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YOL. I THE PRESENT WORLD. This world's a pretty good sort of world, Taking it altogether. In spite of the grief and sorrow we meet, In spite of the gloomy weather, There are friends to love and hopes to cheer And plenty of compensation For every ache, for these who make The best of the situation. —Josephine Pollard. m.'W J a STORY. £ A A DOCTOR’S * BY B. SI. NEILL. A J When M.D. was tacked to my name, I bowed at two shrines, my profession and—my Angelina. Her name was not Angelina, but my wife being a modest little lady, desires she shall not be dragged before an inquisitive public. Let, then, Angelina represent the real woman. Of course I had a rival; name, Richard Somers; age, twenty-six; general appearance,striking and haud- some; character, very bad. Neither my affection for this gentle¬ man nor his affection for me would hnve caused a conflagration on any river of which I know'. We disliked each other heartily from the first. Being a much handsomer man than myself, he might have been a danger¬ ous rival. However, he saved me all trouble. He committed a forgery which was discovered sooner thau he expected. He was arrested for the offense, tried and convicted. I was one of the principal witnesses against him. When the sentence was passed upon him, he requested a moment’s conversation with me. I shall never forget the look of hatred ujion his face as he hissed out: “You have ruined my love and my life. Remember that, and fear me!” I attached but little importance to his threat.’ I thought it simply the bluster of a self-defeated and disgraced rival Shortly after, Angelina aud I were married, and for tw o years I heard nothing of Somers. His sentence had been a comparatively light one—a year aud six months. After his discharge from prison, however, I neither saw nor heard of him. For so young a man, I had been very successful as a physician, prin- cipally due to my strict attention to practice. No matter how late, or dark and stormy, might be the night, I promptly attended to all summonses to the bedside of suffering. One night, a little while before the hour of retiring, the door-hell rang, and shortly afterward a man entered the room where we w'ere sit¬ ting. He was not prepossessing. Plis hair was short and thick, and the general cast of his features villainous. Without hesitation, I put on my coat and liat aud prepared to go with him. i 6 A gentleman, ”he said, “had broken his leg.” i thought it a pity that, if the gen¬ tleman were anything like his mes¬ senger, he hadn’t broken his neck. I did not tell* my wife where I was going, for it xvas a distant part of the town, and in anything but a respect¬ able neighborhood. I did not wish to make the little woman nervous. On our way, the unprepossessing man Wris very uncommunicative. He an¬ swered my inquiries about tlie injured gentleman iu surly monosyllables. He was apparently in no baste, for he walked very slowly—more slowly, I thought, than was consistent with the welfare of my patient. At last we arrived at our destina¬ tion. It was a very dark-looking house, iu a very dark street. My guide led me up two flights of very dirty and rickety stairs, that creaked objections to our weight, upon them. In the third story, we stopped before a door, which, to my surprise, my companion opened with a key which he took from his pocket. Was he afraid that a man with a broken leg would escape? I xvas still more surprised when.ou entering the room, I found it empty! He motioned me to a chair, and, re¬ marking he xvoukl return soon, left the room. For the first time I was somewhat nervous aud suspicious. The empty room—the last action of my guide— his carelessness,on our way, as to the health of the supposed injured man— _the lonely house and neighborhood- all combined to make me suspect foul play. the I stepped to door, only to find it locked from the outside—to the windoxv,only to find escape impossible there. * It was many feet from the ground. certainties. My suspicions were now TRIBUNE. “Don’t Give Up the SHip.” BTTCHANAN, GA., FRIDAY, JULY 1. 1898. I was trapped. None of my friends, not even my wife knew where I was. I might be murdered in this den, and my death remain a mystery. I suppose I waited about an hour before T heard the key turn in the door. Then, to my dismay, half a dozen men entered. When nature made the jail-bird who had led me into this trap, she did not break the mould. These men were of the same pattern. All wore the same hang-dog, murderous look. One of them raised the light in the room, which had been burning low. With hardly a glance at me, they took seats upou 'the floor, and began to play cards, Soon the door opened, and another man enteved. I hardly had a hope as I looked at him, for I saw the exulting face of my enemy—Dick Somers! At a glance he saw that I recognized him. With a malicious leer, he stepped forward, and, quoting his own words of two years before, said: “You have ruined my love and my life. Remember that, and fear me!” I saw in his face, at once showing his revenge and desperation, that noth¬ ing could turn him aside from his pur¬ pose. “Somers,” I said, “I know' that you have trapped me here for the purpose of revenging yourself upon me, but remember, sir, that I have friends! Remember law' aud justice!” “I fear nothing,” he answ'ered. “I defy man aud God! Revenge on you is clearer to me than life; and though for me the bottomless pit were yaxvn- iug, I wqtild have it.” 1 saw' it was useless to appeal to him, and I sullenly w'aited for what seemed fate. At his command the ruffians searched me. One of them, who ap- l 3p aved 1° kmd ot treasurer for the a »g> secured my watch and pocket- bonk ' 1 lien they tied me with stout ropes to a chair. Somers did not address me again, , ^ut sat upon the L , floor and , gambled , , with the rest. Presently he rose, and, saying he would ietuin by daybreak, left the room. He evidently felt I was lu his P (nvel ' and seemed in no hurry to complete his revenge. Wben be had S one tb <j card-playing was kept up for a couple ot hours, Then the men all stretched themselves upon the floor and slept. The door- opened inward, and across it was the burly form of the treasurer. In spite of tlie apparent hopelessness of the trial, I set about devising some plan of escape. The first thing to do was to free myself; I have large wrists and small hands. In tying me they had not taken this into consideration. With¬ out much difficulty I liberated my hands; then, of course, it was the work of but a few minutes to entirely free myself from my bonds. Taking the precaution to place the ropes in such a position, that, should the gang waken, I would still appear to be hound. I thought upon my chances of escape. They certainly appeared very few and small. The fact of the men upon the floor being asleep, seemed little in my favor. 1 could not move the ruffian who was sleeping at the door without waking him. Escape by the window was im¬ possible. Every plan that suggested itself had insurmountable objections to it. I had almost given rip schem¬ ing in despair, and concluded to adopt seme hopelessly desperate measure, when I thought of the contents of a bottle I had in my pocket. In searching me, the ruffians had not disturbed it, thinking it of no im¬ portance. It contained chloroform. I also had a sponge in my pocket. In a moment I resolved what to do. Draw¬ ing the bottle from my pocket, I soaked the sponge thoroughly with its contents. Sloxvly, painfully (I could hear my heart beat), xvith all the caution that a man uses xvheu his life may stepped depend, upon the slightest noise, I to the side of the nearest ruffian. I placed the saturated sponge to his nose. I saw him quickly yield to the influence of the vapor. From man to man I stepped. One by one they xvere made senseless, helpless. The man at the door was the last- 1 drew him axvay, first securing my watch and pocketbook. I also found in his possession a blackjack, which I took the liberty of appropriating. Then, openiug the door, I stepped out into the hall, I still moved cautiously,feeling that all danger was not past. I thought there might be a watcher there, but, to my relief, I -saw no one. I de¬ scended the first flight of stairs, and reached the-second story' in safety. I bad gone about half way down the second bight. My heart stood still, for I heard some one enter below, then, in the muttered oath, I reeog- mzed . homers , voice. T I crouched , , down , | upon the stair next the wall, hoping i he might pass me. But, as he came - up, his hand brushed my lace. j In a moment lie lad me by he throat. I knew him to >e by tar the more powerful man, and it was not a tune for scruples. Quickly, it being , so dark lie could not see the action, I raised the blackjack—I hail held it since I left the room—and brought it downjieavily upon Ins skull. His hand left my throat and he rolled down stairs I found him at the foot, quite still. I made good my escape, not stopping to see if I had killed him. 1 do not know to this day wliether lie is living or dead. I ne\er saw nor heard of him again. hen I arrived home, I found a very frightened little woman, but I did not tell her till long af erwaid the his ory of that mglit. I have never since been j in such a fix, and if discretion am a reasonable supply of timidity can pie- cent it, never will will be in the fntuie. , featuiday Night. Said to Be a New Lincoln Story. rhere is a citizen ot Clev eland xvho can add a very pleasant story to the x olume ot Liucolmana. He and his four brothers, all young men, were in the Federal army during the war, and one ot the brothers, 19 veais old, after a particularly fierce campaign, found himself m a IVaskmgton mill- tary hospital. His mother came from C.ex eland to do what she could to a id him. He passed the crisis ot his illness safely, and when he was we.l enough to be moved the mother went to the White House to ask Ins discharge from the avmy. Hue had no letters of mtro- Auction but her simple story was enough. .She saw the president, aim ln his kindly way he questioned her. She told the story of her five soldier boys, and when she had lnishei he stepped to his desk and wrote an order for the young man s discharge “Take that, madam, he said, “and get your boy. Then bring him here. I want to talk with him.” He gave an order to a secretary, the president’s carriage was brought arouud, and , ,. the mo ,. her rode away to . the hospital. Their she and the con- xalescent youth lode back to the White House, w lere they dined. Later on the president handed the mother two railroad tickets to Gleve- land and a document setting forth that it was his (the president’s) wish that the young man should be given a posi¬ tion in the government service when¬ ever he desired it. For nearly a third of a century' that war-time stripling has held an excel¬ lent office in the treasury department at Washington. — Cleveland Plain Dealer. Coal and Iron in Germany. The mineral production iu Germany reacheda total in 1897 of $200,000,000. In some important materials Germany stands very high as a producer, rank¬ ing next after the United States and Great Britain in iron ore, iron and coal. In the output of the salt xvorks and chemical xvorks the Germans also hold a high place, since there, as in other trades, German industry and scientific research are applied very thoroughly' to improvements in pro- i cesses and the utilization of by¬ products. The average prices gix r en show some differences from our own iu a direction we should hardly expect. Coal is much higher than the average of our bituminous coal, though the broxvn coal brings a low price; the latter, however, is an inferior fuel, and its use is restricted. Pig iron averages nearly one-half more thau in the United States, A study of these prices will shoxv that the supposed ad¬ vantage of loxver wages iu Germany disappears xvheu submitted to careful examination. It is more an offset by our improved machinery and processes aud the greater efficiency of our labor. —Engineering aud Mining Journal. An Expert In Oils. Mrs. Million—Oh, so you used to j knoxv the Count Macaroni in Italy. He is very attentive to my daughter, yon knoxv, and I am somewhat inter¬ ested in him. He tells me that he worked for years under one of the old Italian masters, and that his specialty is work in oil. Mr. Globetrotter—Yes, that was his profession when I saw him. He xvas one of the most rapid sardine canners I saxv in the place. —Pittsburg Dis¬ patch. A REMARKABLE SHARPSHOOTER. A Cheer Went Up When "Something’ Dropped Out of a Tree Across tile Line. “It was in the battle of Corinth in Mississippi that I first saw an effect- j ye H hot by 0 ne of the Illinois sliarp- shooters,” relates an old soldier. “It wa8 pls t before tlietinal desperate and ; una vailing assault ouBattery Kobiuet. ^ was sa ;fl that the Confederates who imu l e the charge were a forlorn hope — men w ho had volunteered for an al- mos t hopeless undertaking which no 0 gj cer would order his men to attempt, Uuless the battery could be silenced Price all d Van Dorn could never enter Corhlth The men knew where they were 3 ing and wh y, and could have mtle oubt of the ir fate. They were ftd veterana aud the courage required o{ them waB a8 re ckless as that dis- pi ayed by the Light Brigade at Bala- klava. The most desperate of all was the chaplain of a Texas regiment, w ho c h a rged pistol in hand. The enemy bftd pog ted sharjishooters in the trees neaves t the battery for the obvious purpose 0 f picking off gunners when agsau \t should be made. We were ]yj ugi many infantry regiments, in the rear of the battery., to be used or not, according to the success or fail- ure of the attack. While waitiug for I mov ement a sharpshooter in our f rcm (- amlise d him'self by shooting at J COU spicuous mounted men, such as a j des and orderlies, who came riding up the hill. He was a very imcom- inoJ , marksman. The distance seemed too great for effective shooting, yet he had wounded two officers, shot the horse of an aide, and sent his bullets w histling so (dose to the ears of two 0 j| iei . 0 ffi cers that they dismounted in haste, though they must have known they would be chaffed by the idle sol- dier8> as tbe y were. “„\ n infantry officer who sat on a crac h er hox with his back against the eav thworks smoking liis pipe, under- t(J0 ^ to warn mounted officers who cam e that way. Boon he called one of pig men an q instructed him to go to { j )e llex j regiment, the Sixty-sixth minoi x thi nk, for a crack shot. The 80 idi er returned with a man whose stooped soldiers made him appear anything but soldierly. This sharp- shooter carried his rifle, not a musket, in his hand, like a careful hunter, not on his shoulder. As he stopped to the officer, who now stood ftnd inted witll his pipe toward a c i ump 0 f distant trees, he took out a p j eoe c f chamois and slowly rubbed « sights like a man about to sho fm . fl prlze i ( While the officer and the sharp- shooter were talking an orderly, mounted on a big horse, came tearing up from the town. Obviously lie had a message, was in haste, aud was nn- certain where to go. He had stopped below to ask a question, then dug a showy Mexican spur into his horse, which almost leaped up the slope. The rider stopped him with a jerk to speak to the officer with the pipe, hut his question was never asked. He raised liis hand to a salute, gave a gasp, clutched at the air, and fell over, to be dragged with one foot in tlie stirrup down the slope by the frightened horse. “After a single bounding glance at the body of the orderly axvay over the rough ground, the sharpshooter ad- justed his sights xvith deliberation, rested his gun on the earthworks and tired at a spot xvhere a puff of smoke indicated the marksman xvho had shot the orderly. It xvas a loug shot and the chances seemed all against its being effective, at least at a first at- tempt. After the shot a cheer went up along the line back of him,the men rising in disorder. Something had rolled out of a tree across the open Sb ‘ lCe ' “A mounted officer in . mlliant trappings came up and stopped, but n° sbot disturbed him. Iheiexvas no doubt that the something that had rolled out of the tiee xvas the Con- federate sharpshooter. “Without looking again in the direction of his great shot and xvith- out paying any attention to the cheers, the old marksman took out his pipe xvith ostentatious indifference, lighted it and xvalked slowly back to his regi- ment. “Such shooting is for the born marksman. It xvas discovered that most soldiers did not shoot well. They xvere unable to resist the temp¬ tation to fire too high. This was the ease with botliFederals and Confeder¬ ates.” There is an old superstition, that when a flock of wild geese is seen flying in the shape of a ,“W” war is imminent, v - NO. IN DARKEST INDIA- Miss Newcomb Picture* the Suffering of the Natives. The following dreadful picture of India was given by Miss Helen New¬ comb at the Women’s Baptist Foreign Missionary convention in Syracuse the other day : When I went through Bombay over half the population had locked their doors and fled,and the desolation alone of the streets w as terrible. The plague which raged in India is supposed to he that which attacked the Philistines of old, and shows many symptoms of that dread disease. The natives have a dread of the foreign hospitals, and believe that they are carried to them in order that their livers may be ex¬ tracted, to be used in some foreign medicine. I was told not long ago by a woman that she was sure the terrible pictures which had appeared of the Indian famine were not true to life. Suffer- ing by famine cannot he exaggerated, The horrible picture of skeletons of children lying along the roadside, de- serted by parents who crawled on per¬ haps only a few yards before they, too, were overtaken by death—this even the camera cannot do justice. You wonder why India, with its fer- tile soil and under British rule, should come to this condition. In the first place the people work one day and rest three. They do not prepare for the future. In the second place, we must remember that the crops ore en- tirely dependent upon the rainfall, Should the rain fall once it places them in bad condition. Should it fall a third time famine is inevitable, The government relief work reaches some, but cannot reach all. The native mer- chants, too, are a set of rascals. If a scarcity of food is hinted at they go out to the fields and buy at mod- erate prices from the unsuspecting farmers what tliey later refuse to sell except for fabulous prices. The mis- sionaries themselves often liny what they cun at such times to sell at low prices or give away later, as the case may demand, * After six years spent in India, in which time J have made a study par- ticularly of the women, I cannot bring to you the brightness I would desire, The idol worship and the hundreds of dancing girls plunged into degra- dation from which there is no escape form a sorrowful picture. If the young women of this country are thankful for nothing else, they mar li be thankful that they are born in Christian land, where they can enjoy a happy girlhood. The girls there are generally married at ten, almost never later than twelve years of age. One of the most pitiable sights is the child widow, who is supposed to have coin- mitted some great sin in a previous state of existence, which she must suffer for hereafter. The more she suffers here the loss there is to come, so that the hard labor, insults and degradation she endures are almost unlimited. There is no possible es- cape for her to anything happier or better. The pariahs are another set of unfortunate women, who labor from early morning until late at night to provide for the family and buy their husbands opium. —New York Tribune. Hindoo Pursuit of a Treasure. The folloxving incident occurred re- cently in one of the largest- lu tels in Calcutta. It appears that an officer of the Gordon Highlanders arrived in town on his xvay home. He had a large sum of money with him—about 2000 rupees—and the usual jewelry of *n f^sh .. gentleman, ,, These xvere ?» locke d 111 °" e °, f lus tr " nk8 - ttmuu g fl f ' om the d uun . S snlo «» room oue evening, he 1 xvas just in time to see some suspicious-Joolung natives bolting down the corridor. On entev- j ng loom he found, on exainiua- ti tbat a n his trunks had been f orced open and the contents throxvn abo ut; but strange to say, not a piece mone y was missing nor any item of jewelry. He believed that the burglars xvere Afridis, and the object of their cupidity a copy of the Koran belonging to the Mad Mullah, xvliich they somehow learned xvas in his pos¬ session. The book xvas rolled up in an old singlet and thus escaped the searchers, who appear to have tracked the officer from the front.—London Empire. Challmige for Chopper*. The Australian Axmen’s association of Tasmania is seeking foemen worthy of its steel and has issued a challenge to American choppers to compete singly and in pairs and also in teams of four, in chopping and sawing tim¬ ber for a series of prizes ranging from $250 to $500.