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era era 52B -OF IKK COU NTY, SUBSCRIPTION, *1.00 PER ANNUM. EDGAR L. ROGERS, URNESVILLE, GEORGIA. Wishes everybody in this broad laud of ours a prosperous year into which we ave just entered, and I rise to thank my customers and friends for the kindly md liberal paatrouage bestowed on mo in years past. I feel proud of it Aud will ■enow my efforts to put in Finer Goods, BETIER STYLES and LOWER PRICES Ban I have ever done before. I have run my stock down very lovr with an eye Eo giving my patrons an ontire ari ay of NEW GOODS. With greater efforts on my part to please, I intend to TR1AB IT ON THIOK Until I shall merit and get The Lion’s Share of Pike county and surrounding country’s IRYGOODS AND CLOTHING TRADE (I shall kee r Everything a f d bold myself ready i to startie competition in Prices! COME AND TRY ME You shall have Prompt and Polite Attention. Cut-rate prices and fti'st-c;ass goods, Messrs. J. F. Howard and E.C, Elder are with me and are ever delighted to wait upon customers. PATRONIZE HOME INDUSTRY^ I OaEorn’– Walcott GRIFFIN, GEORGIA, Manufacturers of ■g/’ ■ V / CARRIAGES, BUGGIES AND WAGONS. FINE VEHICLES MADETO SPECIAL ORDER. Repairing done neatly, substantially and with dispatch. Home-made wagons war ranted. A car load of Tennessee Wagons Just Received. Best hand made harness always on hand. We can suit you. Don’t lose your money by investing in worthless vehicles and machine made harness. Dealers in Rough and Dressed Lumber, Brykin I i of House Material constantly on hand, and can make anything you ' want. Manufacturers, also, of MOINES 1 AND BOILERS, SAW MILLS, SYRUP MILLS FARM; 4 HINERY, ALL MANNER OF CASTINGS py anything a full line from of Pipe Baby’s and Pipe Cradle Fittings to Locomotive. aiid engine Fixtures, Can make or r e. a iffiffitfi ❖ MnrpFey, HEADQUARTERS FOR • .aiririages, ,i Bmggtes ami WhAmGmOhNhS [5,000 PLOW-HOES AT BOTTOM PRICES! Barnesville, Ga. pike Coimfi Journal A VOLUME I. ZEBULON, GA., TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1889. Raise the Curtain. Raise the curtain—let tho brightness Of your cheering light ihine forth; To the pissora in tho darkness It mny be of vital worth; Give a glimpse to lonely wand’ror Of your household full of joy. It may rouse to new ambition Some poor friendless, tempted boy. Raise tho curtain—we are kindred— Each to all is bound by ties W hich forbid a selfish shutting Of ourselves from others’ eyes; Share your light and share your blessings; God hath made tho whole world kin, And his love so universal, Takes the weakest sinner in. Raise the curtain of your window, Raise the curtain of your mind; Do not let possession make yon To the wants of others blind. Helping others we uro strengthen’d, Giving, we are richer made; Aud no one so strong or patient, But some time hath need of aid. —[Flora N. Candoe, A MAN-FISH. At 1 o’clock in the afternoon of June 21, 1859, I was in tho crow’s nest or lookout on board the New England whaler Yankee Land, and we were hear ing up for Valparaiso from the Juan Fer nandez Islands when I caught sight of a floating Unman body on thejee bow, and half a mile away. We had only a light breeze- and tho sea was scarcely dis turbed, and from my perch aloft I could see even the fish as they played about us. 1 had scarcely hailed the deck when the floater raised his head, kicked his feet under the surface, and, after waving his arm as a signal, he began swimming down to us. The sight of a man out at sea, provided with nothing whatever to float him, was queer enough, but there was something much moro queer in storo for us. I have aeon the natives of al most every country in the water, but I never saw anything like the speed this floater made as lie came down to us. Ho just smoked through water like a yawl with her sail set to a stiff breeze. All the men mustered forward to get sigjit, of him, and as he came alongside he checked his way, took a long survey of our craft, and coolly called out: “What ship is that?” “The American whaler, Yankee Land,” answered the mate, “Want any hands?” “Yea, we will ship you,” replied the captain. “Very well, sir—I’ll come aboard.” They threw him a rope and he soon stood on deck, tiie only unconcerned person on the ship. He asked for a chew of tobacco, wrung the water out of his clothes, aud vdicn the cook brought him gomogrub he (lid not appear over hungry, lie refused dry clothes, saying that iie felt better when dump, and when he had finished eating lie explained: “JVIy nann i Tom Finch. I quit the English brig Saxon two days ago. I can steer a boat or fasten to a whale with the best of you. Give me a Jay and let me turn to.” “\ T ou quit the Saxon two days ago?” queried the captain. “Y‘cs, sir.” “Where was she?” “A matter of fifty miles to the l orlh west, sir.” “At sea?” 0 “Yes, sir.” “How did you quit?” “Said good-by to my watch and jumped overboard, and have been float ing ever since.” There wasn’t a man in the ship who believed his story. Indeed, what intel ligent man would believe it? And it was Gospel truth, as we discovered when we reached Valparaiso. The Saxon was there, and half a dozen of her had seen him go overboard as stated. A man fish had come aboard of us. There never was a mermaid, but he cer tainly was a merman. He was next to amphibious. He was with us for sixteen months, and during that time was the wonder of our crew and of every other crew we met. He was a stalwart, good looking chap of 35, but his interior may have been built on tlnNish principle. He swam as swiftly as some kinds of fish, and that without seeming to tire him. He could not be drowned, and no shark would bite him. I said he was a queer man. The reader probably, agrees with me. I give my word and honor that every statement I shall make is true, and can be proved true. „ Our .carpenter was laid up with a broken leg, and when Finch announced that he could use tools he became car penter temporarily. After we left Val paraiso, no longer doubting the story of his two days’ float, he gave us a marvel lous exhibition of his skill as a swimmer. In running back to the south we struck the fag end of a cyclone, and got a ter rible sea. Our big ship was tossed about like a pea, and the waves walled up on us now and then until their crests seemed to tower fifty feet above the rail. Everything was lashed and double lashed, and the cook couldn’t make even a cup of coffee for twenty hours. While we were lying to and hanging on for life Finch stripped to his shirt and pants and weut averboard for a lark. The best man among us would have been drowned in five minutes. He was in the water two hours, and when he came ottt ho did not puff »3 heavily as a man who had run across the street. A hundred times in those two hours wo thought ho was lost, but he had no more fear for himself than as if he was on dry hind, la the sixteen months I saw him go overboard as many as fifty times, in all sorts of weather,and by day and by night, and yet he never met with an accident. I stated that no shark would bite him. He proved this fact a thousand times over. Harbor sharks, for reasons best known to themselves, will sometimes pass a swimmer by, but they are small fry compared to tho hammer heads and while sharks of mid-ocean. The true man-eater is not a shore fish, except in tropical waters. When a whaler is en gaged in cutting in and trying out, and is drifting off before the wind, your real man-eater appears. I have seen them twenty-five feet long, barnacled up and moss-grown like ancient whales, and evi dently a hundred years old. These are the demons of the deep, who will rush upon a raft and upset it or tear it to pieces, and who Seem to feel no pain from tho prick of a lance. We got a wlialo to the southwest of -Conception, a hundred miles off shore, and Finch ga\w: us his first exhibition. Wo had an eighty-barrel fish lashed'head and tail to our starboard side, and were just hook ing on to the first blanket pieco to hoist away, when three or four monster sharks appeared. The one who come up astern was of such size that the men called out in amazement. He lay with his dorsal fin above water, and we could see every inch of him. It was enough to give you a chill to note his wicked eyes and his awful mouth. When Finch saw this shark ho said he would drive him away. Tho Captain or dered him to go about his business, not wishing to loose a man,hut Finch waited until the officers were off their guard, and then went overboard Off the lee bow with a great splash. There was a wild cry from the crew aiid a rush with ropes, hut Torn looked up ami laughed and swam around the stern of the ship. The big man-eater had backed off about 20 feet at the splash, but two others, almost as large, had como up oft the quarters, and there lay three of the winccaest fish in the Atlantic Ocean. Everybody shouted and gestured and half a dozen ropes’-ends were thrown to Tom, but lie would not mind us. He suddenly sank below the surface and made a bee line for the big fish, and, to my surprise, the old fellow darted aside to escape the collision. It is truth to the letter that Tom Finch drove every one of those monsters away from the ship, and for'an hour ho pad died about in Hie water and was un harmed. To (he course of a couple of hours the big shark returned. A piece of blubber was tied up in an old coat and dropped overboard, and he mado a dash of a hundred feet and bolted it down like a flash. He then took up his station off our quarter, and not over thirty feet way, and the sailor mounted the rail and made a long leap right at him. The shark went off like a streak, and we saw him no more. Once, when we were in the harbor of Honolulu, Tom gave a public exhibition, and at least 5000 people saw him swim about among the sharks just outside the surf. Several dogs were thrown to them to be devoured, and gallons of blood were poured on the water to excite them, but Dover a one came within five feet of the sailor. He had no peculiar odor about him that we could detect, and why the sharks feared him was as much a puzzle to himself as to others. Among Tom’s adventures was his es cape from the Greek pirates of the zEgean Sea a couple of years before he joined our ship. I give this because every par ticular of it is a matter of official record. He was one of the crew of an Italian brig making a voyage to Constantinople, and on the return, while becalmed among the islands at the mouth of the Archipel ago, a couple of boats, carrying 20 men each, pulled out from one of the islands and attacked them. There were 13 men on the brig, and, though poorly armed, they gave the pirates a hot fight before the vessel wus carried by boarding. When Tom saw that all was lost be hid himself away, and was not discovered until the brig had been towed into a cove. The Greeks had cooled off then, and instead of cutting his throat they took him ashore to make a slave of him. The island was the rendezvous of a bad gang and it seemed that a portion of them were away on an expedition. For this reason the brig was pulled into the cove, which had very deep water, an chored stem and stem, and her overhaul ing was deferred until the other party should return. Tom was the soie survivor of the crew, and he was treated like a (tog. He had a smattering f the language, and he was told thatfjiy r^grded effort by of burning his to escape would be alive, Neverth' on the second night of his stay ho stole away from hi# hut to the water, swam off to the brig, boarded her by the foro drains, and find ing tho two men on anchor watch fast asleep, he brained tlrom with a capstan bar. Tho cable at tho stern was of iiomp and easily cut. The other was of chain, and Tpm managed, to slip it just as tho tide turned.. The brig was oufsido of all the small craft, and, ns the night was dark, no one saw her drift away, Drift she did, however, aided by a fortunate breeze, and next morning slio was sighted and boarded by a Brit isli man of-war heading up from Crete. The Italian government made tho Greeks pay a good round sum for tho outrage, and Tom got monoy enough out of it to have kept him all his days had ho been a landsman. He quit our ship with more fuss than ho had entered it. For sixteen months ho seemed perfectly'' content, and was well up to his work. Thou the owners at homo got into trouble and had to sell out, and yo hauled into Kio Janeiro one day to find a new deal on hand, We were paid off and a new Captain put in charge, and such of the men as wished to go were shipped for a new cruise in a clean ship. Must of us signed articles thoiigh-uone of us liked the new Captain. It was curious that ho and Tom Finch. took a strong dislike to each other at first, sight, but the sailor had signed and would not desert. Wo had only got well outside when the new Captain mado us a speech. vVe had mado an average cruise up to this date, and tho ship was in good condition all tlio way around, but he would not have come up to the mark had ho not insulted and abused us. We had a call aft, and I remember how ugly he looked as he surveyed us for a moment, as an overseer looks over his slaves, and then said; “You infernal lot of sojers and lob scouses, there’s n new deal aboard this ship and I want you to understand it on the go off I There’s to be no more sojer nud picnicking. There's to. be no more gamming between cabin and fo'ens tle. If we have a man aboard whom the sharks won't bite he’d better look out for me! I will bite him if he doesn’t walk chalk! There’s got to be discipline aboard and the quicker you come'to it the better for your lazy carcasses! Go forward and go to work or I’ll be among yon!’’ Almost every Captain gives a crew that sort of talk. The average master looks: upon his men as below the brute creation. Ho thinks it necessary, to brag and bluster and threaten to let them know the wide difference between them. He had made a break for Tom, who had entered as a boat straw, and every man of us foresaw trouble. Wo had been five days out when tho row came. Several of the men had been brutally knocked about without excuse, arid one day as we were on whaling ground, and Tom was placing his bout in order, Capt. Locke took occasion to find a deal of fault. It was plain to all of , us that ho wus seeking a fuss, and that lie was bent on stirring Tom up. He kept at it until he roused him self to fury and struck tho sailor. We kucw Tom would never stand that, nor did he. lie squared off and felled the Captain like an ox, and during the confusion he took refuge in the cabin and barricaded the door and armed himself. Wasn’t the old man howling mad when he e.ame to! Ho issued all sorts of orders, but took precious good care not to expose him self to Tpm’H fire. The sailor held tho cubin'for three days, allowing the crew to move about as they pleased, but watching to fire upon the .Captain if he exposed himself. On' the third night, when we were a good hundred miles off Cape Frio, he dropped out of one of the stem ports into tho open sea, and the first we knew of it wo heard him laughing as he swam away, fjix months later wo had a “gam” with the Scotch whaler Janet, and the men told us that they picked Tom up when he had been afloat three days, and landed him three weeks later at Bahia.—[New York Sun. A Family of Coincidences. On Glade Mountain, W. Va., resides perhaps the most peculiar family in the country. It is a family of coincidences. The father and mother were married on tho 14t,h day of October; they have had nine children, all of whom were born on the 14th of October; five of the chil dren are dead, and all five of them ceased to breathe on the 14th day of October. The name of the head of the family is Joshua Franklin. He says that he was a Confederate soldier; that ho was captured twice by the United States soldiers, and that lie lost two brothers in the war, and that all four of the mishaps or misfortunes of war occurred' on the memorable 14th of October. In tho neighborhood the Franklin family is re garded with superstition, and not a hu man being can be prevailed to stay cither in the house or on the premises on either day or night -on the 14th of October.— [Chicago Herald. NUMBER H. PHOSPHATE BEDS:', 11 U 4 South Carolina’s Curious its of Life-giving Rock. Methods of Mining the Most Valuable Fertilizer Known. The phosphate beds of Charleston, S. C., have proved of great value to tho place, and tlioy have moro than com pensated for tho gradual loss of the cot ton trade which has gone largely to the cities north or to Savannah on the south. These beds and tho great “Ashley fish basin” nre the most wonderful and inex plicable formations known to geologists. Tho deposits consist of nodules of phos phate of lime, thickly interspersed with the huge bones and teeth of antediluvian mammalian mid marine mammoths of gi gantic proportions. Tho mastodons, giant baboons, prodigious gorillas, liz ards thirty-three feet long, and other huge graminivorous and carnivorous quadrupeds have been found lying in the same lied with briny leviathans, vora cious marine vultures and other monsters of tho deep. The beds have been styled by Agassiz as the “greatest curi osity of tho world,” and they constitute by far the most valuablo fertilizer known to man since tho exhaustion of the Peru vian guano deposits. That they are an almost inexhaustible source of wealth to tho whole state may well be judged, and thousands of people are engaged in get ting the forth I zers' to market. The amount of trade in pliospato rock in Charleston amounts to several million dollars a year, aud it is increasing stead ily year by year ns tho demand for the fertilizers becomes more general through out the world. The deposits underlie a vast region of the country, thirty miles wide and seventy miles in length. Scientists differ as to the origin of this great deposit and in their estimation of tho quantities of rock contained in:the deposit. The rock forms the bed of many rivers leading to tho ocean, and crops out of the land at many points. The river deposits are mined with crow bar, pick and dredges. The land rock is excavated with pick and shovel and is found in a seam ranging in thickness from three to thirty inches, at. a depth of about ten feet below the surface of the ground. The country hi which the rock is found is generally level, and the soil is soft and moist. The rock is sounded for 1iv a lung, sharp-pointed steel rod. When rock is struck from six to ten feet l>elow the surface a test pit is sunk ascertain tho thickness of the stratum and to find if tho rock will analyze up to the standard. From the mines the rocks are hauled in dumping cars to the washers, The rock is here crushed into pieces of uni form size. It then falls into fn troughs or tubs resting on an incline, each of these tubs an octagonal shaft, cased in iron and set with blades or flukes, re volves, which turns the rock around and forces it out of tho tubs upon screens. While in the tubs it is subjected to a continuous aud powerful stream of water which cleans it of ail foreign matter. There are sixteen companies now en gaged in mining the land rock, with a joint capital of about $2,000,000. production of these mines averages about 300,000 tons of rock a year. This in dustry has been the bed-rock of Charles ton life for many years, and now it seems all along the coast the perennial fruits of the. earth, which in themselves are things of beauty, will become as valuable in a commercial sense as the life-giving rock which has been vitalized by the decaying bones of antediluvian mori sters. Side by side with the , rivers and fields which furnish forth phosphate rock are tire broad sa vannas and low-lying islands where mel ons, Cabbages, asparagus, potatoes and strawberries flourish abundantly. Large quantities of these products are shipped north every, year.—[Commercial Adver tiser. Who Directed Booth’s Captors? 1 . I had an interesting chat with a col ored woman who was a slave in Mary land just previous to the assassination Lincoln,writes a Washington correspond ent. Speaking of that tragedy, she said: “I didn’t see Booth when lie came Dr. Mudd’s, but I saw his bools and razor. The boots were long ones, must have readied*to his hips. know that Booth was captured in Mudd’s barn, which was burned to the ground. The soldiers came down there with rush, and were going by when a little boy, not more tlian five years old, told tiiem that there was a man in the barn. He was betrayed by that little boy.” " " Signs of Greatness. Mrs. Hopeful—Is my boy any? Professor of Penmanship—He. is ting", worse. His writing is now so no living soul cau read it. “How lovely! The darling! He'll a great author some day,!’—[Now Weekly. PRINTED EVERY TUESDAY -AT— ZEBTJLON, - GEORGIA* -I1Y- 'tfi'Jfii* LEE, t S. SPLENDID ADVERTISING AGENT. The History of Handwriting. , ■The earliest writing of the Western that of the so-called Uncial manu scripts, waa copied moro or less directly from the inscriptions cut on brass or stone. The type of letters wna practi cally the same, Hut with the change of the materials used there came almost nec essarily in time a change in the mode of forming the letters. Cursive manuscripts —that is, manuscripts wrftten in a run ning hand, with flowing and connected letters, took almost universally by the tenth century the place of the earlier Uncial manuscripts, with their stiff up right, isolated letters, and linndwrittingy as we now understand it, emerged. But during tho Middle Ages writing wus the art of a comparatively few highly trained scribes, carried by. some of them to a wonderful height of perfection. After the introduction of printing the very finest writing disappeared, for the profession of the scribe was superseded, but tho number of those Who could write passably increased as the habit of * correspondence grew, and writing was no longer for tho ordinary man tho diffi cult, laborious process that it used to be. With increased practico handwriting be came somewhat .easier and more free. The progress io this direction went on with little interruption from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century; each genera tion shows somewhat of an advance on that which had preceded it. The writ ing became continuously less awkward and less stiff. But it is in our fathers’ time and in our own, that the great Change lino t»hoa. plnea. The number of letters which are now written has led to increased speed in the writing of them, With increased practice the hand come* to move moro speedily and easily; there is no longer the same care in the forma tion of the indiyidual letters which there was while people liad more time for writing. Words are, so to speek, dashed . off; and we are content if we can make the whole word intelligible without con sidering too minutely the letters of which it is formed, I think, too, that the im provements which have been introduced’ in the mechanical appliances for writing in pens, ink and paper jiave not been without their influence, and this influ ence has tended in the direction of giv ing greater freedom and facility to the writing. The (great superiority which in the* nppliAKOVB rva< h? England enjoy over most of the nations of the Continent, will also explain why it is that the handwriting of English men lias a bolder character than that of most foreigners.—[Murray’s Magazine. Big Gambling Profits. There never was a gambling resort in* tho world like Monte Carlo. It is a mine of wealth to the managers of its magni ficent tiger lairs, and a very simple calcu lation will show how princely are the profits of the tables. The management admits tlmt its annual profits are $3,500, 000—in fact it is over $5 000,000. Now, inasmuch as the chances of the table are 1 to 36 in favor of the bank, to gain an nually $3,500,000, which it professes to do, $120,000,000 must have been staked on its tables—must have been won and lost., The bank’s $3,000,000 profits is its royalty—at the rate of I to 86 —on tliis enormous amount of money, which must therefore have been played, lost and won. It is this fact of the gambler deai ing with large, masses of money that partly accounts for the faseiuation exer cised by gambling. A careful player who begins with, say $1000 capital, may have fingered, according to the doctrine chances, $36,000 before he loses his‘capi tal. If he plays long enough tlio bank royalty of one in thirty-six is sure to swallow up his capital, and then he has had all the emotion^of having been alter nately successful or tho reverse, rich or poor- At Monte Carlo the bank jpyulty must .inevitably ruin all who ploy long enough to have risked their capital thirty-six times. The annual profits of the tables exceed the annua! aggregate ineoihe of all tho Vanderbilts, During the lifetime of Mr. Blanc it was easy enough to get a statement of the amount. Blanc delighted in letting it be known what, a wonderful prosperous fellow he was. Ilis daughters, who married princes, arc not proud of the source of their wealth, and since their father’s death have sought to. divert attention from themselves and their affairs as much as possible. M. Wagatha is now the general manager of tlio Casino, and he has' lately given it'out that the net profits of the tables last year were only $1,250, 000, or one fourth of what they used to be. A Clean Breast of It. « Browbeating Lawyer (to opposing witness)—Where you ever arrested for felony? The Witness (desperately)—Yes. Lawyer—Alia! What was that fe’. ony? Wituess—Arson. Lawyer—What building was it that you set fire to? Witness—^fic ice paiaco at Montreal.