Bellefonte, Pa., Nov. 17. 1899.
SONG OF THE AUTUMN WIND,
The wind is singing a mournful song
In a weird, sad minor key,
While a wailing sound like a spirit in pain,
Comes ever anon to me—
Comes ever anon through the song of the wind
Like a shriek of wild dispair;
Then follows a sound as of myriad wings
Borne past on the troubled air.
Oh! the sky is cold and dreary,
The withered leaves fall fast,
The warm and gladsome summer days
Are over now and past.
The ery is from summer borne away
By old Nature's stern command,
And the song is the mad winter devil's song,
Who come to possess the land—
Who have come to dress it in ice and snow—
To strip the leaves from the tree;
As they skurry along they sing their mad song
In a wild and minor key.
Oh ! the sky is cold and dreary,
The withered leaves fall fast,
The warm and gladsome summer days
Are over now and past.
Robert T. Whitelaw.
HIS MOTHER’S SON.
When Robert C. Howe was forty years
old he put aside his mother, who loved him
well, and married a young wife, Edith,
who loved only herself. It is a terrible
thing to fall in love for the first time when
one is forty. By reason of being very in-
dustrious and very honest Howe had be-
come a book-keeper at Sheppard's big store,
his salary being eight hundred dollars a
year, which was a considerable salary for a
man with no more brains than Howe.
Edith, too, bad a certain social position in
“‘the store,’’ being in charge of the silk
counter, and felt it.
“But she is so shallow and so supremely
selfish, my son,’’ pleaded his mother, who
knew. ‘She will ruin you, my dear.”
This seemed sacrilegious to Howe and
horrified him. After he had told it all to
Edith, being a fool, the spite of her small
nature was aroused, and she took the son
from the mother, basing her action on the
Scriptural grounds that a man should leave
father and mother to cleave to his wife,
Scripture authority being very comforting
to a man like Howe. Shortly after his
marriage, she stopped even his Sunday
afternoon calls at his mother’s little home.
The mother cried a great deal and prayed
much, and waited on in love, which is the
habit of mothers and sons. It would have
heen a great mercy if she could have real-
ized how little brains herson had ; but this
is not the habit of mothers with sons.
Before they had been married a year
Edith fretted herself ill and came close to
fretting Howe ill. A doctor. who was of
the breed that never takes circumstances
into consideration in treating his patients,
said her lungs might be affected soon and
ordered her to Southern California. Then
she turned on Howe, and his heart being
ever bare before her, tore it into shreds by
reproaching him with marrying her only
to kill her. She said he was a sneak, in-
itead of a man, to let his wife die for want
of a few paltry dollars. The next day
Howe stole a thousand dollars from the
firm and sent Edith to Southern Califor-
nia.
Howe was not much of a thief, and the
firm soon found him out. Being piqued at
having thought him surely honest, they
pushed the case hard. Howe made slight
defence and received a sentence of five
years. He alsoreceived a bitter, shocking
fetter from Edith, such a letter as no wom-
an is ever justified in writing to any man
when he i3 down, much less a wife to her
hushand. Howe was terribly hurt by it,
but finally decided it was the shock to her
nerves, and that her own noble self would
soon turn him again. All his bappiness
with Edith had been in anticipation; so it
fell natural to him to plan how happy he
and Edith would be together when he was
free once more. He received no other let-
ters from her, but little baskets of dainties
and books and many small comforts came
quietly from time, all of which he aseribed
to Edith’s great love. During the second
year of his imprisonment a flashy lawyer
swaggered into the warden’s office with
papers in a divoree suit to serve on Howe.
The warden, who understood Howe and
liked him, undertook to deliver the papers.
So the warden read them to old Bill Smith,
in for life as an habital criminal, and who,
the warden knew, had many wives.
“I don’t remember this Edith woman,’
said Bil! musingly, ‘‘butit’s very probable,
and I feel as if part of my burden had been
rolled away, thanking you kindly, Mr.
Warden.”” So when Howe was released be-
fore his term was up, on account of excep-
tional good cenduct, he did not know that
Edith was married to the flashy lawyer
who made a specialty of securing divorces
without publicity.
When it came time for Howe to venture
forth timidly, the warden gave him a new
suit of clothes, a ticket to the suburban
town where he used to live, and a hearty
grasp of the hand. So Howe started
straight for Edith. He wandered about
the town shyly till he met a small boy, of
whom he asked where Mrs. Howe lived.
“Old Mrs. Howe?’ queried the lad.
‘She lives where sLe always lived, in the
little white house on Vine street.
‘No, no,” said Howe impatiently, ‘I
mean young Mrs. Howe.”’
The boy thought for a time. ‘‘Oh,’’ he
said, ‘‘I guess you mean the woman who
used to he married to the bad man that
was sent to prison. She lives right here.”
He pointed to a house of the style called
Queen Ann. It had stucco work under
the eaves and bits of colored glass set in the
plaster. Howe went in the gate and on to
the veranda, where, looking through a
window, he saw Edith alone. He went in
withous ringing and stretched out his arms
to her. She looked at him, knew him,and
drew back, while her face grew repulsive
with the meanness of her nature.
“You here ?”’ she said shrilly. ‘‘You!
You thief! You jail bird! You convict!
Oh, how I hate you! How dare you come
here ? I wish my husband were here. He'd
make you smart.”’,
“Why, Edith I” he gasped, backing out
the door as she advanced towards him with
clenched hands. ‘Your husband! I am
your husband !”’
“You! You!’ she cried at him in
shrill fury; ‘I’m married to a gentleman,
I'll have you understand. Do you think I
would long remain tied to convict 309. I
was divorced from you years ago, thank
heavens!”
So he went out and stumbled down the
steps and passed into the gathering dark-
ness, his hand at his throat, where a great
ache was. As he walked he saw only the
face of the new Edith in all its repulsive
brutality. The face that had always been
so fair to him persisted in being hideous.
He left the street and wandered down a
lane till he came to a stretch of sunken
ground, where the townfolks dumped rub-
bish. Somehow the place suited him. He
felt he was part of the garbage which so-
ciety had thrown away. So heseated him-
self on a pile of ashes and rubbed his throat
where the lump ached so intolerably.
Pretty soon he began to cry, harder and
harder, then softer and softer. Perhaps an
hour passed, when he heard again the voice
of the boy saying, *‘Old Mrs. Howe lives
where she always lived, in the little white
house on Vine street.”” So he arose and
went to his mother.
He opened the door quietly and went in-
to a brightly lighted kitchen, where a lit-
tle old lady was cooking a fragrant supper.
He stood silent hefore her, with bowed
head and drooping shoulders and eyes red
from crying. His face was pale with the
prison pallor, and his hair was cut close
with the prison clip. The little old lady
gave a glad cry and ran to him. She put
her arms around him, drawing his face
down to her own, and kissed him a score of
times, mumbling inarticulate little words
of joy.
“My boy ! my dear boy ! my own Bob !”’
she said, erying with delight. ‘‘I knew
you would come back to me. Iknew the
good God wonld send you back to me.
Come over to the rocking-chair by the fire.
It’s cold, and you have not been used to
the out-of-doors air in the—in that place.
It’s your chair, don’t you remember? I
knew you would be free soon, but not just
when : so I’ve always kept a bit of steak
ready for you, and to-night, thank God, I
can cook it.”
*‘Oh, mother!”
mother !”’
She ran over to him to kiss him again.
“I know, Bob,”’ she said cheerily, bust-
ling around with the steak; ‘but it’s all
over now. You remember cousin John
that has the saw mill out in Oregon. He
understands all about, and you are to be
his book-keeper, and no one will know
out there, and you are rid of her. I’ve
packed everything, all save your room, and
we can start tomorrow—start for Oregon
—-start to forget it all.”’
‘Oh, mother!” said Howe again, but
the lump in his throat was smaller.
So she spread a snowy cloth on the table
and laid before him a supper such as he
had only dreamed of for many years. She
passed him a steaming cup of coffee, and
when he had taken it, he rose impulsively,
passed around the table, and kissed his
mother tenderly. And his mother—well,
she felt a little happier than on the day,
more than fifty years ago, when Bob’s fath-
er had first kissed her.
he whimpered, ‘‘oh,
“These are my love-stories,”’ said the
Philosopher, ‘‘real stories of real people,
the gristle of whose natures had become
bone.”’
The poet smiled disdainfully. *‘Jingoism,
fanaticism, and the instinct which even
the low forms of animal life exhibit in pro-
tecting their young,”’ hesaid. ‘‘Yet you
call them love-stories! What a dreary,
common-place world this would be if it
were not for the poets and the beautiful
women.’’— Lippincott Magazine.
Typhoid Baclilli.
Engineering News insists upon an abate-
ment of the folly of letting people be made
to believe statements that water analysis
can show whether or not drinking water
contains the germs that produce typhoid
fever. If such belief were not a menace to
the public health, it might be ignored.
“The fact is,’’ says the News, ‘‘that such
public statements, coming from supposed
authoritative sources, create a false sense of
security, and in this way are likely to do
real harm.” Said Professor Percy F.
Frankland before the section of physics,
chemistry and biology of the Sanitary In-
stitute of Great Britain: ‘‘Indeed, the
detection of specific pathogenic bacteria in
drinking water is now known to he almost
beyond the range of practical politics, and
the search for such bacteria is, in general,
only carried on in deference to the special
request of the layman, the uninitiated, or
the hopelessly ignorant, while it cannot be
repeated often enough that any feeling of
security which may be gathered from an
unsuccessful search for pathogenic bacteria
ie wholly illusory and in the highest de-
gree dangerous.’
Bacteriology is of great value when pro-
perly applied, but, like other ologies, it is
likely to be abused by quacks. Professor
Frankland says that by far the greatest
service as rendered by bacteriology in water
supply matters is in connection with filtra-
tion, where it forms a most certain and
reliable test of the efficiency of any given
plant, at once laying bare ‘‘the slightest
irregularity or defect in the process.”
John Paul Jones’ Grave.
Hus Been Located Under a House in Paris.
Ambassador Porter reports the finding in
Paris of the grave of John Paul Jones, the
hero of the American Revolution. The
discovery was made by a newspaper cor-
respondent.
Secretary of State Hay has sent for a de-
tailed report. He will bring the matter
before Congress at the earliest opportunity
and urge that the hero's remains be borne
to this country, with appropriate honor.
Ambassador Porter’s search for the long-
lost grave began three months ago. It was
found under a small house at No. 1 Rue
Ecluses Martin, in the northeastern quar-
ter, just back of the eastern railway sta-
tion. The street formerly was a sluice-
way, or open drain, that carried surface
water to the canal St. Martin. When the
house was built at No. 1 great care was
taken to preserve the grave.
Ambassador Porter has learned that the
exact date of John Paul Jones’ death was
July 18th, 1792. The body lay in state
until September 12th, when it was borne
to the cemetery for foreign Protestants, a
great orator of that day, M. Warron, de-
livering an eulogy. The grave is distinct-
ly marked.
When it is opened there should be re-
vealed the hero’s inscribed sword and the
accoutrements of his rank as an admiral.
A Sheep-Guarding Bird.
The yakamik, a bird of the crane fam-
ily, is used by the natives of Venezuela in
place of a shepherd dog for guarding and
herding their flocks. It is said that how-
ever far the yakamik may wander with the
flocks, it never fails to find its way home
at night, driving before it all the creatures
instrusted to its care.
-——A. IF. Page, who died recently at
Raleigh, N. C., bequeathed to the Metho-
dist Orphanage of that city the Academy
of Music (Raleigh’s principal theatre),
with the proviso that one-half the rental
should go to his widow during her life-
time. The property is worth $20,000.
~——Subscribe for the WATCHMAN.
At the Nitrate Ports of Chile.
The Camps Are Very Much Similar to Western Min-
ing Towns.—The Same Mad Rush for Wealth.
Commercial Facilities Poor.
The desert narrows as you go south-
ward, the coast line becomes more rugged
and bolder and the mountains come down
to the sea. They rise like a wall, 2,000,
3,000, 4,000 and 5,000 feet abruptly from
the water. Some of the peaks reach an el-
evation of 8,000 feet and they are all bar-
ren, sandy rocks or hard baked clay, with-
out a vistage or verdure or a living thing.
There is an occasional break in the chain,
a canyon or cuddebra, as they call it here,
or a sloping ‘‘pampa’’ that rises gradually
instead of abruptly from the coast.
At many of these places ports have heen
established on the beach for the conven-
ience of commerce, and railways have been
built to bring the products of the interior
to market.” There are a few good harbors,
but the most important ports are open and
dangerous roadsteads where the surf rolls
in with mighty force at all times and often
is so violent that neither freight nor pas-
sengers can land.
It is an extraordinary fact and a com-
mentary upon human selfishness that
nearby these places are sheltered coves and
harbors at which shipping might be eco-
nomically and conveniently accommodated,
but they have not heen utilized because
the owners of the surrounding property
and riparian rights demanded such exorbi-
tant prices, or some real estate syndicate
was interested in another site.
About the worst place on the entire
coast is Antofagasta. It is not only bad
but dangerous, and yet within a few miles
to the northward is one of the best and
safest harbors on the coast, the bay of Me-
jillones, which was not made the terminus
of the railway to the interior because the
people who owned the land where Antofag-
asta now stands had a ‘‘pull’”’ with the en-
gineers.
The word ‘‘pampa’’ conveys to us the
idea of a grassy plain covered with dande-
lions and daisies, browsing cattle, birds
and butterflies. That is what they call a
pampa in the Argentine Republic and
Uruguay, but over on this side of the con-
tinenst the term is used to describe. a high
plateau entirely lifeless, with no vegetation,
no water, nothing but a burning sun and
burning sand, and a heat that fills the at-
mosphere with vibrations and mirages.
It is so hot that you can actually see the
heat in the air. Probably the term was
first applied as a joke, but it stuck to the
object, and now all these awful deserts are
labeled ‘‘pampas’’ on the map. But under
the repulsive surface nature has stored un-
told mineral wealth.
APPEARANCE OF PORTS.
The nirate ports along the coast look like
western mining towns in the United States
—wide streets inclosed by long rows of
rudely built one-story houses of Oregon
lamber, usually roofed with galvanized
iron. Many of them have a plazza on top,
or a second roof to break the force of the
sun, like the fly of a tent.
They are equally uncomfortable and un-
couth, and the men who live in them have
come here to struggle and starve and die in
pursuit of that gilded phantom we call
wealth. More has been done and dared
for gold than for glory or the good of man-
kind, and the battles that have been fought
with fortune on this coast have cost more
lives and misery than any war against sin
or wrong or in defense of justice and truth
and liberty.
A few have left this dreadful region mil-
lionaires, more with a modest competence,
but the great majority have been doomed
from the beginning and have fought a for-
lorn and useless fight, depriving them-
selves of comforts and enjoyments and cut-
ting themselves off from kindred and home.
Whatever they have gained has cost many
times as much labor and privation as the
same measure of reward in more comfort-
able climates. Every dollar that has ever
been taken out of the nitrate regions by
anyone has been fully earned.
The streets are dusty and the air is full
of sand. It gets into your hair and eye-
brows, into your ears and nostrils, you
taste it on your tongue and feel its irrita-
tion in your throat and lungs. The sun is
fierce and unrelenting and its rays, ab-
sorbed and reflected by the vast area of
desert, keep the air at furnace heat night
and day.
At nightfall a purple haze falls over the
city like a curtain, but is deprived of all
artistic association when you find that it is
nothing but dust suspended in the atmos-
phere. There is a surprising number of
large shops, filled with an assortment of
wares that ought to meet the requirements
of all races and ages and tastes.
There seems to be, however, an exces-
sive proportion of brandy and other strong
drinks, and we are reminded of the skipper
who sent the sailor ashore for supplies and
when the latter appeared with one loaf of
bread and a dozen bottles of rum, the cap-
tain demanded, in an uproarous manner,
what the thunder he expected to do with
all that bread. The same inquiry suggests
itself to my mind whenever I look into the
window of a grocery shop in one of these
nitrate towns. -
Next in abundance is canned stuff—
beef, hacon and tongue from Chicago, con-
densed milk from Switzerland, macaroni,
from Italy, sardines from Sardina, anchov-
ies from Sicily, sausages from Germany,
asparagus, petit poisand wines from France,
jellies and jams from England, cheese from
Holland, butter from Denmark, codfish
from Norway and Sweeden, oil and olives
from Spain, tea from China and Japan,
coffee from Brazil and Bolivia, caviar from
Russia—thus the whole world panders to
the appetite of the miners working in the
nitrate desert, and they are willing to pay
big prices for the gratification.
This unnatural climate develops unnat-
ural tastes. A friend tells me of two
miners who, after being flush, decided to
indulge in a feast. They got a loaf of
bread and two jars of pate de fois gras for
their dinner, a bottle of brandy for their
beverage and two cans of condensed milk
which they ate raw with spoons for desert.
This extraordinary banquet cost them $11
each in Chile money.
CLIMATE EXCITES THIRST.
I have never seen liquor of all kinds
consumed in such quantities as here, but
apparently there is very little drunken-
ness. The dry atmosphere and the atoms
of sand that one is constantly inhaling ex-
cite an abnormal thirst, no doubt, and they
say that the human saystem requires an
unusual amount of stimulant to sustain the
heat and fatigue of this climate.
Iam quite sure that this duty is not
neglected, judging by the extraordinary
excesses which are witnessed without com-
ment daily and hourly at every club and
hotel. Half a dozen cocktails before
breakfast—one man at Iquique is said to
require seventeen to start his machinery in
motion—a bottle of Scotch or Irish whiskey
at breakfast, another at lunch, wine and
cordials at dinner, brandy and soda every
now and then during the day, al-
ternating with copious and frequent
draughts of beer, and the same repeated
all the evening, with a nightcap of whisky
and a bottle beside the hed in case of a
restless night.
This is considered a moderate indul-
gence, and the way they mix things is
amazing. I have seen a party of business
men around a table at a club drink cock-
tails, brandy and soda, beer, champaign,
sherry and vermouth at the same sitting
during business hours and return to re-
peat the performance several times during
the day. Iquique has the reputation of
consuming more liquor per capita than any
other place in the world.
ALL FOOD IS IMPORTED.
As nothing is produced but metal in this
region, everything to eat and drink and
wear has to be brought from more favored
regions. There isn’t a thing but sand and
rock and the minerals that lie under it are
hundreds of miles from this port. Hence
there is a very large commerce.
All printed goods and plain cottons are
of British manufacture, the woolens and
other wearing apparel come from Germany,
silks and fancy articles from France. Iron
and steel in infinite forms come chiefly
from England, sugar from Peru and Ger-
many, candles from Holland, rice from
China through Hamburg or Liverpool, beef
and flour from Chile, and better quality of
knives, forks and spoons from England,
the cheaper quality, which are more largely
sold, from Germany, the bagging used in
immense quantities for shipping nitrate
and ores from Great Britain, the machinery
and oils, both lubricating and illuminating,
come from the United States, the railway
supplies from Belgium and Germany.
It is a notable fact that nearly all the
contracts for railway construction, bridges
and so forth have gone to Belgians or
Germany. Drugs and chemicals are most-
ly imported from England, boots and shoes
from France, china, crockery, glassware
and stationery from Germany, jewelry from
Germany, Switzerland and France. The
United States has not a tithe of the trade,
for the mercantile business is monopolized
by Europeans, who naturally buy their
goods at home.
The heavy importers and exporters of
nitrates and the bankers are mostly En-
glishmen. Italians keep the groceries and
drinking shops, while the Germans are in
all branches of trade and more numerous
than any other nationality. Occasionally
you find an American mine owner or a
dentist.
The population is cosmopolitan and rep-
resents every race on earth. In some of the
towns the foreigners outnumber the na-
tives.
DIFFICULTIES OF COMMERCE.
The enormous commerce is conducted
under great difficulties. There are no har-
bors and no docks, and a surf that rolls half
way around the world before it breaks into
foam upon the beaches were these towns
lie.
Captain Marrow, of the steamer Lautero,
says that Australia is their only hreakwa-
ter. The steamships anchor a mile or so
out in deep water and rock with an easy
motion as the heavy swells pass under
them. The passengers are lowered from
the deck into lighters by a steam winch in
chairs that are made from barrels or
scramble down a ladder and drop into a
boat as the swells lifts it within reach.
They are taken through the surf in the
lighters with amazing skill by the native
boatmen, and there is seldom any acei-
dent.
Captain Harris, of the steamer Guatema-
la who has been sailing up and down this
coast for twenty-seven years, says that he
never heard of a passenger being drowned
or seriously injured. Sometimes a boat-
overturns through the recklessness of
the oarsmen. They may perhaps be drunk
or quarreling among themselves, and now
and then you hear that one is drowned, but
somehow or another they get their passen-
gers through all right, although the latter
occasionally are treated to exciting ex-
periences.
Not long ago, at Antefagasta. a tug be-
ing carelessly navigated exposed her broad-
side to the surf and was overturned in-
stantly. As she capsized the boiler ex-
ploded and the hulk was blown to frag-
ments. All the five men who composed
the crew were lost.
The skill with which the natives handle
the big barges is marvelous. There are no
tugs to tow the lighters ; all the work is
done by hand. Two men will scull a
barge carrying sixty or seventy tons of
freight over the rough sea from ship to
shore, and guide it through the surf with
ordinary care without losing a package or
shipping a drop of water.
At Salavary, a Peruvian port, the beach
is 20 shelving that the lighters cannot get
to the shore, and, after grounding them,
their passengers are lifted onto the should-
ers of the boatmen and carried pig-a-back
to dry land ; or they can have their choice,
which is generally exercised by ladies, of
climbing into a chair that is fastened upon
a sort of funeral bier and carried by four
men.
At some of the ports there are long
moles extending beyond the surf, but the
swell is so heavy that the lighters have to
be moored to buoys at a considerable dis-
tance to prevent them from being jammed
to pieces against the piles.
In such cases passengers and freight are
hoisted and lowered from and into the
lighters in iron cages by a steam winch.
Cattle and horses are transferred from the
deck of the vessel to the lighters and from
the lighters to the dock by a canvas sling,
which is passed around their bodies and at-
tached to a hoisting chain.
Formerly it was the custom to lift cattle
by a noose around their horns, and this
cruel practice still prevails in some of the
ports, but in Chile it is not permitted now-
adays. Some years ago the Humane So-
ciety procured the passage of a law by
Congress prohibiting it under a heavy pen-
alty.
Sheep are landed by means of a canvas
chute which extends from the deck of the
vessel to the lighter. The roustabouts
grab the animals by the legs, toss them in-
to it, and they slide down in an instant.
Freight is hoisted from the hold of the ves-
sel by steam winches, in large nets or
spreads of canvass called hammocks, and
on shore is handled in a similar manner.
ABUNDANCE OF TRADE VESSELS.
There are plenty of shipping facilities.
At every one of the nitrate ports are long
rows of big sailing vessels anchored in line,
like men-of-war, discharging cargoes of
merchandise, and taking in cargoes of ni-
trate, saltpeter, copper, silver, sulphur,
borax and various other ores. They bring
coal from Cardiff and Australia, and from
Mobile and Newport News, to furnish mo-
tive power for the ‘‘officials,’’ as the nitrate
works are called and the railways that
connect them with the coast.
They are monstrous fellows, mostly four
and five masters, built of steel and usually
carrying the English, German and Nor-
wegian flags. Sometimes you see the Stars
and Stripes floating from a masthead. It is
a rare and welcome sight.
The other day at Iquique we saw what
was said to be the largest sailing vessel in
the world but one. She was a Frenchman,
painted gray, with black squares upon her
sides like the portholes that appear in the
frigates that did the sea fighting a century
ago.
She had six masts and spread several
acres of canvas square rigged. She was
fitted throughout with electric lights and
steering gear, and her hatches were sup-
plied with steam hoisting machinery
which was capable of discharging sixty tons
of freight an hour from each one of
them.
They carry a cargo of 7000 tons of wheat
or coal or nitrate, or anything else that can
be packed closely. The freight charges
upon these sailing vessels are remarkably
low. The Norwegians particularly will
bring a cargo of assorted merchandise from
Hamburg or coal from Cardiff around the
Horn for five shillings a ton, a rate less
than a Chicago truckman would charge to
haul it from a railway station to a ware-
house.
There are several lines of steamers run-
ning regularly and no end of tramps look-
ing for charters. Two lines give monthly
sailings between the nitrate ports and New
York, one under the management of W. R.
Grace & Co., and the other under Flint,
Eddy & Co.
RIVALRY BETWEEN STEAMERS.
The Kosmos line of steamers handle a
great deal of cargo on this coast, and fur-
nish healthy opposition to the English and
Chili mail steamers, which they will an-
ticipate by arranging for regular sailings to
and from San Francisco during the present
month. The Pacific Steam Navigation
company had arranged to run alternate
steamers from San Francisco to Valparaiso
by way of Panama and other ports on the
west coast in January next, and as soon as
the Kosmos people heard of it they decided
to occupy the territory at once.
The first steamer is now on its way to
San Francisco, and hereafter, I am told,
there will be a vessel leave the city for
Hamburg, calling at the most important
ports of Central and South Anierica,through
the Straits of Magellan, touching at Buenos
Ayres, Montevideo and Rio de Janeiro.
They are fine steamers, built especially
for cargo capacity, but can carry a few
passengers. They take no mails, and are
therefore, independent of the authority of
the different countries along the oute and
can come and go as they please.
The other steamship companies complain
that it is not profitable to carry the mails ;
that the compensation they receive for the
service does not pay them for the delay
and annoyance they are constantly sub-
jected to, and for the three passes and re-
duced fares that they are required to give
officials. They complain, too, that they
cannot collect their money without great
difficulty.
The German steamers suffer from none of
these embarrassments, and as they do not
cater to the passenger traffic, they are not
so much annoyed by quarantine regula-
tions. Thus, after these many years, the
Pacific Mail company will be punished for
its indifference to the claims of the public,
and will be compeiled to replace the old
tubs that are now floating under its flag
with new and comfortable modern steam-
ers.
WirLiaM E. CURTIS.
Has Had Troubles.
Remarkable History of the Rohland Family of West-
moreland.
Mrs. Maggie Henderson, of near West
Newton, was brought to the local prison
to-day on a commitment issued by Justice
of the Peace H. A. Obley.
Mrs. Henderson is charged with making
threats of murder and arson. For several
weeks the neighborhood in which she lives
has been in a constant state of alarm on
account of her threatening behavior. Jus-
tice Obley learned of her murderous intent
at the hearing on Sunday morning, when
she remarked : ‘‘There’ll be another mur-
der in the Rohland family.”’
A tale of tragedies is embodied in her
declaration. The record of violent deaths
in the Rohland family, of which she is a
member, being asister of Thomas Rohland,
the wife murderer awaiting trial, is cer-
tainly without parallel in the history of
Westmoreland county, if not in the entire
nation.
No less than thirteen of this family have
met singular disasters. The branches of
the original family to which the unfortu-
nates belonged or were closely related and
three brothers, Albert, George and Will-
iam, and their three sisters, Mrs. Bandage,
Mrs. Kyle and Mrs. Strebig. Here is the
list: Albert Robland, conductor on the
Baltimore and Ohio railroad, killed by the
cars at Alpsville ; his son, Emmett, killed
by cars at Connellsville ; less than two
weeks ago George Rohland was killed on
the railroad at West Newton ; daughter,
Belle, murdered by one Neibert, who com-
mitted suicide at the same time; son,
Thomas, murdered his wife and is now in
jail ; William Ohr, brother-in-law, hanged
himself ; William Rohland, died a natural
death; his son, France, found dead in sev-
eral feet of water at the foot of Port Royal
shaft with a wound in his head; son-in-law
James Hamilton, brakeman, killed by
coming in contact with a beam while rid-
ing on his train through Jones & Laugh-
lin’s mills, Pittsburg; son-in-law, William
Strebig, engineer, crushed in a smash-up;
Mrs. Brundage’s son, Mark, brakeman,
killed by cars at Bessemer; another son,
Edward, killed by cars at Grapeville; Mrs.
Kyle’s son, Norman, killed on the Pitts-
burg and Lake Erie railroad.
How Ladysmith Got Its Name.
There has been a great deal of joking
about the odd name of the place where Sir
William White’s English troops have been
doing battle. As a matter of fact, Lady-
smith did get its name from a woman. This
was the wife of Gen. Sir Harry Smith,
whose marriage, by the way, was one of the
romances of the Peninsular war. At that
time two young British officers ina Spanish
town, which had just been occupied by an
English force, were surprised by a visit
from two very young and beautiful Spanish
girls of the better class. These fair callers
begged protection in the alarming circum-
stances in which they had been placed by
the occupation of the rougher soldiery.
Their request was, of course, gallantly
granted, and in a short time one of the of-
ficers, Cap’t. Smith, found himself desper-
ately in love. In due time he married the
woman whom he had protected. The
marriage proved a happy one.
In Some Places.
Shooting Tenant (just arrived for the
grouse)— What a beautiful place to live,
Dougald !
Dougald—It’s no a bad place tolive. But
what wad ye think o’ bavein to travel 15
miles for a glass o’ whusky ?
Shooting Tenant—But why don’t you
buy some and keep it?
Dougald—Ah, mon, but whusky will na’
keep !—Punch.
Senator Hoar on the Philippine Situa-
tion,
He Scores the President and Demands such Action
as Accords With our Declaration of Independence.
Senator George F. Hoar, of Massachu-
setts, has contributed an article on ‘‘Our
Duty to the Philippines’”’ to the Independ-
ent, which appeared Thursday. He begins
with a review of the circumstances leading
up to the war with Spain, of which he
says :
“I think it might have heen averted and
that Cuba could have been liberated by
peaceful means if the counsel of Grant and
Fish had been followed, and if our public
men in the Senate had remembered that
they were a part of the diplomatic power
of this country, and it was unbecoming in
them to indulge in bitter and stinging in-
vectives against Spain, whether such in-
vectives were just or unjust. But I do
not feel inclined to judge these utterances
severely. Something, as Burke said, must
be pardoned to the Spirit of liberty, and
these utterances, though, in my judgment
unfortunate, came from brave, humane
and liberty-loving souls.’
The Senator says that down to January
1st, 1899, the American people and the Re-
publican party were committed to the doc-
trine that just governments rest upon the
consent of the governed, and that every
people has the right to dissolve at will the
political connection that hinds it to another
people.
DIFFERENCE IN THE DEALING.
In dealing with Cuba, says the writer,
we acted upon those principles, but the
treaty of peace disclosed a different purpose
as to the Philippines, the inhabitants of
which were much nearer independence
when the treaty of peace was signed than
ever had been the people of Cuba.
‘Their leader,” writes Senator Hoar,
‘‘has been brought over to the islands in a
United States ship, by the United States
authorities, and was in arms at the head of
his forces, with our full concurrence and
co-operation. If the statement attributed
to a high official in one of our departments,
who is sometimes called upon to sit in the
Cabinet with the President, were actually
made, their leader had been offered by
President McKinley the high office of Col-
onel in the regular army of the United
States—an offer which itself is a sufficient
refutation of all the charges against him.
They bad framed a provisional constitution,
a model of its kind, establishing a dictator-
ship like those established by Bolivar in
South America, to give peace to a republic
as soon as the military condition should
make it possible.
THOUGHTS ON LOOKING BACK.
‘‘Looking back can any sane man doubt
the wisdom of those who desired to amend
the treaty and to deal with the Philippine
Islands as we did with Cuba; to compel
Spain to renounce her sovereignty, to keep
off all foreign nationsand to aid the islands
in establishing their own government ac-
cording to their own desire ?’’
The Senator refers to the epithet
“‘traitor’’ and other harsh words applied to
those who voted against the peace treaty,
and asks :
‘‘When the President said that forcible
annexation, according to our mode of mor-
al, would be criminal aggression, was he a
copperhead ? Was he disloyal to the flag ?
‘Was not he a Republican ? Was there ever
an utterance so calculated to give courage
to Aguinaldo and his people as that ?’’
As to our future attitude toward the
Philippinos, Senator Hoar writes: ‘‘The
time has come to make up your minds. If
you are to declare that you do not mean to
subjugate them or to enslave them, that
you will act toward them on the principles
and in the spirit of your own Declaration
of Independence, the war can be ended in
an hour. The refusal to make thisdeclara-
tion in the beginning brought on the war,
and your refusal now to declare yourself is
what is alone responsible for its continu-
ance.
THE QUESTION TO BE SETTLED.
“Now we have got tosettle the question,
which the President has repeatedly de-
clared is for Congress and for the people,
whether we will complete the subject of
the Philippinos, whether we will under-
take to govern them, either as a republic,
as they seem to desire, or as a limited
monarchy like Japan, or whether they shall
exist hereafter as an absolute monarchy,
after the fashion in which we are maintain-
ing in power to-day the Sultan of Sulu,
with his slaves and his harem.”’
Senator Hoar then writes that this great
question has been discussed with a levity,
with an intolerance, and with an appeal to
low motives and to cheap passions rarely
paralleled in political history. A notable
exception, he says, is Governor Theodore
Roosevelt, whose late address, in which he
maintains that expansion is the way to
peace, was ‘‘a thoughtful and able argu-
ment, worthy of serious consideration.”
In conclusion the Senator says: ‘‘The
American people, the brave and just peo-
ple, who made the immortal declaration
and who maintained it with life and for-
tune and sacred honor, who established
our wonderful Constitution, to whose Mon-
roe doctrine is due the freedom of the
American Continent from the Rio Grande
to Cape Horn, have not changed their
character or their principles in the twink-
ling of an eye under the temptation of any
base movtive or personal advantage, or
under the excitement of war.
“They are subject, doubtless, as all
masses of men are subject, however intelli-
gent or however upright, to great waves of
passion. But their sober second thought is
to be trusted. Their deliberate action by
which they are stirred and by which their
judgment is now clouded are generous,
noble and humane. Reason will resume
its rightful sway, and the great republic
will remain a republic still.”’
BRAVE EXPLORERS.—Like Stanley and
Livingstone, found it harder to overcome
Malaria Fever and Ague, and Typhoid di-
sease germs than savage cannibals; but
thousands have found that Electric Bitters
is a wonderful cure for all malarial diseases.
If you have chills with fever, aches in back
of neck and head, and tired wornout feel-
ing, a trial will convince you of their mer-
its. W. A. Null, of Webb, Iil., writes:
‘My children suffered for more than a year
with chills and fever; then two bottles of
Electric Bitters cured them.’ Only 50 cts.
Try them. Guaranteed. Sold by I". Potts
Green, Druggist.
——The trusts are absorbing every trade
and industry, controlling every article of
merchandise and binding the people in
chains, worse than American slavery.
They must be broken up or the commercial
freedom of the people is forever lost.
The Future Unfolded.
She—Suppose I didn’t dress as well as I
do now, would you love me as much?
He—Certainly, dear. Why, that is as
much as to say that I won’t care for you
after we are married.