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YOL. I.
FATE.
Fair as the sutmoet azure
A timid violet blew
CloSo to tho fort’s embrasure
O'er which the hot shells flew.
’Neath battle-smoke and thunder
Tbe'fort was quickly stflled,
Its huge wall blown asunder.
Its brave defenders kilted.
Still on the fortress bettered, entombed
Whoso heroes lay
Beneath tbclr banners bloomed? tattensL
The Munkittriek peaceful violet In Collier’s' Wdeiiji.
K.
A City Tragedy.
“My goot friant, what shall I haf
done mit this?”inqnired his’’room Stomp pathet¬ day.
ically as I entered tme
“Here is a maq who haf to see me
come, *nnd he cannot speak der words
nor hear, and. he haf hurt der hand so
dot he to write is not able.”
Stomp was evidently in a state of
some excitement, for his nervous energy
was always in direct ratio to his in¬
ability to speak the Queen’s English.
“What’S wrong?” dricks,”said I asked. Stomp.
“More monkey dis¬
“Pah! I with der human race
gusted am. I oome home and my din¬
ner expect, und I find dot, und he haf
give me dis!”—saying which Jhe flnng
a dirty scrap of paper across to me.
1 unfolded it, and saw an erratic
scrawl, evidently written with a blunt
pencil, and so . much smudged and
smeared as. to be illegible ih parts. I
managed to decipher paiufuily a few
words.
“Kommen sie gleicb, Folgen
Sie haben mich gefangen. Bringen
sie ein andere.r m pres-
sirt. A. deB.”
t < Explain this drivel,” said I, toss¬
ing the paper back.
“Ach, drifel you shall gall it, my so
goot friend! Dot is der language of
der gpods. ”
“Possibly, ”1 answered. “It’s Greek
to me, anyway.” Stomp
“The paper haf say,” said
solemnly: “ ‘Come at once. Follow
(brobably der bearer), They haf
caught me. Bring another man with
you. Urgent.’ Und it is signed ‘A.
de B.’ Dot is De Brenne, who haf
.been gone from England six months.
I do not onderstand, but I.haf think
that rows there will be. This bagan
is der servant of my frient. He was
born mit dree senses only. You will
come with me? Und on der way I will
tell you der story of De Brenne.”
“Yes; of course I’ll come,” said I.
“I’m spoiling for a row.
“Dere bhall be der very big rows,”
said Stomp.
All this time the deaf-and-dumb
messenger sat motionless as a carved
statue,watching our faces as we talked.
I think that, in common with others
afflicted as he was, he had the power
of understanding our speech by the
movement of our lips. At any rate,
his face brightened when he saw
Stomp making preparations to start,
and sprang from his chair w - ith a low
guttural sound unlike anything I ever
heard before. It gave me quite a
shock, and, turning rapidly to the
man, I saw that the hair on the back
of his head was darkened and matted
together, Stomp’s eyes followed
mine. 1
“Ya, I haf noticed,” he said. “Dere
will de der first-glass rows. Haf you a
revolver?”
I shook my head.
! Stomp unlocked a case on the man¬
telpiece and> handed me - one, a long-
barrelled 32 Smith & Wesson; the
fellow to it he slipped in his pocket.
“They’re not loaded,” said I, snap¬
ping the breeeh to.
Stomp grinned. “I have der shells
in my bocket. But der moral force is
der safest; you might shoot me iu der
leg or der pinafore.”
< ( You do make a fair target, ” I re->
tortpd, a little nettled, for I think
something of myself as a revolver shot,
and Stomp’s .waist measurement is a
record.
He looked at the uncanny mes¬
senger, who, with another of his gut¬
tural sounds, nodded, and made swift¬
ly for the door.
When we got outside Stomp failed
a four-wheeler, and glanced inquir¬
ingly at our guide. “Piccadilly?” he
asked. The man grunted, and Stomp
repeated “Now,’’said the word to the driver.
he,as the cab lumbered
along, “I shall tell you der story.
This De Brenne of whom I spoke,der
writer of der note, is a great friend of
mine. I haf known him many years.
He is very rich man; his uncle haf
left him all the lfioney. There is also
cousin of De Brenne dot is named
THE TRIBUNE
“Don’t Give Up tlxo
BUCHANAN, GA., FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1). 1898.
Bilvestre; he haf t!*e Bortqguest Wood
in der veins, und is also dot nephew
of dev rich ancle.
“Silvestre lie liaf hated my frient
pecause he haf der money, and he haf
once, dwice, und again sworn dot he
with him will be level. Once ders was
a shooting accident, den dere was a
lire. Oh! der cousin is a very clever
man, I tell you! At der last he was
so enterprising that De Brenne he
came to me and say, ‘Stomp, der at¬
mosphere is not healthy. T think I
will travel on der continent for a
liddle whiles.’ Dot was sis months
ago,und now they haf caught him, and
there shall be rows. Der cousin
is a scoundrel. So, I haf said,”
The cab rattled drearily- along the
wet, half-deserted streets, and finally
pulled up at the entrauce to a narrow
little passage at the back of Berkeley
square.
“So,’’said Stomp, “they havecauglit
in his own house.”
The deaf-and-dumb messenger
scrambled off the box and opened the
door for us, and we followed him along
the narrow pavement in the pouring
raiu. About fifty yards from Where
the cab was standing he stopped wall, op¬
posite a small door let into the
and motioned us to be quiet.
He opened the door uoiselesslytwith soitly
a small key, and we walked
along a dark, narrow passage of con¬
siderable length. As far as I could
make out we were entering one of the
Berkeley square houses by a private
entrance. I whispered as much to
Stomp, who nodded in reply, at the
same time holding up a warning finger
not to speak.
Onr guide, who was leading, stopped
suddenly, and Stomp and I stumbled
up agaiust him in the darkness. Just
ahead I could see a tiny spot of light,
evidently a hole in the panelling,
through which the interior of the bril¬
liantly lit room beyond was visible.
Stomp applied his eye to this, aud
for a second or so the point of light
was blotted from view; then he drew
back his head with a jerk, and with a
sudden hissing, indrawn breath.
“Ach! der villains!” he said, in a
hoarse whisper; and,slipping his hand
into his pocket, he handed me some
shells. “Der play-agting business is
over. Der rows shall be real rows.”
And he snapped the breech of his
revolver to with a vicious snap.
The panel slid noiselessly into its
casing in the wall, and Stomp and I
stepped into the room. I shall never
forget the view that met my eye. It
seemed as though I were dreaming,
and had suddenly been wafted back to
mediaeval days; it w - as incredible that
such a scene should be enacted here
in the end of the nineteenth century,
in a smart house in the very heart of
a great city. Firmly lashed to an
ordinary kitchen table chair sat a man
whom I immediately recognized as De
Brenne from Stomp’s description. His
head was bent forwards, aud round
his temples was n piece of thin cord
twisted so tightly that it had cut into
the flesh. A man behind him was in¬
creasing the pressure from time to
time by turning a short piece of stick
which was inserted in the cord, w'hilst
two others were making preparations
for even more ghastly and inhuman
torture.
De Brenne’s face was a putty color,
and great beads of prespiration were
streaming down it. On a small
in front of the group was what looked
like a legal document, pens and ink,
and a jug of cold water, w'hich had
evidently been used to revive De
Brenne should he lose consciousness
under the terrible ordeal.
The room was perfectly quiet, save
for a low moan now and again from
the victim as an extra twist or so made
the pain unendurable, The three
fiends were so occupied with their
brutal task that they did not notice
our entrauce.
“Will you sign?” asked the mani¬
pulator of the string in a low,pleasant
voice.
A stifled moan tVas the only answer,
which rose to a sharp wail as the stick
was turned another half revolution.
Stomp raised his arm, paused for a
second steadily as a rock, pressed the
trigger, aud the man’s arm dropped
limp from the elbow downward. He
gave echoed a yelp of pain and surprise, which
was by his two companions,
aud clapped his other hand to the
wound. The string relaxed and De
Brenne’s head dropped forward on his
chest—he had fainted.
“Hands up!” shouted Stomp. One
of the two uninjured men slipped his
hand behind his coat-tails.
Orack! went the revolver again, and
a small pocket-pistol dropped to the
floor, whilst the fellow’s hand was
splashed with crimson drops.
It was wonderful shooting, I be-
lieve Stomp oauld have picked crtit the
buttons on the man’s waistcoat bail he
chosen.
“Now,” eaid Stomp to mg, “will
you haf der goodness to tgkq down the
der curtain-ropes and to tie up der
hands of oar friends therewith?"
This 1 did whilst Stomp still kept
them covered with that ominous black-
smudged barrel. After which he
crossed the room and, throwing of open
the wiudoWs waked the stillness the
night by requesting the presence of
“a bolicemao” in stentorian tones.
Marvellous to relate, one came in less
than five minntes, followed by three
more whom he summoned.
Meanwhile I hod been doing my ut¬
most to revive De Brenne, with suffi¬
cient success to enable him to make a
short statement to the inspector,which
resulted in oar three friends being
marched off in safe keeping.
The story was as
De Brenne had gone to the continent,
but his pursuers had tracked him, and
with fiendish ingenuity had huhted
him back to Euglaud to his own
house, so that he would be handy for
signing the required documents. The
house was empty, save for a caretaker,
whom they had speedly got rid of, and
De Brenne’s own deaf-and-dumb Serv¬
ant, whom they retained aftei ! ensur¬
ing themselves against the possibility
of his communicating with the (hit-
side wmrld by writing.
They lia<d then calmly kept De
Brenne a close prisoner in his own
house, and started to torture him
systematically Until such time as he
would sign a will iu his cousin’s favor
(dated some years previously). Had
they accomplished this, they woqld
have again carried him abroad and en¬
sured a fatal alpfne accident by the
simple process of dropping precipice,and him over
the edge of a convenient
leaving him to be discovered.
Luckily for De Brenne, however,
he had been able to get a note con¬
veyed by his servant to Stomp unob¬
served, and so was enabled, as the
latter remarked, “to fiuish lip on der
topside. ”
Precocious Children. **'
There are few parents who are not
pleased when their children show un¬
usual brightness. Such children at¬
tract the notice and admiration of
others, and minister to the vanity of
a father or a mother; but precocity in
a child is a thing to be regretted
rather than encouraged. Few preco¬
cious childreu rise above the average
in adult life. Rather the tendency is
to fall below it. During early cliild-
the first seven years—the
brain is imperfeef both in form and
substance, and any strain then put
upon it is at the expense of future
vigor. One trouble is that the brain
of such a child tends of itself to dan¬
gerous activity; and another is that
the fond parent is almost sure, some¬
times unconsciously and sometimes
purposely, to push it to the limit of
its power. What the parent should
do is to hold the child away from
schools and books, from talk above its
years, and from admiring friends, aud
to keep it down to childish mates and
sports and simple outdoor activities.
If it should not learn its letters until
eight years of age so much the better.
The constant and serious aim should
be to draw away -the tendency of
blood to the brain; to build up the
material organization, and give the
brain a chance to build itself up for
the solid work of life—the furnishing
of the working force for every organ
of the body, as well as of the mind.—
Home Comfort,
Electrlral Urogram Clocks.
The old way of calling school chil¬
dren in from recess was by ringing a
bell from the wiudow. The new way
is by sounding a gong fixed on the
outside of the building with a weather
board over it for its protection, which
is connected by wire with a clock and
rung by electricity. Clocks are made
nowadays, called program clocks, to
ring any number of bells in so many
different rooms or places all at once,
or separately, at and any time. mechanical
The battery the ap¬
pliances required are contained in the
clock case. The electrical attachment
which may.be arranged in accordance
with any desired program, is brought
operation by the clock. When
tbe minute arrives for the ringing of a
bell a contact is made, which connects
the wire of that bel1 with the battery,
and permits the passing of the electric
current, and the bell is rung. Bells
are rung in this manner for the as-
semblihg aud dismissal of school, for
classes in the various rooms, and so
on.—New York Sun.
WAR CURty F OR YEIA OW JACK.
A tirhteh W1 trill Sutjjron hoys It Was a
Suovsbw Off the Cblitettp Coast.
“Yellow fever, I pee,” said a mid-
night wayfarer os he stopped before
an alarming war lHillotin. The man
looked as if he had jnst got off a train
from anywhefe, and he was in a mood
to chat with any stiamger who stood
nest him, as men so often are
in these war tirnqs, when all Ameri-
cans seem to be kin. “Yellow fever,
I see. Well, that doesn’t scare me
worth a cent No, sir. Yellow fever
doesn’t do much harm to an army that
has plenty of e-xciteroppt. Now, if the
Spaniards would suddenly get quite
peaceable and orderly so as to leave
the array there without any excite-
meat ”--
“Yes, I know what I’m talking
abont. There was an old doctor I
knew in Canada that used to be a sur-
geom in the British navy, and he told
me how he stopped yellow fever on
his ship when they were doing some
kind of naval work at the mouth of
the Peiho river, or some such river,
on the Chinese coast He said the
C’hinese fixed a chain across the mouth
of the river, aud before the British
Could get in they had to file that chain
iu t\vcx. Every time a boatload of men
went to do some filing the Chinese
would pepper - them With musketry
from under cover of the shore, very'ex- so that
filing was a slow job, blit a
citing jab. * Lots of the (hen in the
boat got hit.
“Just about the time this filing be-
gan one of the crew reported sick
with yellow fever symptoms, then
another, aud another, until it got
atfout thg'slrip that yellow jack had
come aboard. The doctor said he
knew that if the men had got to
thinking about it they would all get
the fever, so the next man that re-
ported with the symptoms he just or-
dered him, instead of lying down, to
Stand by and wait for further orders,
In that way the doctor got together
a good half dozen of yellow fever pa-
tients ready to join the next gang
that was ordered off to do cable
filing.
hmTkVf “H e told me that those patients of
the
scription. They would just as lief
liave a Chinese bullet iu the open air
ns die of yellow fever between decks,
But of course only some of them got
hit, and the doctor declared to me
that not one of them died of yellow
fever. So, you see, he saved the
lives of all the balance, according to
that, and the fever didn’t get any hold
*
on that crew.
“Do I believe it? Why, certainly
I do. No, I don’t understand much
about faith cures, but I do know that
it’s more tkau any one man can do to
face bullets and have yellow fever at
the same time.”
A Wonderful Flower.
At the London Temple flower show
the Acalypha Sauderi, which hails
from New Guinea, was exhibited for
the first time in England. The fa¬
mous plant hunter, M. Micholitz, was
traveling iu a remote district of New
Guinea, inhabited by fierce cannibals,
when he came across a beautiful flow¬
ering plant, which sprang up not only
from the ground, but from the tops of
the mud huts of the natives.
The expedition was of sufficient
strength to overawe the savages, and
M. Micholitz, delighted at his discov¬
ery, caused several specimens to be
collected. So sure was he that their
beauty would cause a furore iu Eng¬
land that he accompanied the consign¬
ment over 3500 miles to Singapore, in
order to see that theplauts were safely
dispatched from that port.
The Acalypha Sanderi is a green¬
leaved species, with spikes of gor¬
geous crimson flowers hanging from
every node. These beautiful floral
spikes are from twenty to thirty inches
long, aud as thick as an ordinary walk¬
ing stick. All the year round it sends
forth its glowing pendants, and as its
initial cost /will be small it is likely to
be popular with those of modest purses
who love the presence of floral beau¬
ties.—New York World.
The Age of Niagara.
The truth of the adage about con¬
stant dripping wearing away a stone
is strikingly illustrated in the fact that
the Niagara river has been 36,000
years cutting its channel 200 feet
deep, 2000 feet wide and seven miles
loug through solid rock. Evidence is
conclusive that the falls were formerly
at Queenstone, seven miles below the
present situation. It has been proved
that they have not receded more than
one foot a year for the last half cen¬
tury. •
NO. 40,
UhABIUTY FOR SEA HORROR.
tho XVJEUnrq ntmiuti Convicted
of Forcing I'amougtoa Overboard.
Since the tccrrWe fate that befell the
passengers on board tho French steatn-
er La Bourgogne much speculation
has arisen as to the liability of the
French crew' under the charges
brought against them in connection
with the sinking of the ship. It is
well settlod that the law in England
and the United States is adverse to
the crew.
The leading American case is that
of the people against Holmes, which
was tried in Philadelphia by the bril-
bant lawyer, David Paul Brown, as
prosecuting’ attorney. The story is
an interesting one. The ship William
Brown sank off Nova Scotia in March,
1841. The passengers and crew over-
loaded the boats. After drifting for
several days a storm came up, making
it evident that the overloaded boat
which Holmes commanded would be
swamped and all lost. Under these
circumstances he gave the order to
lighten the boat. Twelve passengers
were thrown overboard, and D' - o sis-
ters voluntarily jumped into the sea.
The remainder of the passengers iu
the boat and the crew were saved and
bVought to Philadelphia, Holmes
was indicted and tried. In his de-
fence the above circumstances were
shown and additional evidence ad-
mitted that Holmes was one of tho
most active in saving the passengers
and getting them in the boat; that at
the risk of his life he had personally
saved several. Nevertheless Holmes
was convicted, and the United States
court sustained the conviction on tho
ground that the contract of the sailor
bound him to use every means iu his
power, even to the sacrifice of his own
life, to deliv r each passenger at the
port for which he shipped,
The point of jurisdiction was raised,
when it was held that the flag con-
verted the ship and her apparel, ia-
eluding the boats, into national terri-
tory. As to acts done in the waters
of the high seas, it was further held
that the contract controlled ns to the
sailors. The court also held that as
to the same acts done between pas-
rule prevailed; in tne absence of ^ater-
national law as to them they owed no
duty to one another; they were, from
the moment of leaving the ship, re¬
mitted to their natcttal rights, and the
law of self-preservation prevailed,
Much sympathy throughout the
country was nftmifested for Holipes in
this case from its purely doctrinal law - ,
and, its being a case of first impres-
sion, his sentence was commuted to
imprisonment. After 18 months he
was released, but the principle that
tho sailor owed a'duty to passengers,
even to the sacrifice of bis own life,
was established.
The mocking bird is common in al¬
most all parts of America, from the
south of New England to Brazil.
North of the Delaware, it is only a
summer visitant,but in more
regions it is found at all seasons. By
day, the mocking bird is generally im¬
itative, excelling alt birds in its power
of imitation, now taking up the song
of one bird and then of another, aud
often deceiving the most practiced
ear by its perfect performance. It
seems also to take pleasure in repeat¬
ing the harshest cries of birds. In
domestication, it gives an imitation of
almost any sound which it is accus¬
tomed to hear,passing from one to an¬
other with great rapidity, so as to
produce an incomparable medley. It
readily learns to whistle a tune, even
of considerable length, but there is
no authentic instance of its imitating
the human voice. By night, its song is v
for the most part, natural, Its food
consists chiefly of berries and insects.
The yolk of a hard-boiled egg is rel¬
ished, though it should not be given Bird
oftener than every other dfly.
fanciers aKo keep on hand a mixture
of several seeds, for the special diet
of mocking birds.
Why Sigsbee Turned Sc-uttler.
On one occasion Captain Sigsbee
deliberately sank his ship to save, her
from a still worse fate. He was in
command of the coast survey steamer
Blake and was anchored in a West In¬
dian port when a hurricane came up,
aud in the heavy sea the ship’s an¬
chors began to drag. She was drifting
to utter and inevitable destruction on a
reef. Where she lay there was a soft,
sandy bottom. The captain ordered
her scuttled, and down she went.
Later she was pumped out and raised
—an expensive aperation, but far less
eostly than Magazine. building a new - ship.—
Muusey’s