Democratic watchman. (Bellefonte, Pa.) 1855-1940, August 25, 1899, Image 2

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Bellefonte, Pa., Aug. 25. 1899.
A WOMAN'S THOUGHT.
I am a woman—therefore I may not
Call to him, ery to him,
Fly to him,
Bid him delay not!
Then when he comes to me
Still as a stone—
All silent and cold
If my heart riot—
Crush and defy it!
Should I grow bold,
Say one dear thing to him,
All my life fling to him,
Cling to him—
What to atone
Is enough for my sinning?
This were the cost to me,
This were my winning—
That he were lost to me.
I must sit quiet;
Not as a lover
At least if he part from me,
Tearing my heart from me,
Hurt beyond cure—
Calm and demure,
Then must I hold me,
In myself fold me,
Lest he discover;
Showing no sign to him .
By look of mine to him
What he has been to me—
How my heart turns to him—
Follows him, yearns to him,
Prays him to love me,
Pity me, lean to me,
Thon God above me!
RB. W. Gilder.
THE TERROR OF POVERTY GULCH.
Ji.
Nearly half an hour later, when dusk
had fallen upon the gulch. Chadburn, who
had met McGruder at the little huddle of
shanty stores and shops which constituted
‘‘the camp,’’ and was speaking with him
in the post office, heard a commotion in the
street and saw a rush of shouting boys and
men run past.
“On’y a dawg-fight,”” he heard some one
say as he stepped out to see what it meant.
A little up the street, through the chang-
ing circle of the crowd that surrounded
them, he caught glimpses of the infuriated
yowling brutes rushing at each other fierce-
ly and tumbling together about the road,
while the crowd swayed and scattered from
this side to that to keep out of their way.
Some of the more decent of the men tried
to snatch at their legs to pull them apart,
while others yelled: ‘‘Let ’em alone!”
“Keep off!” ‘‘Let ’em have it out!” ‘I
bet on the ball pup!” “I bet on the set-
ter!’ ‘Keep off there; let ’em alone!”
Chadburn was. turning away in disgust,
when a little figure with an armful of small
packages darted by him and sprang into
the crowd. The boys gave a shout: ‘‘Ho!
Flopsy! It’s Flopsy!”
“The Terror’s on deck this trip. There'll
be fun now,’”’ Chadburn heard one of the
men say, as he rushed after the hostess of
the recently arranged banquet to draw her
away.
The savage spirit of the entertainment
had by this time communicated itself to the
audience, who had taken sides generally
with the dogs, and were yelling: ‘‘Get off
that rope!” ‘‘Cuff that boy?’’ ‘‘Don’t you
dare!” ‘‘Pull that child away; she’ll get
killed!” ‘‘Let the “Terror alone; she’s all
right. Go in, Flopsy, and help the pup!”
Infuriated by the brutal sentiments of
the crowd towards the neglected child,
Chadburn, who was but a step behind,
pushed the people savagely out of his way
to seize her, but reached the ring only in
time to realize a swift whirl and tumble of
dogs and rags, with the air filled with cakes
and broken eggs and scattered candy.
Before he could reach her she haa struck
on her feet again aud dashed at the face of
a boy, who, with the cunning meanness of his
age, had, unseen, been standing on the rope
that hung from the young dog’s neck, there-
by giving every advantage to the setter.
Some of the small boys rushed up to trip
the girl, and some men, on discovering the
foul play upon the pup, rushed up to cuff
the lad, and, as usual, others to take his
part. A general town fight was imminent,
but in a minute all was over with a laugh.
The staying qualities of the young bull-
dog had given him the victory the instant
he had fair play, and the badly punished
setter shot out between the legs of the
crowd, while the pugnacious Tige flew
loyally to the rescue of hislittle champion,
and the boys hasitly scattered to escape his
teeth, followed by a volley of cobblestones
which the girl flred after them.
Picking up her little ruin of a hat, Chad-
burn placed it on her head, blushing with
mortification as he did so, for he had al-
ready secretly adopted the child into his
heart, and ber shame or glory he felt must
pe now and henceforth his own.
He seized her firmly by the arm as she
was flinging another stone after the hoys.
She turned on him with fury in her face,
and raised her foot to kick him in the legs;
but seeing who it was, and catching the
serious and reproachful look in his face,she
instantly wilted and hung her head. He
put his arm kindly over her shoulder.
Melted by this evidence of sympathy, the
impetuous child burst into a passion of
tears, and flinging her arms about his waist,
sobbed with her dirty little face against the
loyal breast that was henceforth to be the
refuge of her neglected life.
Suddenly recollecting the banquet, the
girl turned about, and seeing all her little
purchases scattered and trampled in the
street, gave a moan of despair, and looking
up at Chad, exclaimed, bitterly: ‘‘Ohoo!
now we can’t have no party. Are you mad
at me?”’ >
Chad did not answer, but putting his
hand over her little shoulder, drew her
against him tenderly. He heard one of the
men standing about say: ‘‘Chip in, boys.
You've had your fun, but the girl’s lost her
grub. Stake.”’” And before he could inter-
fere, some one had slipped a couple of dal-
lars in silver change into the child’s hand.
The men in the gulches are always willing
to pay for their entertainment, though per-
haps too much inclined to take it aw nat-
urel.
At that instant a faded woman of proba-
bly thirty-five, in a bedraggled wrapper,
and having a general look of ill health and
bleached hair, burst out of a restaurant,
and running up to them in a tremor of ex-
citement, clasped the child in her arms.
“Le’ me be, Lil,” said the girl. “I
a’n’t hurt a bit. Tige licked.’
When Chadburn walked up with Mec-
Gruder to supper, he led the child by the
hand. She had forgotten the conflict, and
was munching candy by the handful.
‘No, fetch her along. We can fix a
shake-down. It'll please the old woman.
She’s had an eye on the child and has
thought of taking her, but the youngster
is sich a holy terror with that dawg, an’
she won’t give him up. Couldn’tsend her
to thestore on an errand. Why, the little
SR it sm
devil raises a riot every time she comes in-
to camp with that pup! And throw stones!
But she’s smart—the child’s as smart as
lightnin’. Everybody likes her, but the
men plague her, and get the dawg into
fights to see her throw stones at the boys.’
This was what McGruder said when
Chad asked to be excused from supper in
order to take his little protegee home.
Chadburn went down to the principal
saloon, which was also the principal gamb-
ling-house, that evening, and during the
intervals of the music was seen to converse
quietly with the pianist. It must have
heen serious and earnest conversation, for
the wretched women drew a dirty hand-
kerchief several times and wiped her eyes.
She seemed to he giving a tearful but ready
assent to Chadburn’s proposition, and she
was overheard to reiterate insistently.
“One of the first of the old creole families
of Baton Rouge.’’” Chadburn shook hands
with her when leaving, and there was in
his manner an air of compassion and guali-
fied respect.
“It’s all right, Mr. Chadburn,’’ said the
motherly Mrs. McGruder. ‘‘She’ll be a
kind of a care and worry to you, of course,
but it’ll be a kind o’ careand worry that
will pay, for the girl’s awful bright and
smart, and I think she’s real purty when
you come to get the dirt off'n her. She
knows more’n you think, too,about cookin.’
Now she jes stood there and turned them
pancakes this mornin’ like any old hand.
Oh, it is all right! Ta’n’t as if she’d been
brought up finicky. She’s used to knockin’
around and lookin’ out for herself. It’ll
do a young feller like you lots o’ good to
have jes that care over a child—keep you
from runnin’ round to the salons when
you're idle, to have a little girl to look af-
ter;and she ken help you with your cookin’
a good deal.”
So when Chadburn left Poverty Gulch
after completing the official survey of Me-
Gruder’s claim, the Terror and her’ pug-
nacious dog went with him.
She was not as much cast down at the
severing of old neighborhood ties as Chad-
burn had feared. Her temper was hopeful
and brave, and besides she had fallen deep-
ly in love with Chad and trusted him. The
handsome fellow felt this trustfulness far
more than if the Terror had been a ‘‘tame
child,” but he had misgivings about its
lasting that made him take it soberly.
While waiting for the stage in front of the
shanty store she bought a lot of candy and
‘gave a party’’ on thesidewalk to the boys
and girls, overlooking any coolness that
might have hitherto existed between her-
self and any of them.
There was an unexpected exhibition of
sincere good feeling for the child in the last
moments. Galbraith, who kept the gen-
‘eral grocery and hardware store, brought
out a gorgeous dog collar with a padlock,
and gave it to her for Tige.
She was overcome and speechless by Gal-
braith’s generosity, for the entente cordiale
between herself and him had lately been
interrupted by the circumstances of her
having thrown a stone through his win-
dow ‘‘for calling names’ and kicking
Tige out of the store.
A number of little gifts from others, and
of dimes and quarters from the mining men
who happened to be about, testified how
completely the poor little hoyden had fill-
ed the public eye of the gulch. The baker
brought her a bag of molasses cakes to
cheer her journey; the butcher came out
laughing with some chuck meat in a brown
paper for the dog. This attention was the
more unexpected and embarrassing to the
Terror hecause she had scornfully declined
to recognize the existence of the butcher
since he had threatened to cut Tige’s head
off with his cleaver for sneaking meat from
the shop. But her good fortunes had soft-
ened the asperity of her feelings, and she
had the generosity to ignore the past and
receive the gift in the spirit in which it
was tendered. The little milliner of the
camp rushed back to her shop and cut off a
piece of blue veil stuff for the traveller to
wear over her face. It probably seemed to
her a pity, now that it was washed, to have
it get chapped by the raw fall wind. Wom-
en are thoughtful about little things that
way.
Poor Lil herself, looking too wretched
for tears, had brought her a clean pocket-
handkerchief, and after showing her how
to use it, with an amiable caution to ‘‘be
a lady’ and not wipe her nose any more
with her fist, drew her aside and embraced
the final opportunity to inculcate, in a low
tone of voice, some moral precepts upon
the child’s neglected mind. *‘I hope you’ll
think of me, Flopsy. We've seen hard
times together these last few years, but
I’ve always tried to do the best I could for
you. I’veshared what I had, if it wasn’t
much, justas I promised your poor dyin’
maw I would, and I don’t want you to
blame me when you grow up, and know
things. I’ve had bad luck, Flopsy. You
don’t know things yet, but you will. I
’a’n’t had any real health in the West, and
I don’t feel as if I should live very long—
and I don’t want to,”’ she added, desper-
ately.
“Florence’’—the solemnity of her emo-
tions betrayed her into calling the child by
her right name—*‘I want you to remember
always you come of good family, and never
let yourself down to anything low; now
remember that. Be a lady always, like
your mother was—a perfect lady. Your
paw used to be a real elegant gentleman,
too, before he ran through with his money
and got down. It changed him; it changes
every one, Florence, to get down and not
have money. But I think you're going to
have good luck and as easy life,thank Gawd.
I think that’s a real elegant gentleman.
Now, Florence, oh, do mind him good, like
a real little lady, so’s he’ll love you and
you’ll have good luck.
‘‘Gawd knows I’ve done the best I could
for you, but, Florence, you’ll never know
till you grow up and know things how
much bad luck I’ve had since Mr. Barclay
and me was divorced. But don’t you ever
tell anything, if you should ever get back
to the old home where your maw and I
were girls. Just tell ’em I got down poor
and had to teach music for my living.”
Kissing the child as she would have kiss-
ed her in her coffin, the miserable woman,
less wanton than weak, the victim of false
notions of the nature of luck, pressed the
corner of her shawl over her mouth to con-
ceal her sobs, and hurried away. Chad-
burn shook hands with her kindly as she
passed him, but neither of them spoke.
Though the Terror shed no tears,she was
dumb with the pity and pain of the scene,
and was profoundly impressed. Galbraith
kissed her as he picked her up and swung
her into the coach. She clung to his hand
hesitatingly an instant, and then pulled
him over and whispered in his ear, ‘I’m
sorry I throwed the stone.’”” There was a
husky, hysterical quaver in his voice as he
said to Chad, ‘“We’ll miss the little thing
here,”’ and hurried into the store.
After the coach had gone, there was a
general movement among the miners and
others standing about to shake hands with
Chad. None of them felt able to say any-
thing that would adequately express the
emotions of the moment, but they wrung
his hand with a silent eloquence of sym-
a i pp Si ls LA A aint i ——
pathy. Their souls applauded though their
lips were dumb. There was the pride of
brotherhood in the admiration with which
they looked at him.
It was a sublime and deep-pulsating mo-
ment in the heart experiences of the little
camp. Along the sordid, surging current
of common life such eddies of pure and ten-
der feeling, of sublimated sympathy, of
loving brotherly pride of man in man, are
rare, but they do occur,and they keep alive
the divinity within us.
It gave Chad a deep satisfaction to re-
flect, as he rode off, that the poor little
fantastic waif, whom he was taking more
and more into the inner chambers of his
heart, had not passed her life in Poverty
Gulch as a door that cometh and goeth up-
on its hinges.
When he overtook the stage-coach that
day, which, fortunately, Tige and the Ter-
ror had entirely to themselves down as far
as Crested Butte, he found his interesting
protegee with her body projected through
the window, beckoning him furiously to
hurry up. Wearying of the monotonous
grandeur of the scenery, she had divested
herself of such incumbrances as hood and
shawl, and baving tied her veil over Tige’s
head, had been indulging herself in the
perilous amusement of seeing how far she
could hang out of the window without
falling under the wheels. She was enjoy-
ing the ride immensely, and felt that a
Concord stage-coach was a vehicle not to be
improved upon, except by the addition of
a cross-bar on which a weary passenger like
herself might occasionally relax her cramp-
ed muscles by the invigorating exercise of
‘skinning the cat.”
When Chadburn rode alongside, she call-
ed out to him that Tige was burning to get
out and run with him, and might she let
him. ‘‘No!”’ said he, promptly, and a
little severely, for he was irritated by her
crazy behavior. ‘Keep in the coach there
yourself, and put on your things.”
‘All right, Chad,”’ she called out, cheer-
fully. It was one of the peculiarities of
the Terror’s frank and naive temperament
that she ignored all distinctions of age and
condition, and never took a roundabout
course to anybody’s name if there was a
shorter cut across lots. ‘‘All right, Chad,
if you say so. Whatever you say goes with
Tige and me. Don’t it, Tige?”’
His impatience was disarmed, and he
gave her one of his own peculiar beautiful
smiles, half merriment and half irony,
which seemed like the illumination of
heaven to the benighted heart of the Terror
—the illumination of heaven with just a
little cloud of doubt about it, which rather
increased the interest, asa little doubt will
in affairs of the heart.
In five minutes she flung herself half-way
through the coach window again and call-
ed back to Chad to know if he was having
a good time. He smiled and nodded.
*‘All right, then, Chad, but I'd feel safer
about you if you’d let Tige come out and
run with you.”
He smiled again, but shook his head de-
cisively.
“All right, then! Whatever you say
goes,’ she called back, cheerfully; for she
had caught his smile.
It was by the power of his smile that
Chad controlled, subdued, and yet always
encouraged the boisterous, generous, sensi-
tive, untamed child. For her it had a
thousand tones,and every tone was musical
with a beauty that never palled upon her
fearless and loyal liitle spirit.
The man only can smile. Only once in
a generation is a woman born into the
world gifted by Heaven with the ravishing,
rapturous smile full of beauty and of love.
Every man of us sees her once, but she
quickly fades from the embrace of most of
us. and we call it a delusion.
There fell a day in the flight of time
when Chadburn, with the glow of heaven
in his own eyes, discovered that the Terror
of Poverty Gulch was the woman of his
epoch! He thinks so still He may be
right. Love is eternal. —By Fitz-James
McCarthy (Fitz-Mac) in Harper's Weekly. .
Threw the Teeth Away.
The General Left in a Predicament By His Friend's
Careless Act.
Only a few of the older army officers save
a personal recollection of Colonel Benjamin
Bell, but stories of his doings and sayings
will live for years. He made a great repu-
tation in the Florida Indian war and in the
Mexican war for bravery and strategy.
In the early ’50’s General Flournoy and
Colonel Bell were ordered to California. It
was a long and monotonous voyage, of
course, via the isthmus of Panama. On the
ship were a number of women passengers,
some the wives of army officers and some
the wives of 49ers, who, having struck pay
gravel, had sent for their families to join
them and build up a home in the new
country. General Flournoy was a beau of
the old school and paid great attention—in-
discriminately, sometimes—to the women.
The general and the colonel were close
friends, and occupied the same stateroom,
but their sources of enjoyment lay in di-
verse directions. One night during the
voyage the colonel found difficulty in going
to sleep.. He alway kept a bottle of whisky
handy. for emergencies, and got up and felt
about on the little shelf for a glass. He
found one, took it up, discovered there was
something in it, and promptly pitched the
contents out of the window, filled the glass
tossed it off and in a few minutes was snor-
ing sonorously. As daylight broke he was
rudely shaken up by the general who
cried:
‘‘Ben, Ben, wake up!
thing of my teeth?’
‘‘No,”” said the colonel,
they?”’
*‘I put them in some water in a glass on
the shelf,’’ said the general, his voice full
of pathos and his toothless mouth quiver-
ing. ‘‘Have you any idea where they
are?”’
‘What time is it?’’ asked Bell.
‘Seven o’clock,’’ said the general. “Time
to get dressed.”
‘‘How many knots an hour is this boat
making?’’ asked Bell.
‘About twelve, I think,’ replied the gen-
eral, ‘‘but don’t worry me about that now
—where do you suppose my teeth are?’’
‘Well, replied Bell, as he turned on his
other side, ‘I should judge your teeth are
about 100 miles to therear of us if its 7
o’clock. I threw the contents of that glass
out of the window before midnight—I did
not know that it was your teeth—you
should keep them in your mouth.”
Poor General Flournoy kept his state-
room for the remainder of the voyage under
the plea of illness, and had a dreadful
time of it keeping out the women passen-
gers, who insisted upon helping to
nurse him. He would rather have faced
every Indian in the whole country than
have one of them see him without his teeth.
It was long before he ever thoroughly for-
gave Colonel Bell.
Did you see any-
‘“‘where are
——Barclay’s mill at Sinnemahoning has
shut down, as the continued dry weather
and low water renders it impossible to float
their many million feet of logs to where
they can be manufactured into lumber.
Walter Wellman’s Trip.
He Made Several Discoveries. When in Expectation
of Reaching the Pole Various Unexpected and
Severe Accidents Occurred.
Walter Wellman and the survivors of
the polar expedition led by him, arrived at
Tromsoe, Island of Tromsoe, Norway, last
week on the steamer Capel, having sue-
cessfully completed their explorations in
Franz Josefland. Mr. Wellman has dis-
covered important new lands and many
islands.
The expedition brings a grim story of
Arctic tragedy. In the autumn of 1898 an
outpost called Fort McKinley was estab-
lished in latitude 81. It wasa house built
of rocks and roofed over with walrus hide.
Two Norwegians, Paul Bajoervig and Bert
Bentzon, who were with Nansen on the
Fram, remained there. The main party
wintered in a canvas covered hut called
Harmsworth house, at Cape Tegethoff, on
the southern point of Halls Island, lati-
tude 80.
About the middle of February, before
the rise of the sun to its winter height, Mr.
Wellman, with three Norwegians and forty-
five.dogs, started north. It was the earliest
sled journey on record on that high lati-
tude.
On reaching Fort. McKinley, Mr. Well-
man found Bentzon dead, but Bjoervig,
according to promise, had kept the body in
the house sleeping beside it through two
months of Arctic darkness. Notwithstand-
ing his terrible experience the survivor was
safe and cheerful. Pushing northward
through rough ice and severe storms, with
a continuous temperature for ten days be-
tween 40 and 50 degrees below zero, the.
party found new lands north of Freedom
Island, where Nansen landed in 1895.
In the middle of March all hands were
confident of reaching latitude 87 or 88, if
not the pole itself. Then began a succes-
sion of disasters. Mr. Wellman, while
leading the party, fell into a snow covered
crevasse, seriously injuring one of his legs
and compelling a retreat.
Two days later the party was aroused at
midnight by an earthquake under them,
due to pressure. In afew minutes many
dogs were crushed and the sledyes destroy-
ed. The members of the expedition nar-
rowly escaped with their lives, though they
managed to save their precious sleeping
bags and some dogs and provisions. On
Mr. Wellman’s condition becoming alarm-
ing, as inflammation set in, the brave Nor-
wegians dragged him on a sledge, by forced
marches, nearly two hundred miles to
headquarters, arriving there early last
April. Mr. Wellman is still unable to
walk and will probably be crippled.
After reaching headquarters other mem-
bers of the expedition explored regions
hitherto unknown, and important scientific
work was done by Lieutenant Evelyn B.
Baldwin, of the United States weather
bureau, Dr. Edward Hofma, of Grand
Haven, Mich., and A. Harlan, of the Uni-
ted States coast survey. The expedition
killed forty-seven hears and many wal-
ruses.
The Capella arrived at Cape Tegethoff,
in search of the expedition, on July 27th
last. On Aug. 9th she met the Stella
Aolar, bearing the expedition headed by
Prince Luigi, duke of Abruzzi, which had
sailed from Archangle to reconnoitre North-
west Franz Josefland and to meet, if possi-
ble, the Wellman expedition.
Mr. Wellman and his companions found
no trace in Franz Josefland of the missing
®ronaut, Professor Andree.
An Elegant Time.
A Housewife's Inference from the Value of an Unex-
pected Present.
A certain Washington man congratulates
himself on the fact that he has the best wife
in the world. He does not mean to draw
any invidious comparisons by this superla-
tive estimate of his helpmate, but he thinks
no other woman would so well adjust her-
self to his eccentric habits. To tell the
truth, he has not yet settled down so much
that he does not enjoy a little whirl ‘‘with
the boys.”” Sometimes these celebrations
develop into orgies of magnificent propor-
tions. It is here that wifey’s good disposi-
tion asserts itself.
When her hubby comes home in the wee
hours, and is groping vainly for the banis-
ters, he is not confronted by an irate spouse
at the top of the stairs. He is not compell-
ed to listen to a curtain lecture hefore he is
allowed to sleep off his potations. He is
confronted by no sour looks when he gets
up the next morning with a fever-dizzy
head, consequently he feels stricken with
remorse. He evens things up with his con-
science, or tries too, by purchasing fine rai-
ment and various articles for the feminine
toilet in order to make himself believe that
he is in some degree worthy of such a wife.
It makes no differsnce whether he takes
his bender at home or on the Pacific coast;
it seems impossible to eradicate the dark-
brown taste until he has bought his peace
offerings.
But the good wife. herself has come to
understand the meaning of these gifts. Not
long ago the husband went to New York
on some business. Contact with convivial
friends and numerous ‘‘high balls’’ produc-
ed a Bacchanalien fete that lasted three
days. With sobriety comes remorse and
the Washingtonian went down to a fashion-
able dry goods emporium and outdid him-
self. He bought an elegant dress and trim-
mings, which footed up $50. He express-
ed them to his wife and awaited develop-
ments.
In a day or two came a letter. It was
not very affectionate, it is true, but it was
a good long one. It recounted the effects
of the recent cyclone at the Capital even
more vividly than it was discribed in the
newspapers. The torrid weather also re-
ceived honorable mention. All the details
of the latest neighborhood gossip were fully
cited. No mention of the dress in the body
of the letter. The postscript always the
best part of a woman’s epistle, consisted of
this brief sentence, which spoke volumes:
‘You must have had an elegant time.”
Let Us First Put Our Own House in Or-
der
The people of Pennsylvania are not this
year concerned about anything but the bet-
terment of the State Government. The sil-
ver question, in this campaign, is of no con-
esquence in comparisonwith honesty in the-
Treasury department. The subjugation of
the rebels in the Philippines sinks into in-
significance beside the defeat of the law-
breakers and looters of Pennsylvania. The
campaign this year is for the advantage and
profit of Pennsylvania and not for the bene-
fit of the whole country— Harrisburg Patriot.
——Willie, aged 5, accompanied his
mother to a dinner party at a neighbors
one evening, and after desert had been
served the little fellow asked for another
piece of pie. ‘‘Why, Willie,”’ said his
mother, ‘I never knew you to ask for a
second piece of pie at home.” ‘No; I
knew it wasn’t any use,’’ replied Willie,
as he proceeded with his pie eating.
SOE a
The Anti=-Jewish Prejudice.
Hatred of the Jew is at the bottom of the
unreasoning, ferocious anti-Dreyfus spirit
that is abroad in France. Anti-Semitism
is world-wide, though its manifestations
are affected by geography. In Russia it is
religious and commercial, in France po-
litical, in England and the United States
social. The fundamental cause is the same
everywhere—the Jews are a people apart.
They have their own religion, and they do
not intermarry with the people among
whom they live. Therefore there is directed
against them that suspicion and ill will
which ignorance ever holds in reserve for
the foreigner.
‘Hi, Bill!” cried one of Mr. Punch’s
manufacturing-town roughs, ‘‘here’s stran-
gercomin’ down the road.”
“It ’im with ‘arf a brick!”
Bill. i
Bill had the mind and soul of an anti-
Semite. |
The kind of people who are incapable of
achieving personally anything of which to
be proud are ever happy at having some-
body to look down upon. The more shift-
less and worthless the Southerner, the surer
he is to be vain of his white skin—vainer
of it by a good deal than if he had earned
it. In California the lower you go the
stronger becomes the detestation of the
Chinaman. The stupider the American
soldier is, and the less important he was as
a civilian, the intenser is his scorn for the
Cuban and the Filipino. Educated men
do not often despise people of other na-
tions; that luxury is nearly monopolized
by the masses, who know least about them.
‘‘Gentlemen,’” said Josh Billings, ‘‘are the
same all the world over; it’s only the
toughs that differ.”” ‘“What makes me
down on a nigger,”’ said the enlightened
Southerner, ‘‘is that he’s so infernally like
a white man.”” Our pioneers have always
loathed the Indian. It has made it less
disturbing to the conscience to rob him.
The anti-Jewish prejudice in this coun-
try seeks to justify itself by picturing the
Israelite as sordid, as a being wholly com-
mercial. Business men whose waking
hours are given up to an exclusive passion
for money making, when they speak of the
Jew project their own portrait, and revile
it. Their tone would hesuited to a sword-
carrying, feather-wearing, devil-may-care
cavalier. They are as far from being of
that type as an old-clothes dealer or pawn-
broker of sheir acquaintance. If they have
been overmatched in business by a Jew,
the chances are ninety-nine in a hundred
that they were defeated in trying to over-
match him.
The Hon. Joseph Choate, American Am-
bassador to Great Britain, had a Jewish
law partner in New York. ‘‘Give it to
me,”’ said Mr. Choate when this partner
was making out a bill for $1500 to a cor-
poration for legal services rendered. Three
days later Mr. Choate tossed him a check
for $1500. ‘‘There’s your share,’”’ he ex-
plained. *‘‘I doubled the bill. What do
you think of that?”’
‘‘Almost,”’ said the Jew, looking up,
“almost thou persuadest me to he a Chris-
tian.”’
It may be mean and irrational for the
European noble or soldier, heir to the mili-
tary tradition, to despise the Jew because
he typifies trade. But in America a na-
tion of shopkeepers, and proud of it, this
borrowed prejudice is grotesque. Among
us the Jews do not conspicuously excel in
business. They do not own the great for-
tunes. None of the Bonanza Kings were
Jews. Rockefeller of the Standard Oil
Company is not a Jew. Neither is Have-
meyer of the Sugar Trust. Vanderbilt and
Huntingdon, the railroad monarchs, are
not Jews. Armor of the Meat Trust is not
a Jew. Thefamous merchants of the Unit-
ed States are not Jews. No more are the
great speculators. Jay Gould was a Gen-
tile; so is J. Pierpoint Morgan. The large
estates are not owned by Jews. William
Waldorf Astor, with a hundred millions of
real property, is a Christian Englishman.
As for close-paring millionaires, are there
any Jews among them? Russell Sage is not
a Hebrew, though he has all the character-
istics which are popularly ascribed to
the people who have given us our religion
and who keptalight the lamp of knowledge
when through more than ten centuries it
had been extinguished by Christian Eu-
rope.
The truth is that anti-Semitism is partly
an inheritance from semi-civilized persecut-
ing ancestors and partly due to the desire
of the average incapable to feed his egotism
by selecting somebody to whom he can feel
superior. It is a prejudice most unworthy
of Christians, and most prevalent among
them. The Jews of the United States are
exceptionally good citizens—industrious,
sober, law-abiding and patriotic. They are
home-makers, and notably fond of family
life. The number of their charitable insti-
tutions prove how well they care for their
poor. The ordinary Jew, if nota Jew,
would be ranked by his neighbors as a spe-
cially competent, decent and deserving
man.
Nevertheless it will be long ere the anti-
Semitic spirit dies out. Prejudice, being
belief without reason, has the vitality of a
cat. It will not disappear wholly while the
Jews, set on one side for more than fifteen
centuries by Christian hatred, and con-
demned to ghetto distinctiveness, remain a
peculiar people. Where caste lines are not
strictly drawn, as in the newer West, social
intercourse between Jews and Gentiles is
free and intermarriage frequent.
That is the point—intermarriage. Jews
will be Jews and Gentiles Gentiles until
this barrier has been broken down. The
Jews understand this. The prejudice against
them in the United States is the price they
pay for their exclusiveness. They argue
that to intermarry would be to lose their
identity asa race. True; but why not?
Race is one thing, religion another. And
this is the nineteenth century.—North
American.
responded
Bug’s Sting Makes Her Blind.
@irl's Lids Tight her Eyeballs
Shrunken.
Closed and
Laura, a little daughter of Edward
Hartman, residing at Greenwich street,
Reading, is totally blind from the sting of
a bug. When she awoke last Friday
morning the lid of her left eye was swol-
len, and by night both eyes were closed.
A physician opened the lids with an in-
strument, but they soon closed again.
Both eyeballs are greatly shrunken and al-
most invisible when the lids are held apart.
Mrs. Hartman found a strange bug on the
windowsill in the child’s room.
“The Boy Guessed Right.”
Wheelmen in this section will enjoy a
little incident told by ‘‘Teddy’’ Edwards,
the noted century rider who is now in the
west. He says that when he was riding in
the suburbs of Utica he asked a wheelman
which might be the best road from Utica to
Syracuse. The big limbed stranger eyed
the famous century rider’s slender shape a
moment and said: ‘‘Take the New York
Central. ’’— Utica Observer.
Sn A a AR
Two Thousand Dead.
And Many Dying Daily From Injuries and Privations.
—@General Davis Reports Appalling Conditions in
Porto Rico.—Food on the Way to Interior of the
Island.
The appalling conditions existing in Porto
Rico have been made more fully known to
the war department by General Davis in a
dispatch which says the deaths outright in
the island will reach 2,000, while more are
dying daily from injuries and privations.
General Davis adds:
*‘Dry split peas very acceptable. Canned
peas involve too much transportation in
proportion to nutriment, but can be used
near sea coast, although there is much de-
struction in the interior and deaths are oc-
curring from lack of food. Will not be
possible to reach those points with packs
before week, for in many cases the roads
and trails are so destroyed that onl y men
on foot can get to and from those districts.
The stores coming on the McPherson will
be in time for immediately supplying most
pressing needs at all accessible points with
stores now on hand. So great is destruec-
tion of roads that there is no communica-
tion yet with one-third of island. The
commanding officer at each of the twelve
posts is inspector of relief for his district,
and he has detailed in every municipality
aid collecting data and relieving most press-
ing needs. I have furnished each inspect-
or with similar funds and given authority
toissue food from army supplies. One sol-
dier died of injuries; others injured will re-
cover. A great many wagons overturned
and broken, but all being repaired. Many
thousands private cattle and horses drown-
ed. Larger part of death of natives from
drowning.”
GRIM FACTS FROM PORTO RICO.
A Herald dispatch from San J uan, Porto
Rico, via Hayti, of August 15th, says: *‘I
have already visited the Bayamon and Are-
cibo districts of the island, and shall start
for Ponce in the morning. With all the
extra facilities afforded by General Davis,
communication with the distressed districts
is still only partly open."
Arecibo was devastated by the hurricans
and Manita rivers. Two hundred bodies
have already been recovered and hundreds
more are missing. It is thought they were
swept into the sea. The town was inun-
dated to a depth of six feet. After the
water subsided the dead were found lying
everywhere. The bodies were buried on
the spots where they were found.
The town is now rapidly filling up with
starving persons from the country. Only
four soldiers were drowned, but all are
without shelter. Captain McComb and his
men did valiant service in saving life.
Forty persons were rescued from floating
wreckage. A thousand head of cattle were
lost there.
At Naranzito twenty persons are known
to have been killed. A thousand are
homeless and starving. Maravis totally
destroyed.
At Ciales twenty persons were killed.
Many are missing at Barcelonita. Seven
residents were killed. At Cayey the death
roll is at least ninety.
It is impossible to estimate the loss of
life and property in the country districts.
Every river is still swollen and passage is
well nigh impossible.
The crops are totally destroyed.
CHILDREN DIE BY HUNDREDS.
Children are dying by hundreds from
starvation and exposure.
I rode four miles through the Bayamon
district without seeing a house standing.
All the people are flocking to Bayamon for
food and shelter.
A courier has just arrived here from
Yabucca. He says that the town was de-
molished by the storm. Already eighty
bodies have been recovered, and it is esti-
mated that 200 perished. Many are
wounded. Medical assistance is scarce in
all parts of the island. What makes the
present distress greater is the fact that a
month ago all public improvements were
stopped owing to the lack of appropriations.
Thousands of persons were then thrown
out of employment. A renewal of public
works would be a great relief. Many
planters and merchants are ruined and
cannot give employment.
The Law About Fruit Trees.
If the branches of trees growing on one’s
land hang over the line upon the other, the
adjoining owner may cut off the limbs per-
pendicular with his line, providing the
branches have been allowed to extend over
for a period of 21 years or more, without
objection, when no right would be gained
to cut them off. Fruit on a tree is part of
the realty and is not the subject of larceny.
If the fruit bad fallen to the ground the
neighbor could pick it up and use it. The
right of the adjoining land-owner to top off
branches of overhanging trees before 21
years of permissive acquiescence has elapsed
does not carry with it the right to the fruit
hanging on the tree. The fruit is not the
product of his soil or labor.—Philadelphia
Times.
Probable Double Murder in Huntingdon.
A probable double murder was commit-
ted in Huntingdon Sunday evening. Basil
Bell, a licensed colored preacher, who has
been living with a white woman, named
Mary Winter, for several years, while in a
drunken frenzy, attacked the woman with
an ax, with which he knocked her down.
He then kicked her in a brutal manner.
Bell then called on John Rumsport, a
neighbor, whom he accused of making love
to Miss Winters, and cut him dangerously
with the ax. Nither of the injured persons
is expected to recover. Bell is in jail.
——The practice So common at railroad
division terminals of striking: car wheels
with a hammer, supposed to detect de-
fective wheels, has about been discontinu-
ed. As a matter of fact a crack or dan-
gerous defect in the car wheel cannot be
detected by the sound of a hammer on the
tread. Car inspectors have known this for
years, but they have followed the form be-
cause it was ordered by superintendents.
Bad car wheels break in two places—
either around the tread, or straight out
from the axle. Good eye-sight will show
either of these defects which cannot be de
tected by the ring of the hammer blow.
——The more we hear of the Dieyfus
trial the more apparent it becomes the
destiny of France hangs on the termination
of his court martial. The indications show
that the friends of Dreyfus are composed of
friends of the Republic who are in the ma-
jority. Against them are the odds and
ends opposed to the present form of gov-
ernment, made up of Royalists, Bona-
partists and others. The trial of Dreyfus
is only an incident in the revolution that
threatens the country. Every day the in-
terest in the situation increases, and no one
can fortell what may happen on the mor-
row. The overthrow of the Republic seems
a question of time.
and later was flooded by the Arecibo and