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ite fPrifllrtspitk Kfcoriicr 4
VOL. I.
JOHN C. TAN SYCKEL & CO.,
Wholesale and Retail Dealors in
CROCKERY,
GLASSWARE,
House Furnishing Goods
Tin-3?late,
Stoves,
Hardware,
&c.. &c.
KAiorrumntKKs o»
TINWARE.
No. 116 Third Street,
MACON. 6A.
CARHART & CURD i
DiiLima is
Hardware, Iron & Steel.
WOODENWAEE,
Carriage Material,
Cotton Gins,
Circular Saws,
SCALES,
bt
PAINTS, OILS, &c.
Mnonn. ( V;
K. J DA V AMT. i. s w on. j ii
DAY ANT & WOOD,
d;mi
HO
XX4 Bay Street.
Savannah, Georgia
Special attention given to tale oi
MTTQN, RICES NAVAL STORES
AQCZrTg FOB
DRAKE'S COTTON TIES,
Cash arlvances lr.aiie cm eornirwiBnM.
:
SID. A. PUGHSLEY, Jr,
'
AGENT AND SALESMAN,
— 771IH
I. L. FALK & CO.
CLOTHIERS,
425 and 427 Broome St., New York,
Cor. Congress _ and , *rr, Whittaker „
A. ''V-A. JNi!w 1M" m - A *
—^---------—_ ---------|
*fm BRAOOV & SG&
Whioiitsville, Ga
■ *
BLACKSMITH SHOP.
Buggies, A tpfciuity ol Plantation Work. Wagon*,
etc., made ari’i repaired.
Plows nod Plow-Stocks of all Winds, mi<J
every kind of Wood and Iron Work done by
A, J. BRADDY & SON.
Wright8ville, Ga.
SMITH’S HOTEL,
W. J. M. SMITH, Agent.
Wrigiitsvillc, Georgia.
H iving lately undergone thorough repairs,
this Hotel >s prepared to accommodate the
public With the finest the -market affords. The
highest market prices paid for country nroduee
John A. Shivers & Son i
Texnille, Ga„
Are now prepared to build, repair anJ
overhaul
Carriages; Buggies,Waps, k.
W« also make « specialty of Ouo
Horse VingoDM.
WRIGHTSVILLE. GA.. SATERDAY. MAY 14. 1881.
Our Numeration.
In our twenties—and the blossom*
Drifted by in fragrant snow;
Skies were blue, and we together
Chose the path that we should go.
Violets bloomed and grasses nodded,
■ Springing by
our lingering feet;
And we laughed and kissed each other,
Singing, gayly, “ Life is sweet!”
In our thirties—crimson berries
Blushed ’neath emerald banners bright
Royal orchids veiled their purple
From the careless seeker’s sight.
“fo itfr n r Sr y stmed;
But we closer drew together,
Hands with sylvan treasures filled.
In our Bixties—open meadows
Now beguile our wandering feet;
Memory’s orchids, forests, blossoms,
Fields and skies aro ever sweet.
But wo boat love aster’s sapphires
And lobelia’s spikes of flame;
Whlle onr hearts, like autumn’s maples,
Bum and glow, for each, the same.
In our eighties—we have cheated
Frost and fled before the snow;
III a southern clime we are waiting
Till onr King shall bill us go.
Resting here, beneath the palm trees,
By the sweet-breathed myrtles fanned—
’Tie not long, our second spring-time,
’Tis not far, the morning laud.
—Margaret B. Hartty.
An Episode of Bidwell’s Bar.
I think it is Emerson who says;
“When you pay for your ticket, and
get into the car, you have to guess
what good company you shall find there.
You buy much that is uot rendered in
the bill. I have found this remark emi
nently true on several occasions, partial
larly when my life-long friend Ruth
bears me company.
Ruth is the most unconventional of
women. She travels, as she does every¬
thing else, with whole-souled earnest¬
ness, and finds bread where most people
could gather only stones. Thus, re¬
cently being in the rear car of the long
train, she preferred standing upon the
platform and drinking in at one draught
that magnificent valley through which
we seemed flying, than by tantalizing
sips, as one lias to do from behind a
narrow car window.
I followed her. I always do. And,
holding on to the narrow railing, we
felt somewhat like two lost comets
whirling through space. Soon the door
behind ns banged, and a gentleman in
the midsummer of life, with a face ns
classically beautiful as Edwin Booth’s,
and a waist of Falstaffian dimensions,
joined us. He beamed on us almost
literally. From the dimple in his fair,
soft chin to the ring of brown, silky
hair which lay upon his broad, smooth
forehead, the expression scintillated
with intelligent good nature. Withal,
tbere " as auch a Prospective back
ground to the sunny brightness, that,
after a few commonplaces, Ruth, the
daring, honest, impudent creature, said,
10031111 K up meanwhile into his face with
a smile so honest and kindly that he
would have been a Berserker not to
have reflected it:
“Sir, permit me to remark that you are
a physical incongruity.”
“Not so bad as that, madam, I hope.
I am merely a conductor, as by this
time .. have , discovered, - - , and , pretty ,,
von a
well-balanced „ one, independent of mv
avoirdu ois ”
“But your thoughtful face, sir, that
is what perplexes me. It should belong
to a body but one-third the weight of
yours,” suggested Ruth, the wise disci
pj e 0 f Lavater.
‘“My face is all right,” he replied,
stro]dng his cheekg and chin with an air
of marvelous self-complacency. “It
gt-opped . . . ten , « but it
growing years ago, is
here, here,” touching the region of his
diaphragm with the tip of his front fore
£Si £525
—he paused, looking into Ruth’s clear
gray eyes as if ho would sound her soul’s
depths—“I am strongly tempted to
tell you my bit of romance, for there ia
a long stretch ahead, and you look like
one of the kind to enjoy a touch of
nature. Isn’t it so ?”
The conductor had struck the very
key-note of onr needs. We were pining
for a veritable Californian story, told in
an unconventional way, outside the well
read romances of Bret Harto and the
Argonaut; to be told, too, under such
P® c1lliar circumstances would bo an
added spice, and thus we besought him
to immediately 3 yield ’, to temptation,
am an 0 j d 8 t , a ger,” „ , he said, ...... “at
least as far back as the spring of ’50.
With a blanket strapped upon my back
fifty cents in my pants-pocket and the
biggest stook of hope and untried energy
that ever mode a lad’s heart os light as
a balloon, I tramped along here in my
search for the ‘ gold diggings.’ My am¬
bition was higher than those buttes
yonder by thousands of feet, and the
top was to be capped with solid gold,"
pointing as he spoke to the three sin¬
gular and isolated peaks we were just
then passing, known as the Marysville
Buttes, whose volcanic heights looked
as inaccessible to us as their peaks
seemed brown and barren.
“It appears to me," said Ruth, meas
j uring the almost precipitous sides of
1 those lofty and mysterious hills, “that
! when a man aspires to touch the sky he
a bi * ber
® old ’ not > howewr - that 1 hold the
metal in , contempt.”
“ I had, madam, and that was the
whole matter. I was desperately in love
—that was a solemn fact expressed in
j as few words as possible—and I be¬
lieved that she loved me, but the top of
I Mount Shasta was not more unattain
! able to me than Jennie. Her father, an
! ok l Philadelphia druggist, had money,
and I had none. He was proud as Luci
,
] fer, and as ambitious for his daughter
| as he was proud. I felt that I could
‘move a mountain,’ if I could find a
j mountain to move, so Jennie and I said
■ : good-bye one afternoon under an old
oak in Fail-mount park, and in tho very
j depths of mv heart I believed she would
i be true to me. It was not a seven days’
ride in a palace-car from New York to
San Francisco those days, and the tall,
slender, hungry, penniless lad who
tramped along here twenty-nine years
ago, seeking his fortune like another
Dick Whittington, was a weary and
home-sick one, as well.”
“ By ‘ here,’ which you have twice
! used, do you mean this veritable valley
of the Sacramento?" said Ruth,
The I
“ very same.' My objective point
was a place now famous in the annals of
that period, called ‘Bidwell’s Bar,’ on
account of a rich bar in the Feather
river, full of golden sand, which was
discovered hv General Bidwell. The
place was many miles from me; tho
country was sparsely settled; I did not
know a sonl (for even tramps wore
scarce in those early days), and so my,
cr-nrcge and vajjf legs gave owk together.
Falling off my boots about 5 o’clock
one sultry day, I bared my blistered
feet to tho cool evening breeze, and
creeping into a clump of young
manzanitzas, fell asleep, hoping that I
would never again wake this side of the
stars. I did, however, conscious that
my toes were being licked in a gentle
fashion,and discovered that it was being
done by a young brown setter dog, abont
as lmngry-looking and generally dilapi¬
dated as I was myself.
“ Where he came from I never knew,
but looking into his half human eyes,
we speedily entered into a sort of dumb
compact to trudge on together. I found
that the poor fellow (I never could call
him a brute) had a sore knee, inflamed
and bleeding. I tore a strip off from
my last handkerchief to bind it up, and
in place of the Good Samaritan’s oil
and wine, gave him my last scrap of cold
bacon. It is strange, but forlorn as I
was in those days, I recall them with a
tender pleasure almost unaccountable.
If I had been raised a Brahmin, I would
have believed that some immortal spirit
of unfailing cheerfulness and unending
imprisoned . . that-dog’s
resources was m
body. , Did yon ever read the fairy ... , le
& ent3 1 The White Gat, who, after she
3jad persuaded the young prince, her
3over > <ru3, ber 3ieiu3 lin, l 3,1133 anc3
throw them iut3ie fire - »^denly stood
before him a woman, as fair as Aurora
Fritz, for that was the name by which I
called the dog, looked at me with Jen¬
nie’s bropn eyes, half roguish, half
thoughtful, and together we resumed
our journey. Nor would I have follow¬
ed in the wake of the young prince,
even had I known the result would bo
similar, for Fritz, the dog, was invalu¬
able just k as he was. All lonesomeness
was gone now that he rarely left my
side, and although our shadows had
grown less by the time we reached the
‘ Bar,’ our immaterial entities were in
prime order for anything in the shape
of adventure. ‘Have never seen any
gold dug ?’ Then Til not at this late day
spoil your first impressions of a miner’s
camp by describing mine, as I approach¬
ed Bidwell’s Bar. I may say though that
one might have supposed an earthquake
or tornado had just been at work there,
tearing up the hundreds of thousands
of cubic feet that had been moved and
removed by mortal hands in their fran¬
tic and persistent search for gold.
“The ‘bar’ was a world in miniature.
Almost every nationality was there rep¬
resented, and almost every feature of
human kind but humanity. Armed
with a pick, pan and shovel, I, like
hundreds of others, began to dig and
burrow and wash dirt. But my labor
and its results would not balance, for
somehow mv little leather bag of gold-
dust grew no heavier, toil as I would,
Wages being good I stopped digging,
and hired myself 'as a camp scullion.
I did every kind of jobbing within the
range of a miner’s wants. Washing
dirty flannel shirts and cotton overalls,
patching leather trousers and cooking
flapjacks is not the most dignified and
flower-strewn path to fortune, you must
know; and to a boy, whose ideas of
chivalry, independence and deeds of
knightly valor were purely and intensely
Byr nic, such a fate you must acknowl¬
edge, r was a sort of poetic justice. My
aim, though, was to earn enough money
with which to buy a certain claim of
which I knew, and that I had, in ad¬
vance, labeled ‘ bonanza.’
“I might have succeeded, but I was
prostrated by a malarial fever, and for
days and weeks lay unconscious at the
tender mercy of a few rough Welsh
miners with human hearts. My little
hoard of money and my energy melted
away together like spring snow. But
for Fritz, I’d have died of disappoint¬
ment alone. He had adopted the ‘ never
say die’ motto, and I as often read in
his glorious eyes the sentence: ‘You
great old coward! At him again! ’ as a
tender and appreciative sympathy which
the gift of speech could not have made
more assuring. My nurses had pitched
me a tent on the south side of a low
hill, and left mo to get well at my leis¬
ure. My bottom dollar had dwindled
into the value of a dime, my legs into
the thickness of a pair of tongs (for all
appetite was gone), and one evening
hope failed me. Believing 1 was going
to die, I resolved to do the fair thing by
Jennie, apprise her of the event, and
advise her to forget me. By the flicker¬
ing light of a bit of tallow candle, I
commenced the letter—the first I had
written for months. I thought aloud
as I wrote. Fritz lay beside me, Iris
nose wedged between Iris fore-paws, but
I knew by the twitching of his ears that
he understood every word I was writing.
“I had reached the climax of
lion and wretchedness-or rather mv
expression ofit—wTten he suddenly rose
andwentout. I soon heard him pawing
and scratching and tearing the earth
about six feet from me, as though he
was under contract to dig a tunnel to
China before daylight. Thinking he had
found the burrow of a wolf or a fox I
called him off, but he was as deaf as a
rock to my voice. Seizing the candle>
[ hurried to the spot, around which lay
a half-bushel of gravel, which he had
loosened, when my eye caught the gleam
of a dull red streak that stained a piece
of quartz abont thesize of an egg, lying
among the fresh earth. Would you bo
lieveit? That streak was worth fifty
dollars, for it was virgin gold. Nor was
it the only one upon that hillside. Fritz
had found a lode (thanks to a gopher),
and I, thereby, had found a fortune.
As soon as possible I had the gold of
that first precious stone wrought into a
ring of my own designing; all of it, at
least, but tho contents of one blunt
corner, which, in its native roughness,
I had mounted as a simple
< 4 ™ i*vwr fLrcn in Tar 1 n* l t ”
w ’
“An act of great generosity, . sir, , 1
think,” interrupted Ruth, with a
ing glint in her eye. “Onewould have
thought you’d hav, p.o.orvod ,„ch a
piece of rare good fortune as a memo¬
rial stone.”
“ You anticipate me, madam. It was
as a memorial that I sent my first bit of
treasure, but I expected to get it back
again within two years, and the girl
with it.”
“ Arid did you V”
“No; nor even received a line of ac¬
knowledgment that my offer had been
accepted. Nothing finds gold quicker
than gold, when a man has once got a
fair share of it, and in two years 1
had, in various ways, secured $20,000.
Investing it, as 1 thought, safely, I re
turned to Philadelphia in all tho pride
of a conquering hero. My story ought
to end here; to wind up with the chime
of wedding bolls and a ‘ beautiful Ra
cliel’ as my reward for faithful nerving,
bnt I bail scarcely arrived when I heard
incidentally that Jennie had gone with
her lather to Europe, not left one sign
that she ever remembered me.”
ou cer -am y c it no e ia m, ,
dampen the ardor of your pursuit ?”
queried Ruth; “yon followed her, of
course?”
“Of course I did no such thing,
madam. I returned to San Francisco
and plunged into the excitement of
gold-hunting with a recklessness that a
woman cannot understand. Six months
after and I lost every dollar, bnt, by
that time, I had learned that experience
is worth nothing as solid capital until it
has been dearly bought. I whistled my
1 rhyme:
Loss and gain, pleasure and pain,
Balance the see-saw of life,
In the sensitive ears of my faithful
Ihitz, hugged his brown head close to
my shoulder—don’t laugh, that dog
was my friend—rolled up my sleeves
and again went to work with a vigor
that I knew meant success if the vein
held out. It did, and five years after¬
ward I had a bank account which ran
largely into the thousands. I invested
it in land. By that time I was a bach¬
elor of thirty. Hard knocks and my one
big disappsintment had shaken nil the
romance out of mo, and when I again
went East it was on business connected
with the construction of this railroad.”
“And you had quite out-lived your
boyish fancy, as your heart began to lose
its youth?” said Ruth, with the least
bit of cynicism in her tone.
“ I think Fritz knew,” said the con¬
ductor, quietly, “ I had become almost a
misanthrope for his sake. If I left him
to go into society—such us wo had—for
a few hours he either whined like a sick
child or kept up such an increasing
harking and baying that, to save him
from being shot as a nuisance, I went
to no place where it was impossible for
him to accompany me. The old fellow
went with me even to New York, and on
tho journey I often caught myself cogi
tuting how he—bom in a wilderness of
wild mustard, and mi fond of camp-life
as an Indian—would take to tho con
straints of an old city. Well, I had
been in New York a week before there
v.as u stiong tugging ut my heart to run
down to Philadelphia. Not that it was
home tor me, for my parents had died
before I first left it. I called the desire
‘ the charm of association,’ and it led me
“ There, as 1 first went down Arch
street, my poor dog lost liis wits and the
<%mty <>f 3lis maturity. He had
n remarkably fine scent, I always knew
l3iaf ‘ bld 110 soo,1 ° 1 ' had we turned into
t3lfd i^riiculur street than, with nose
'< c3o8e 3,0 the ground and rigid tail, he
| ran ^ the trail to of and an iro erratic as t J fox. 10Ugb 1 ho called * ft *
i 0 111,11 b ' ,3 ‘ tie gave no heed;
got ont °[ ius Way ‘ Ibe gamins shout
ed ’ nnd "' 33 ' 11 w33f3 > 83)1333 hark, ho snd
den3 Y bounded into the doorway of a
3a, ’fl G dr Y S oods shire. 1 bounded after
3lim in tiuu> to see bim rush up to a
lad Y in b3ack who was examining some
« lowM and dancc aromul her with si « ns
of tho most extravagant joy. There are
tones that live without the aid of pho¬
j nographs. ‘ Roy! Roy! Dear old Roy !
was all she said, hut I’d have sworn the
voice was Jennie’s if I heard it on the
8umanfc of „ ,, , L3a,lc A , white , .. , hand
-
j WftS lwd U * )0 ° llis head ’ and m ? nug wa3
i <m
„ He paused. “ Yours Sir, I hope
.
j voa d3d not c3a3m 3t ’ Hfl ' d 3l3s P rac3,3t ’ a3
•
coi ocu3or -
! “ 3 ,33l -> allt3 33i0 bund which wore it
: i uh3, as 3 originally intended. Nor did
i Alexander, in his hour ot greatest con
! T nest > ever smile a more serene approval
of himself than our conductor at this
i stagGof 3s8t01 ’ y '
‘ IM the conduct of Fritz, and tue
! laay’8 silence, ., ana all the queer con
! comitants which exist only in fiction—•
j 10W do y OU reconcile them with an
, ow . r tni0 ^ a j e ,, » sa |j the
! ] ov ; n ^ g
„ ^ ,, OJ . EoJ
Often been caressed by Jennie before
his young master, Jennie’s cousin, got
| the gold fever , wh en I did, and came to
j California never to return. Jennie had
written, ]mt her letter never reached
m e. She thought me dead. Why the
dog came to me, when his master died,
is one among tho riddles of my life
which I will disentangle in the here
J after.” “And to-day where sho?”
j is
; 33<i stood waiting for tho question,
1 “On our ranch near Sacramento, and I
^relieve one of the happiest women in
tho State - Wo have a ho 7 teu .Years
o3t3 w3l08 ° namo is I ritz, and all the
d® arcr tor tho sake of the old friend
w3a0 3iafi 3on t> s3lK -'e gone where I hope
one ,3a Y to t3le human of him. I
u 3h3 ‘ Y ou con3d s3,0 P od a ' w3d3 ° an(3 Hfie
^ w ! fe ’ 3t > tha ‘ 1 Bhould
bave mtrad ® d ^ of P nvate v hlstor Y
’’l’ 01 ) you, tut tlie trath is- -. Yes,
comm &’ 111 be Wlth Y ou a 2 aiD > ladies,”
A brakeman beckoned him inside, and
we seen the last of our handsome
conductor.
The evening shadows had begun to
lengthen. The setting sun had turned
the vast plain of the Sacramento valley
intoa-fieldof the cloth of gold,” and
the distant peaks of the Sierra, clad in
their eternal snows, bnt now rose-tinted
and glowing, seemed to cleave the azure
above them as with a wedge of burnish
ed silver. It was starlight when we
reached the end of our car ride and
j were registered for the night.
“ The conductor’s story was a pleas-
.\U. 52.
ant little episode, Ituth, wasn’t it ? Do
you believe it all happened?” I asked
(
as I leaned from my pillow to hers to
eave a good-night kiss on her round
cheek.
“ I liko Fritz,” was her sleepy an¬
swer. “ There’s an instinct about some
dogs that the half of mankind can
neither appreciate nor, attain. I trust a
man whom a good dog loves.’’— San
Francisco Argonaut.
A ltlde on a Wild Bull.
Recently there was a “ rodeo” out on
Lost river, Lake county, Oregon.
Ranchmen had gathered for a circuit of
seventy-five miles to claim and brand
their young oattle, and when a cordon
of men had surrounded a large band,
among which was a Spanish bull, a dis¬
pute arose about a “mallet head,” or
calf that had escaped the spring brand¬
ing. The discussion grew warm, none
of the stockholders being able to set
a valid claim or establish an undoubted
title. At last in a spirit of bravado, a
rancher proposed that whoever would
ride the hull without saddle or halter
should be declared owner of the calf.
There was a yell of approval but not a
general shimpdle of volunteers, for
taurus was in ill-humor, and his foam
j iug mouth and bloodshot eyes gavo
token that whoever rode him would
have a ride us wild as Mazeppa’s, and
one that might, not end so well. At
i us t a « vaquero” named Frick accepted
the challenge and the wild bull was im
mediately lassoed and hold by a lariat
r(nind horn and foot. Dismounting
f roni ],is horse the vaquero fastened his
long-roweled spurs securely, tied a
i iaud kercbief round his head, ap
proached the infuriated animal, and
gjagping the tail in his hands sprang
lightly on it, setting the spurs deeply
j n its flanks as ho settled securely in
his seat. The lariats were slackened;
the bull gave a roar of rage and terror
and flung his head to the ground; but
the rider had his back to the boras and
a fu . m grip on the tail, and kept his
Another roar that shook tho
ground, a wild plunge, and the now
maddened bull shot out across tire sage
plain with lightning speed, his plucky
rider twisting the tail that to him was
a sheet- anchor until the bellowings
were lost in the wind. For over a mile
and a half the race continued, amid the
excited cheers of the vaquero’s com¬
rades. Occasionally the bull gave a
desperate plunge through a heavy
clump of sage in the vain attempt to
rid himself of his tormentor, but the
i ong rowe i 9 only clung more firmly to
his flanks. Sometimes the animal and
rider were hidden by undulations in tho
g roun( j i an( ] bets were even made that
Frick would be thrown and gored; but
at last the bull, exhausted from sheer
tng k t, fell, and the plucky vaquero,
stepping lightly off, returned to claim
prize, which was unanimously
awarde(1 .
— — ---
An lira of Accidents.
The Railroad Gazette publishes the
number of railway accidents occurring in
33ie United States in 1880, and the num
her of persons killed and injured, and
a3so £P ve8 the accidents for eight years
past, from which comparisons can be
torn: .
Accidents. Killed. Injured
1873 . .....1,283 27ti 1,172
1874....... ..... USO 204 778
1875 ...... 1,201 234 1,170
is7t> 082 328 1,037
801 214 1,047
740 204 7«:
910 180 70!)
1880. 1,708 315 1,172
Thus, not only have the accidents
been more numerous, but they have been
more deadly than usual. Only in one
year (1870) have we reported more killed
by train accidents, and never more in¬
jured (in 1873 just as many). Compared
with 1879,there is an increase of seventy
per cent, in the number killed, and of
sixty-five per cent, in tho number in¬
jured, while the number of accidents
was bnt eighteen and one-half per cent,
greater. In 1879 there were ‘2.03 persons
killed and 7.08 injured to every ten acci¬
dents; in 1880, 2.93 killed and 10.87 in
jural.
Very seldom, indeed, have accidents
j on the average had such serious conse
i quenees, and considering the quite gen
eral use “ of imnroved improved safetv safety atmliances appliances,
especiaUy powerful continuous brakes,
by whlch tbe ^sequences of negh
gence aragreaUynntigated and re
dnC ? d ’ this ,s further evidence of great
neghgenee and less skill m employes,
ant3 especially train men There were
U1VolT ger and f 1 1,068 “ tbese freight “ wdents trains. 447 paSSeU '
An Illinois butter factory uses up two
hundred thousand pounds of milk a
, day.