THE COLUMBIAN, BLOOMSBURG, PA
ii in
Trials in Which Attempts Were
Aade to Prove Alibis.
CASE OF GORTON TWINS j
Where Lives Have Depended Upon
Accuracy or Inaccuracy of a j
Clock Striking Resemblance Be- I
tween Two Persons Criminals
Favorite Defence.
The alll)l has always been a favor
ite defence with calculating crlm
J:ials. It has, on the other hand, la .
hundreds of cases, extracted the lnno- j
cent from the meshes of a net of clr- j
cumstantlal evidence which must
otherwise have inevitably dragged
them to unmerited doom.
Clocks have-played au important!
part in these del' aces. Lives have ,
depended on their accuracy or Inac- i
curacy. In the case of a man named
Hardy, who was accused of havin.j
U.von part iu a murder with others,
one of the murderers, after the rrlnw
was committed, made his way homo
as fast as possible. It was night and
there was no one in his house but a
servant Tutting the clock in the hall
back two hours, the man went to bed, ;
r.nd rising shortly afterward awoke j
the servant and ordered her to go ;
Sown stairs and see what was the !
time. The girl did so, and once mors j
lt-ilred to her room, when the mur- :
derer, stealing softly downstairs m i
his bare feet, once more put the cloc't
right. The unsuspecting girl's evi- j
tlence that the prisoner was in bed at
the tlmo when the crime was c:ir.v j
niltted secured his acquittal on :
trial. The truth sas made know;i
oy a deathbed confession some yean
later,-
Witnesses who come forward ti
Trove allliis by the clock sometimes j
prove very unsatisfactory. In a mur- '
dor case at the Central Criminal i
Court two witnesses swore most per- ,
sistently to the prisoner having been
In their company at the hour when '
the prosecution contended he was en
gaged In the crime. I
"Are you quite certain of th.9 exact
time?" asked the counsel for the pros
ecution. I
Certain," replied the first witness.
"How are you so sure about It? '
hked the barrister. j
"We were in the Hear public house,
snd I saw the time by the clock In '
th- bar," replied the witness. "It was
?7 minutes past 9." i
"You saw t' Et time yourself?"
asked the counted.
"Yes."
One of the detectives engaged In
the case here whispered something to
110 barrister, and ho turned to tin
witness once more.
"You see that clock," ho said, point
ing to the clock In the court. "What
is the time by it?" I
The witness turned ghastly pale, '
scratched his head, ga?pe.l, and was
silent. He could not tell the time, j
The alibi bubble was burst. The pris
oner was condemned.
' young girl who lived with her
pa.ents in a lonely part of Klrkcud- '
bright was one day left alone in their ,
oottage while her father and mother
-were harvesting. On their return th'j
girl was found murdered. A surgical
examination revealed the fact that tho
Injuries Inflicted must have been the
work of a left-handed man, and the
police discovered In the soft ground
around the cottage the Imprints of the
boots of a running man. These lm
presbions corresponded exactly with
the boots of a young laborer named
William Richardson, who was ac
quainted with the dead girl, and who
also was loft handed. Richardson, on
being asked where he was on the day
(if the crime, declared that he was
employed the whole day in the work
of his master, a farmer, some dis
tance away. This fact was borno
witness to by the farmer and Rich
ardson's fellow servants, and the po
lice were baffled.
The alibi, In spite of all the other
suspicious circumstances against the
prisoner, appeared bo strong as to be
unassailable. But the police perse
vered, and at last one of the detec
tives discovered that Richardson and
hl3 fellow servants had that day been
employed In driving their master's '
carts. These carts had been driven
in a direction which took them close
to the scene of the crime, and while
hey had been passing through a wood
Kicbardson had requested his com-1
rades to stop a few minutes while he .
tan to a smith's shop and back. They
did so, and one of the drivers remem
bered that Richardson, when he re
turned, had been absent half an hour
ly his watch. This was amplo time
for him to run to the cottage, commit,
the murder and run back again. He
had not been to the Bmlth's shop. The
alibi thus broke down, Richardson
was found guilty, and, before his exe
cution, he confessed the Justice of hla
sentence.
An Ingenious system of proving an
alibi was that of a man named Gor
ton at least, that was one of his 20
names convicted of various clever
frauds In the north of England. Ho
had a twin brother, and while he was
engaged in a robbery the twin kept
himself In prominent evidence In
another far removed place. When
Gorton was arrested, the persona who
had met the twin .trooped Into the wlt
aes box.
Their evidence was of course given.
In all honest belief that it was per
ffectly correct. The arrangemett broke
down at last, however, through one
rf those little oversights that even
the most cunning rogues will fall inot.
and the ingenious twlns'came to their
Asserts. New York Sun.
IMPURE FOOD IN NEW. YORK.
Enough Destroyed Annually to Feed
6,000 Persons.
The food condemned by the board
of health and destroyed in this city
in n jear, If accumulated In one spot,
would make a pyramidal hill two
hundred feet broad nt the base and
three hundred feet high. In quantity
it would be sullleieiil to teed 5.(100
persons throughout the year, (supply
ing them with meat, fish, game and
poultry, vegetables, groceries, all va
rieties of fruit and confectionery.
There is a ceaseless vigilance in
New York to insure pure food for its
inhabitants. This does not mean that
thousands of tons of adulterated and
harmful foods are not eaten yearly
fr the channels by which tu3y may
rench the tables of rich and poor are
niuny, and the carelessness of house
keepers and cooks are responsible for
n.uch. Hut at the gules of the city
where food Is admitted by rail and by
water, at the wholesale markets, at
stores and among the push-cart ven
ders of edibles the Inspectors of the
health department are always at
work. During the ripe-fruit season
they are most active, and their work
is the heaviest. Their authority is
almost supremo, and they can order
the destruction of a train load or a
ship load of fruit or vegetables, or a
hundred head of cattle infected with
dltease, Involving a loss to the own
ers of thousands of dollars.
In the last twelve months 7,172,317
pounds of food stuffs were con
demned, seized and destroyed. Some
f this especially fruit brought in
by ships went out to sea and wan
dumped In the briny deep. The en
tire shipload was a loss through n de
layed voyage in hot weather, cau.- ing
fermentation to set In among the
Uhablo enrgo. Many a shipload of
bananas have prone that Avay.
Of the more than 7,0on,oi0 pounds
of food destroyed In the last year,
4 G3!),0!I0 pounds were fruit. Meat
cume next more than a million
pounds having been deemed unfit to
use. Vegetables were a close third,
771,100 pounds.
In addition to this, solid food, the
amount of milk destroyed in the year
has been .11.000 quarts. This, seen
at once in all Its bulk, is a lot ef milk.
It in, however, but "a spoonful" out
of the groat river of the liquid food
that pours Into the metropolitan city.
In a year 550,000,000 quarts of milk
are consumed In New York, 1,500,000
quarts a day.
The effort to protect the city from
Impure or Innutritions milk has re
suited through years of legislation
and careful Inspection in making the
dealers careful that tho milk they
bring to the city meets the legal re
quirements. These requirements in
one way place a premium on poor milk
while guarding the city from milk that
is unhealthy or entirely worthless.
The law calls for not less than 3 per
cent of butter fats In all milk sold In
New York. This is not a high stand
ard, and many dealers avail them
selves of the small percentage re
quired to reduce the nutritive quality
of their milk to this low standard.
Many consumers of milk In New
York pay dearly for milk that Is above
the legal standard of purity and nu
trltiousness. It will surprise some
peoplo to know that milk not cream
is sold in this city as high as 90
cuts a quart. A sworn statement ac
companies this milk, as to its freeness
from injurious qualities bacteria,
etc. and as to its richness In butter
fats. Tho cows from which this milk
Is taken are selected registered Dur
hams and Holsteins. The sanitary
arrangements for the care of the cat
tle and the milk are as perfect as ex
penditure of money and scientific
skill can make them. The milk is kept
and delivered at a proper tempera
ture. Milk left uncovered in tho living
room of a tenement house for a few
hours has been found to contain as
many as 50,000,000 bacteria per cubic
centimetre. The expensive milk
served by the expert dairymen may
contain less than 500 bacteria to the
centimetre. This milk is bought
chiefly for feeble and ailing children.
Of the food condemned in this city
by the health department but a small
proportion is of adulterated food.
Less than a hundred tons of grocerlee
and confectionery have been Belzed
in the last year because of harmful
adulteration.
In addition to this vast amount of
food condemned and destroyed by or
der of the city's health department
the people of New York are notori
ously wasteful in the food they throw
away the refuse from dining rooms
and kitchens that goes to the garbago
barrels. This adds some hundred
thousand tons to the condemned foods
that find their way, in the iron tanks
of the garbage boats, to Barren Isl
and. There this huge mass is "trlod
out," its oils extracted and its fertil
izing elements reduced to powder and
bold.
In the year 1901 half a million tons
of food stuffs from the kitchens of the
city and of the foods condemned by
the health department were fed to the
busy machinery at Barren island.
Bird Skins for Hats.
A London dealer last year received
from India the skins of 6,000 birds ot
paradise to adorn the hats of the
feather wearing British women and
to meet the export need. At the same
time he got about half a million hum
ming bird skins, and an equal number
tf those of various other tropical
birds. There is an auction room In
London where such things are sold,
and Its recent record for a third of
a year waa close to 1,000,000 skins,
all told, coming mainly from the Bust
and West Indies and Brazil,
111 BIS OH
Mounted by Sort of a Aineral
Frankenstein.
perpetualTjght plant
Famous Discoverers of Wonderful
Element So Permeated with Its
Rays They Live In Constant State
of Radiation Necessary to Build
Another Laboratory.
The eelebrnted chemists, M. and
Mme. Currlc, aro suffering from an
embarrassment of too much radium.
The famous chemists of 1'arls, whose
discovery of this wonderful clement
plunged the scientists of the world
into grave doubt as to the soundness
of tho atomic theory, have become
tie victims of this mineral Franken
fctein and, having been driven from
their laboratory, are now likely to bo
driven from their home.
M. Currie and his wife, who had
aided him in every step in his re
tearches, are suffering from what
Mme. Currie characterizes as a "ra
dium pest." Incidentally they havo
developed the fact that with radium In
use In sufficient quantities the extor
tions of the gas trust would become
a thing of the past and the establish
ment of municipal ownership toe) sim
ple' to require more than the impreg
nation of all parts of tho city with
radium rays.
The laboratory of the Curries hart
been turned Into a perpetual light inn
p'.mt by the abundant use of metal in
experiments, and even the room iu
which they sleep has become so tnor
i. uglily Impregnated that it has be
come necessary to surround the bed
at r.lght with hejavy black curtains oa
the sides and across the top.
There Is radium everywhere about
he house and laboratory of the Cur
r'es, and there Is but little hope of
relief for many years jet to come, as
they have estimated that the power
of the light from the Impregnated
walls will have diminished less than
50 per cent in forty years.
The radium follows the two chem
ists everywhere. There is no way of
getting rid of it; no way of cleaning
the pluce or their clothes of the mys
terious light that clings to and fol
lows thpm. Every piece of apparatus,
inery article in use about the labora
tory becomes in time a separate foun
tain of light, giving off the weird and
setting up a new point of brilliance,
to remain such for decades.
In discussing tho strange misfor
tune that has overtaken her husband
and herself, Mme. Currie said today:
"We will have to build another la
boratory in our garden. The old ono
Is so Impregnated with radium as to
render all our apparatus useless.
The delicacy of all the old apparatus
was destroyed by the Influence of th?
radium, and if we put new apparatus
In the radium Infected rooms It soon
f.eteriorates.
"The finest electroscopes it is pos
sible to buy work less accurately In o
room where radium has been exposed
than the clumsy article consisting of
a cork, tin foil and the mouthpiece of
an old pipe. My husband and myself
have found it impossible to work in
a room where radium has been ex
posed for any length of time. The
rays Infect not only the room, but
the whole building. It has become.
In tact, a radium pest. Some of the
apparatus that has b$en exposed, the
new as well as the old, has acquired
the property of throwing off radium
rays and cannot be used.
"The building will have to be torn
down, for even If every particle of
radium Is removed, the rays will keep
on increasing in intensity for two or
three years, and after that, although
losing in intensity, will deteriorate
loss than 50 per cent in 50 years.
"What would occur if you exposed
an article continuously to radium rays
for any length of time?" was asked.
"It would continue to give off rays
for a hundred years, at least," was
tho answer. New York Journal.
Many Bibles 8old.
Popular novelists will be surprised
c hear that the most popular book is
not a novel at all. In the course of a
talk with a writer In the Book Month
ly, Henry Froude of the Oxford Uni
versity Press says:
"So far as I can calculate, the whole
output of English Bibles In the course
cf a year Is about 2.000,000 copies.
Moreover, the Bible differs from nov
els In having a steadily increasing
sale. Just thirty years ago the Oxford
University Press alone sent out half
a million copies. By 189G the sale
had doubled."
Big Pay for Judges.
There are now no fewer than eight.
ex-Judges in England In receipt of
total pensions amounting to $121,
662.50 a year. A Judge who continues
on the bench after completing fifteen
.years' service really does his work
for $7,299.75 a year, the difference be
tween his salary and pension. The
lord chancellor is entiled to a pension
of $24,32.50 a year for life, however
short the tenure of the chancellor
ship. The business of college education
Id one of the greatest businesses of
the country. The 420 colleges and
universities, in which are enrolled
175.000 students, represents an In
vested capital of $250,000,000 and give
employment to 25,000 persons as
teachers and officers.
At the present rate of crumbling
England will have been swallowed up
by the sea In the year 12184, accord
ing to the calculations ot a corre
spondent of the Frankfurter Zeltung.
GREAT TEST OF ENGINEERING.
Simplon Tunnel Twelve and a Half
Miles Long Lives Lost In Work.
The Joining of tho two ends ot
Simplon tunnel marked the comple
tion of ono ot the greatest engineer
ing feats of the tlmo. Tho boring of
a tunnel 1 2 V4 miles long is In itself a
large undertaking, but the engineers
In charge of this work have had to
contend with ninny extremely dlfll
cult problems, among tho worst be
ing tho springs of hot water, which
finally beenmo so troublesome as to
necessitate the abandonment of ono
end e the work. Now tho tunnel Is
complete; In a few months trains will
be running through it, and a most im
portant link furnished Iu the line of
communication between Italy and
Central Europe,
The Simplon tunnel pierces Mont
Leone, In the Alps, making a straight
line from . Brig, In Swll.erland, to
Isellc, In Italy. The boring was car
ried on from both sides of the moun
tain, the work beginning in August
1S98. The work consists of two tun
nels, a main and an auxiliary, paral
lel, with 60 feet from axis to axis, and
ot ono point tho borings are one and
a half miles below the surface, so
that great heat had to be contended
with. Tho tunnels are heavily arenet
from end to end, to prevent the block
ing of the way by fragments of rock,
from the Swiss sldo the borings rise
at a grade of one metre in 500, and
irvm the Italian side 1 In 143. The
summit Is 9.572 kilometres from the
Swiss portal and 10.197 from the Ital
ian end. By last November the main
Swiss boring was carried over tht
summit, and when it had reached a
point about 300 yards from the Italian
end It had to bo stopped because of
the difficulty encountered In the
springs of hot water.
The Swiss boring was carried to
tho Fumnilt without much trouble, as
the grade naturally carired off tho
nitration of water, which amounted to
ever 700 gallons a minute. When tho
turn was made the trouble began. In
a distance of 1,000 yards between tho
summit and the face of the boring,
the inflow of water was 1,608 gallons
per minute, and with the water
brought In artificially for refrigerat
ing, rock boring and other appliances
i he inflow was 3,072 gallems a minute,
which had, of course, to be carried
of by pumps. Then, In the last 600
feet of the main Swiss bore, thirteen
springs of hot water were encoun
tered, varying in temperature from
108 degrees to 117. In the Italian
heading there was a grade to carry
away tho water and no hot spring
were being encountered, though the
men worked in waterproofs, knee
deep in water, with cascades playing
over them. The Swiss had a hard
problem. The hot rock and water
made tho temperature unbearable for
the workers. It was necessary to cool
tho water issuing from the hot springs
by playing Jets of cold water Into
them, and also to keep up a contin
ual spraying of the hot rocks. This
wnter had to be piped into tho tun
nel a great distance to the workings,
and to keep It cool the pipes had to
be covered with broken charcoal and
cared in sheet metal. As the face of
tho heading was carried on, the prob
lem of getting cold water nrcame
more difficult, and naturally there
came a time when the capacity of the
boring became insufficient for the pip
ing needed to carry on the work. Last
May the engineers In the Swiss bor
lf,p. opened two hot springs yielding
4:0 gallons a minute. At the same
tlmo en Alpine storm and landslide
cut off the water supply at the en
trance. The Swiss boring was stopped
sfter heavy iron gates had been erect
ed at the lowest point of the work on
tne Italian slope to confine the water
and protect the tunnels approaching
f-om Iselle.
The Italian borings, having the ad
vantage of gravitational drainage
continued rapidly without special diffi
culty until they reached last fall a
point about 300 yards from the aban
doned Swiss workings. Here the hot
springs were encountered. The first
of these discharged 960 gallons a
minute and had a temperature of 114
degrees. The drainage problem was
iiot so difficult as In the last part of
the Swiss work, but the same system
of cooling the rock, water and air had
to be introduced, and, consequently,
the boring proceeded very slowly.
When a thin diaphragm of rock re
mained between the two main tun
nels, the great volume of hot water
which had accumulated In the aban
doned Swiss workings between the
summit and the Italian headway was
drained off and the mountain was
pierced. The dispatches show that
the last blast that Joined the two was
followed by a rush of hot water in
which several workmen lost their
lives. New York Sun.
Rivers as Factors In War.
Aside from the siege operations at
Port Arthur, a large part of the heav
iest fighting has been along river
banks at the Yalu, the AI, the Taltse,
the Sha, the Hun or the Liao. The
positions defended have been either
parallel to rivers or upon sites which
owed their strategic value to their
proximity to rivers.
The facts suggest In a striklng.way
one of the reasons why the bounda
ries of states and nations from the
I earliest times have been determined
so often by river courses, without re
gard to other considerations. Tho
rivers, by affording natural advan
tages for defense, have fixed the limit
not upon what conquering nations
wanted to possess, but upon what
they were able to take. Chicago
News.
Mexican mines turn out more silver
money than those of any other coun
try In the world.
SI. HIGHS
Solitary Confinement, Slow
Hangings, Eye-Hole Torture.
czar siiowTno MERCY
Typical Horrors Perpetrated Within
Fortresses of St. Peter and it.
Paul and the Schlucstalburg
Books Nor Anything to Distract
the Mind Allowed.
A Fpeclal refinement of the Russian
prison s.n stem In tho cas of political
prisoners nnd suspects, who aro not
given a short r.lilft on tho glacis or
the gallows, is continued solitary cou
llnctnent until, as in the case of that
bplendiel intellectual reformer, Dmitri
Z'lssareff, they can be reported us
"harmless." Sumo prisoners here
were relieved of their senses quite
gently and almost politely. They were
shut up in comfortable cells well lit
with electric light, and for mental
pabulum they w;ro supplied with only
religious and technical works. When
ltiSuuity or suicide supervened, tho
appointed end had been secured.
But the doom of others presents
even greater features of horror. Im
agine a dark, damp cell, measuring
about 10 by 6, beneath tho level of
the surrounding waters. In which tho
chained man or woman Is condemned
to lie In absolute idleness, studiously
isolated from any intercourse with
human beiivgs. There la no bed, no
sort of pillow, nothing whatever to
cover the body but. the prisoner'
gray cloak. The amount allowed for
food is five farthings a day, which
provides bread and water, and three
limes a week a small bowl of warm
iioup. For ten minutes every second
day the miserable wretch is allowed
ti see the light and breathe the air
in tho prison yard.
For the rest, intolerable loneliness,
absolute silence, occupation of not the
bnmllest kind, no boeks, no writing
materials, no instruments of manual
labor. Madness comes to such grad
ually with tho passing years, not as
it came to an unhappy young lady, a
rising painter, who received such
tioatment at the hands of the brultlsh
prison polico that she lost her reason
instantly. In the majority of case3
the mind rots gradually In the enfee
bling body. Suicide and madness are
1he two great weapons In which Rus
sian autocracy puts Its trust.
Frequently, says one who has been
a prisoner in one of these Russian
hells, some poor wretches will make
a feeble attempt upon a warder In tne
hope of at last being brought to trial.
Shooting or hanging has been their
let. The scenes of suffering wit
nessed at a slow hanging, occupj-ing
at least half an hour, have been terri
ble. Within the courtyard of the
prison Is a hand hoist for lowering
ropes depending over a gallows. To
these the victims are attachod and
then slowly elevated into midair to
struggle and gasp till death relieves
them from their agony. Should tho
governor or superior present be de
sirous of getting through the business
bpecdily a warder Is ordered to seize
the suspended victim's feet and hang
on. swinging backward and forward.
On prevlems occasions when there
has bffn a large number of political
ofanders Insubordination has been de
liberately manufactured to afford a
pretext for Judicial murder. From a
Polish nobleman, the husband of nn
English lady now in London, 1
learned details of his experiences In
such a case. "We never knew." 1.
said. "I and those who had been taken
at the same time, until after our
morning parade in the prison yard
who would return. alive to his cell or
who would remain In the yard upon
hi back on the stones. Every morn
ing wo were subjected to the grim
sport of a lottery. After being brought
from our cell to the yards we were
placed In line, and a certain number
being drawn say five that number
of men told off from the right. The
doomed fifth was then marched with
his back to the farther wall and a file
of soldiers did the rest. I saw my
own brother shot before my eyes one
n orning. I was eventually exiled to
Siberia, and from there I managed to
etcape."
Do you know what it Is to have
your sentence of death commuted by
the czar? A llttlo while ago Europe
commented with satisfaction on the
commutation by the czar of three
death sentences out of flvo. These
' fortunate ones" were lmmurod In
cells in the fortress of St. Peter and
St. Paul. Not only were these dens
dark for twenty-two hours out of
tweuty-four, but the walls were run
ning with damp and pools of water
had gathered on the floor. Neither
books nor anything that might dis
tract the mind was allowed
prisoner having been' found designing
geometrical ngures with his bread had
it removed by the Jailor, with the re
mark that hard labor convicts "were
not permlted to amuse themselves."
Another calculated torture in these
cells is the eyehole, at which a war
der or soldier is posed to watch the
prisoner. By this' means the quietest
prisoner Is soon moved to frenzy, and
the slightest Insubordination Is at
once punished by merciless flogging,
If not worse. "Thus it comes about
that of the three men whose sen
tences had been commuted, one, after
a year of these horrors, became a con
sumptive; another, a rotust and vlg
crous workingman, went mad; the
third, also a man of powerful phys
ique, waa rotted with scurvy. Such Is
the "mercy of the czar.". Now York
Globe.
To give money for a charitable ob
Joct In Burma Is supposed to Imply
that tho giver has been very wlckei
ond wishes to show his penitence.
ODD WAYS OF WALL STREET.
Seme Lucky One Have Won In the
"Street" Thousands Have Lost.
"The Winning Ways of Wall
Street." This Is a subject which has
bothered men in generations past, Is.
now a potent source of worry and bids
fair to affect master minds of future
generations seriously.
Much more easily might ono write
about the losing ways eif Wall street.
Many people have como to realize tho
lin t that the stock exchange Is not
bi'ilt for charity; that it is a business
proposition, and somo even go so fur
as to say It Is a game of chunco.
Few men In their lives have not
been tempted to contribute a few dol
lars In order to either "bull" or "boar"
the market. It la safe to say that a
majority of these have been bitten.
A man who, probably tolling early
und late, has managed to accumulate
a few dollars, thinks perhaps there is
a chanco for him to become rich. He
takes his money, goes down to a
broker's office, and In 99 cases out or
one hundred he finds that his money
has been swallowed through manipu
lation of the market, or maybe
t.irough a legitimate rise or fall In
stock values. But the man has a
chanco with bis few dollars. He has
a tip, probably, that his stock Is go
ing up, and, perchance, he may put
his dollars on some particular stock
that he has some Information about.
He buys because the stock has
jumped lo points and Is in a fair way
to go higher.
"With n small sum of money the
Lest way to do Is to play the 'pyra
mid game,' " said a well known
broker to a News reporter. This In
horse racing circles is similar to "par
laying a bet," ho explained.
"Pyramiding" on tho stock ex
change, just lilce "parlaying" at the
race tracks, would mean to tho busi
ness mun the Investing of money at
cunnound Interest. Tho reader will
understand that it In a case where
both money nnd winnings are rein
vested in a new venture.
There was a case Just recently
wh?ro a tip was received from Chi
cago that a certuln stock would go to
13, nnd it might be well to buy.
Late tho same afternoon an ordor
was received nnd tho one man who
took advantage of the cue walkod
away with a small fortune, and the
traders are now expecting to see him
appear as ono of the leaders on the
exchange.
This man was of the small Investor
class and had pooled a ten dollar bill
with friends, who could risk. but simi
lar amounts. He won. He had been
led along by the "Winning Ways of
Wall Street," but, unlike? many other
"little plungers,"he walked away with
gold backs.
There Is no authentic record of the
disgrace or unhappiness, the wealth
and happiness brought to thousands
who have "taken a chance" with
Dame Fortune with small amounts,
either to end their careers as great
financiers, criminals or suicides.
For years bankers hove employed
private detectives to watch their em
ployes, not especially doubting their
honesty, but to prevent their becom
ing Inoculated with the Wall street
"get-rlch-qulck" disease.
From a telegraph operator the
writer learned that $14,000 had been
taken by a small speculator on a sin
gle deal. This happened within six
months, when the Investor put $10 on
on stock.
Ho permlted the surplus to grow
an.-T flnn..y Invested in another stock.
This went from 18 to 32. He was ad
vlted to close out at that point, but
suggested that It might bo well to let
11 go to 35. He finally took tho ad
vice of those to whom he had en
trusted his mcney and thereby saved
the whole amount.
From this one deal" a "tipster
earned $4,500. - The "tipster" Is one
of the requisites in dealing on the
'change. He is as common as Is his
counterpart, the tout, at the race
track, although at times it happens
that even the "tipster" may be
wrong.
He, is no oracle. He simply follows
the market as does the race track
tout and gives expression to his opin
ions, which are generally subsidized.
Though the path of the "small In
vestor" Is besot by such obstacles as
the unscrupulous "tipster" acting la
league with Irresponsible brokers, it
d"es not follow that the small Invest
or Is wholly wlthont blame.
The quick accumulation of wealth
Is the ambition of so many that there
must necessarily be a "meith and
flame" rtory often.
"Small speculators," said tho old
timer on the street, do not compre
hend the conditions of the market In
most cases, "hey buy without study
ing the previous status of their stock,
and they cannot understand why It
should drop when It started to rise,
nnd they care nothing for national or
b'.ate legislation affecting quasl-publlo
corporations, which Is a vitally im- '
portant factor in the stock market.
"There are secure and insecure
stocks," he continued, "nnd I must
ray that our small Investor Is more
apt to place his money on 'wildcat'
schemes promising big and quick re
turns than In stable Investments,
which give slow but sure results.
"Oh." sighed the old-timer, "as he
walked away, "I've been watching
this game for thirty years; I'm nearly
through, but I'm not rich yet.,
"And I've Bent some ten-dollar bills
to the had at that," he added, as he
passed Into the Broad Exchange.
Chinese newspapers, owing to the
cheap quality of paper used and to
the low price of labor, both literary
and mechauical, are issued at an ex
tremely small figure. The price of
tho ordinary Shanghai Journal la four
cash, or about one-fifth of a cent