the
pen; not lawyers, but soldiers, wore the
conveyancers, blows were the current
coin given in payment; and for seals,
blood was used in preference to wax.
Could valid claims be thus constituted?”
And he denies that “Time is a great
legalizer;” or that immemorial posses
sion can constitute a legitimate claim.
“This is the verdict given by pure
equity in the matter;" he says, “anddic
tates the assertion that the right of
mankind at large to the earth's surface
is still valid, all deed, customs and laws
notwithstanding.” It reminds one of
the New Hampshire judge who declined
to deliver'*up the fugitive slave unless
the claimant master could show a bill of
sale from the Almighty.
“If men have not such a right, we are
at once delivered from the several pre
dicaments already pointed out. If they
have such a right, then is that right ab
solutely sacred, not on any pretense to
be violated. If they have such a right
then U his grace of Leeds justified in
warning off tourists from Ben Mae Duhi,
the Duke of Atholl in closing Glen Tilt,
the duke of Buccleugh in denying sites
to the Free church, and the duke of
Sutherland in banishing the highland
ers to make room for sheep walks. If
they have such a right, then it would
be proper for the sole proprietor of any
kingdom—a Jersey or Guernsey, for ex
ample—to impose just what regulations
he might choose on its inhabitants—to
tell them that they should not live on
his property unless they professed a
certain religion, spoke a particular lan
guage, paid him a specified reverence,
adopted an authorized dress and con
formed to all other conditions he might
see fit to make. If they have such a
right, then is there truth in that tenet
of the ultra tory school, that the land
owners are the only legitimate rulers of
a country —that the people at large re
main in it only by the land owner's per
mission, and ought consequently to sub
mit to the land-owner’s rule, and respect
whatever institution the land owners
set up. There is no escape from these
inferences. They are necessary corol
laries to the theory that the earth can
become individual property. And they
can only be repudiated by denying that
theory.”
Consider the problem which confronts
us and forces us to answer it at the peril
of relapsing into barbarism. The Mal
thusian bug-bear which alarmed our
fathers and attributed to the Creator of
the world a blindness which brought
forth human beings with such inade
quate provision that the population was
destined to outrun subsistence, no longer
scares us. It painted a future of misery
and starvation, when hungry and iflfted
human beings would curse existence
and perish miserably. It championed a
hopeless and fatalistic creed.
Since Malthus was laid away with his
philosophy and his fathers, the popula
tion of the globe has steadily increased,
and the fear ho generated has vanished,
for subsistence and production have
multiplied in a greater ratio. The pres
ent embarrassment is the embarrass
ment of riches, and the surplus of food
and clothing is made responsible for
poor trade and hard times. With accu
mulating wealth we find a greater ine
quality of condition, and vice and pov
erty more than keep pace with palaces
and millionaires. How is it that the
producers of wealth are prevented from
sharing equally its enormous growth?
“Could a man of the last century," says
Henry George, “a Franklin or a Priest
ly, have seen in a vision of the future
the wonders that we are so familiar
with, what would he have inferred as to
the social condition of mankind?” And
he answers, “It would not have seemed
like an inference, further than the vis
ion went; it would have seemed as
though he saw, and his heart would
have leaped and his nerves would have
thrilled, as one from a height beholds
just ahead of the thirst-stricken caraVan
the living gleam of rustling woods and
the glint of laughing waters. Plainly,
in the sight of imagination, he would
have beheld these new forces elevating
society from its very foundations, lift
ing the very poorest above the possibil
ity of want, exempting the very low
est from anxiety for the material
needs of life: he would have seen these
slaves of the lamp of knowledge taking
on themselves the traditional curse,
these muscles of iron and sinews of steel
making the poorest laborer’s life a holi
day, in which every high quality and
noble impulse could have scope to
grow.”
But the fact remains quite otherwise
than the vision. “Some get an infinite
ly better and easier living, but others
find it hard to get a living at all. The
“tramp" comes with the locomotive, and
almshouses and prisons are as surely
the marks of ‘material progress' as are
the costly dwellings, rich warehouses
and magnificent churches.” What is it
which associates poverty with progress
and increases want with advancing
wealth? “This is the riddle,” says Mr.
George, “which the sphinx of fate puts
to our civilization, and which not to
answer is to be destroyed.”
The trouble is not to be laid to the
parsimony of nature; it has to be ac
counted for by human interference with
the natural distribution of wealth which
is the product of labor and capital ap
plied to land. Partial laws, privileges
and protective tariffs account for much
of the existing social confusion, but abol
ishing all those, the fountain head of
misery will still be left untouched.
In his recent address at San Francisco
Mr. George, after referring feelingly to
his California life, went on to speak of
his journeying across the continent be
fore the railway was completed, and
said: “When in the streets of New
York, for the first time I realized the
contrasts of wealth and want that are to
be found in a greatcity, saw those sights
that to the man who comes from the
West affright and appeal, the problem
grew upon me. I said to myself there
must be some reason for this; there must
be some remedy for this, and I will not
rest until I have found the one and dis
covered the other. At last it came clear
as the stars of a bright midnight. I saw
what was the cause; I saw what was the
cure; I saw nothing that was new. Truth
is never new.”
[to be continued.]
Wm. Hancock, Wyoming, Pa. —The
Wilkesbarre Telephone and Kingston
Daily Morning Times are publishing my
single tax articles approvingly. The
Telephone editors say that the farmers
are getting well prepared to receive and
approve our theories and methods. I
am now meeting with great success in
getting signatures to the petitloju