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THE
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PAGES 9 TO 16.
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BILL ATE ARUESTED
With All the Ceremony Incidental to
St. Louis Police Begulalions.
THE TWO-HEADED COMBINATION
Encountered by William and Poet Riley on
the Banks of the Mississippi.
THE TRAGEDY OF A PAIR OF TROUSERS
tWBITIEN rOE THE DISPATCH.
T. LOUIS is the only
city I have ever visited
where it seemed like
paying a man 3 delicate
tribute to arrest htm.
"When yon are arrested
in St Louis, youdo not
go reluctantly to the
nearest station by
means of the scruff of
your neck, through a
hooting and madding
crowd, but the police
man who has arrested you, sends in a signal
from the nearest box and directly, as the
English put it, or rfght away, as the Amer
ican has it, a beautiful silver-mounted
phaeton, drawn by gaily
caparisoned and neighing steeds dashes up
to the curb, driven by an Olive street
gondolier. You bound lightly into the
beautifully flecked chariot, a tiny silver
gong about the size of a railroad timetable,
tinkles gaily, and away you go arousing the
envy and admiration of those who have
sever been under arrest.
But how, asks the keen and pungent
reader, can St. Louis afford to do this while
in a city like New York, the criminal must
either walk to the station house or forego
the joys of arrest entirely? The answer is
simple. Here the criminal pays SO 50 for
an arrest which he used to get at S3. This
pays his droska hire and makes his arrest
something to look back to with pleasure.
People who yield to the police and become
arrested from time to time, do not care for
the expense. Mostly they refer the expense
to a place which should be alluded to very
sparingly in a Sunday paper. And so S3 50
don't bother them at all. They pay it if
they have it, and then if they do not, an
opportunity is given them to earn it later
on, at some sort of skilled labor like pound
'g sand. This makes the arrest an orna
oent to the city and the gentlemanly crim
nalormisdemeanorobligatopays for it, thus
contributing to his own comfort and making
A SU Louis Arrest.
his arrest an ovation and a delicate tribute
to himself which the papers can use and
which will read well on a scran book when
forked over to future generations.
St. Xonis points with pride to her police
svstem and methods ot arrest. A New
York man who comes to St. Louis and gets
arrested, is treated just as well as if he had
been born here, where a St. Louis man who
goes to New York, when arrested, is at once
looked upon with suspicion.
The teople of St. Louis love to compare
their police and arrest system with those of
other cities, and to speak of Chicago with
quiet scorn. They love to point with par
donable pride to their five Mayors, neither
one of whom dared lor some time to leave
town for fear one of the others would be sole
Mayor when he got back. They also speak
with some acrimony of an old-time Chicago
Justice of the Peace who used to have his
shrine over a gilded hell. He had a deaf
and dumb waiter bnilt in backot the bench,
also a speaking tube, by means of which he
could refer difficult points of law to a low
browed chemist in his shirt sleeves down
stairs and so. as we say on the Eue de Bow
ery, he would ever and anon "roll the rock,"
and it fell out that in his court justice was
not only blind, but she had a bad hiccough
as the day wore on, while now and then the
hoarse overruling power of the Justice
mingled its accents with the whistle of the
speaking tube and the low moan of the tip
less dumb waiter.
Thus it happened that in the records of
the office, the stenographer has erroneously
embodied in the Justice's rulings such irrele
vant remarks as "another hot whiskee for
the coort," and other holdings and findings
of the court which have been used in Chi
cago and other cities as precedents in cases
of like character, to the great elevation of
the bench and bar.
He was a Justice who introduced into his
administration a style of fine which has
been frequently adopted by young and
struggling Justices of the Peace elsewhere.
For instance, two offenders are ud before
him for assault and battery or something of
mat una, ana tne court is trying to dis
cover which is the offending party. After
hearing the testimony and overruling most
of it, referring meanwhile from time to
time to his tin source of information, he
looks up at the ventilator and says: "The
court finds you guilty and assesses you tin
dollars and trimmins, together with the re
mark that you will stand committed until
the whole thing is fully paid."
Then one ot the men says timidly, "But,
vour Honor, I have no money." "Sit
down ! sit down, yon red-eyed studv of
rum," Bays the Court, "and shut up your
chaotic face. I'm talkin' to the other
manl"
Mr. Bileyand I played here against
Mile. Christine, the two-headed nightin
gale. She is touring over the country this
season accompanied by herself. A man
who owns a lunch counter in Illinois, is a
hopeless lunatic because he could not de
cide 'whether to charge her for one meal or
two. Her success has certainly been most
remarkable. Starting out as she did, under
the most adverse circumstances, not know
ing for two or three years whether to regard
herself as an anamoly or twins, she has a
wonderfully placid career. How she issbown
wherever the English language is spoken.
She is of African descent and as black as the
dence of spades. I say the deuce, because the
ace of spades is very rarely black, as I am
informed, also because in her case a com
parison with the two spot, would be more
appropriate anyway.
"What I like, about Mile. Christine more
especially is her harmonious disposition.
Had she been otherwise, it would have been
fatal to her success. A two-beaded girl re
lies very mucn on me inenaiy leenng ex
isting between her two sets of heads for her
popularity. Should either head fall out
with the other, neither would succeed. So
it will not do for one to be jealous of the
success of the other, when one head sings
soprano and is encored, and if the other
head gets hot and wants to quit, it worries
Mm aanageiaeat and breaks up the (how.
No two-headed girl can succeed when the
relations are strained. Supposing that the
soprano desired to eat onions for supper in
order to improve her voice, of course the
alto has a right, owning a half interest in
the same stomach, to object, provided that
the nut brown flavor of onions is distasteful
to her; and yet these two people get along
together, as they have for years, without
any bickerings at all and still under the
same management.
Supposing again that the soprano is sleepy
after a prolonged matinee and evening per
formance, answering repeated encores; she
Jtescue the Perishing.
therefore desires to go to sleep at once, while
the alto, who has had no encores to answer,
would like to have the gas burning and read
"Bbbert Elsmere."
One can readily see that in an ordinary
musical combination this would break up
the show in five minutes, but it is not so
with the two-headed nightingale. "While
one head is a Methodist and the other a
Baptist, there is no religious fight between
the two, and the alto even went down and
allowed herself to be baptized through a
hob in the ice rather than have trouble
with the Baptist soprano. Is this not truly
a spirit of sacrifice? That is not all. The
Baptist head fully believes that the Meth
odist has said and done things which eter
nal punishment is too good for and yet,
rather than have trouble and break up a
prosperous business, she doesn't insist on it.
Then again, the two disagree vastly as to the
resurrection of the body and also as to
which one is entitled to' the partnership
body, there being, of course, legs enough to
go round, but they do not wrangle about it
as some theologians would. They agree to
accept the situation whatever it may be, and
claim that too many people fool away their
time talking about the resurrectionwhen
thev ought to be supporting their families.
The two-headed nightingale dresses alike.
For receptions she wears a pink foullard
silk with a limited train to it. Beyers are
sewn on the side and draped over panels of
wash goods. The train is supported by
folds of wiggin and connects with all
points east, west, north and south. A large
cameo made to resemble a lried egg, de
pends from a delicate chain about the neck.
The dress is worn decollette. I asked the
alto what her opinion was of the style of
dress as a feature of the approaching ad
ministration. She said, of course it could
be made more or less of a feature,
according to the taste and good judg
ment of the wearer, but she did not
favor it as an extremeist. She said that
where the whole company could be regarded
as ladies and gentlemen, there could be no
objection to the custom. Those who were
a little doubtful about themselves and
afraid they lacked some of the essential ele
ments necessary to civilization, could avoid
all trouble by remaining at home. This is
not her exact language, for I have edited it
a little myself in order to give it that polish
which characterizes all my work. Miss
Christinesays that whether the new ad
ministration enconrages the decollette dress
at Washington or introduces a fur collar and
yarn mittens, she will still cling to the old
custom. She says that if the English lady
with two yards of throat can saw off two or
three dollars worth of goods from the top
of her dress with impunity, the hardy
American girl who drives a reaper and husks
corn in our rough climate, ought to be able
to put in a few weeks at "Washington in full
dress. I have always said that a true lady
will not seek to escape entirely through the
top of her costume, but a pleasant sweep of
undulating neck and round, well molded
arms, adds to the general beauty of the
scene from an artistic standpoint. Those
who go into a sculptor's studio, half afraid
that they will be raided by the police, would
naturally denounce the decollete dress and
they are right about it, too. They know
their own hearts pretty well and are evi
dently afraid that the authorities will also
find out about it
On board a steamboat the other evening
a strange thing occurred. It has nothing to
do with anything else and I do not put it in
here in order to teach a valuable lesson. It
is just a simple unchronicled fact.
A shy young man decided to abandon a
venerable pair of trousers to its fate, having
just secured a new pair as he went on the
boat. So he said to himself, I will just drop
them out of my cabin window into the re
morseless tide and all will be buried in the
great, calm bosom of the old parent of
waters. He rolled them up carefully and
shied them far, far out over the gunwale of
the boat near the bow. As they sped through
the air, they unfurled with a soul piercing
plunk. They filled with air and looked as
they struck on the crest of the waves, like a
man stooping over to peer down into the
depths of the tide. A nervous woman about
midships, heard the impact of-the abandoned
pantaloons and looking down with a shudder,
said, "Me Gawd, a human being has went
to his account." She then became the au
thor of a loud yelp and all hands rushed to
the guards with the cry of "Man overboard,"
that awful cry which once heard can never
be forgotten. An hundred hands, with boat
hooks and catfish openers, ran to the lower
decks, and amid the cries of women and the
quick drawn breath of pale men, a tall
roustabout jabbed the drowning man in the
vitals with a jabber, and, while fainting pas
sengers looked the other way, he pulled out
the now collapsed trousers and found on the
inside of the waistband the name of the
owner, also the leg and waist measurement,
together with the name of a St Louis tailor.
Then they began to hunt over the boat and
in the dregs of the river for the man who
had occupied the trousers aforetime, and
that shy young man's 'name was in every
month and he didn't dare to come down for
his breakfast, and his jet black mustache,
which could be distinctly seen when he left
St Louis, from very fright turned around
and went back again. Bill Nye.
FOR BILIOUSNESS
Use IIomforiT Add Phonphnie.
Dr. W. B. Gillies. Winnipee. Manitoba, savs;
"I have used it in a typical case of indigestion
with biliousness, and found it to be. without ex
ception, the best thing I ever used in such
cues."
. n i i iji . -
A Combination of Justice and Whisk.
ABOTAWATPEGASUS.
Gail Hamilton Proceeds to Tell in Her
Own Bright Way What
SHE THINKS OP COLTUEED CANT.
How
Prof. Norton Poured Treacle
George William Curtis,
Over
THE UNDAUSTED WARRIOR EDITOR
CWBITTEN FOR THE DISPJITCH.!
Eliave in this coun
try no National Acad
emy to teach us the
meaning, the use and
the weight of words.
It becomes us, there
fore, to study such
models as we have.
"When any- man from
our highest, though
provincial, seats of learning, unbends to the
popular ear it would be the wantonness of
ignorance not to listen. The words of
scholarly culture, guided by a sensitive con
science, must convey a lesson of accuracy
and fitness even to the reckless and vulgar
newspaper writer who is not wholly dead in
trespasses and sins. i
And yet the most humble and careful
scrutiny suggests to a barbarian that in pre
senting certain eminent fellow-citizens to an
andience of eminently respectable fellow
citizens not long ago, Prof. Charles Eliot
Norton poured a more abundant treacle than
the restraints of severe taste would permit.
Even Dr. Holmes, whose wit and wisdom
are the pride of one nation and the pleasure
of two, must have lelt a nervous shiver at
seeing himself summarily endowed with
"all the peut-up wit and humor and fancy
of 200 years." But it was only when Mr.
George "William Curtis' turn came that
Prot. Norton threw severe taste to the winds
and found nothing too sweet for his libation.
It is as if, with a love passing the love of
woman, he meant to comfort his friend for
the buffets of political antagonism bv lavish
ing upon him each hoarded syrnp from the
bunet ol his rhetorical lore.
A LTJDICBOUS ANTI-CLIMAX.
"Wreathing the blushing brows of Mr.
Curtis with "delicate literary sensibilities,"
with a "facility of exquisite expression,"
with "sweet a'nd tender sentiment," the
Erofessor was not only tender but true, yet
is words gave so much of a feminine cast
to the gentleman's genius that one is irre
sistibly reminded ol an old-time characteri
zation ot him from virile lips that will
speak no more. But when, lashing himself
up historic heights, the eloquent professor
heard a "call stronger than pure literature
to the heart of the youth, the voice of his
country's trumpet calling her sons to the
defense of all that made America dear to
them." the reflective reader could not help
remembering that the youth was 36 years
old at the time of the call, had turned the
corner where poets pause and sing
"Oh! weary heart thou'rt half way home;"
and in spite of reverence for classical au
thority one was forced to think that in
designating and impersonating youthful
nets as the salient trait of that age, the
proiessor had not twined his bays with lit
erary lclicity. ie undoubtedly had in
mind the Emersonian note
"When duty whispers low thou must'
The youth replies, '1 can,' "
and.-mtrautedrigb-uir-Pega'suB, he could hot
afford to stop the musio for anything so
trivial as a middle-aged statistic.
"Leaving the closet," continues the
aroused professor, "he stepped forth on the
platform." There is nothing wrong about
this, yet archangels cannot prevent a sense
of anti-climax. "We may admit and pro
claim that the platform is as influential, as
important, nay, even as imperative a place
as the battlefield; but the human mind is so
constituted that when a trumpet calls her
sons to their country's defense, we in
stantly imagine it to be defense against
war's attack, and we cannot wrench our
selves upon a perfectly safe peace platform
without a stich in the back of our heroics.
When the boys in blue rang out
"We are coming, Father Abraham, three hun
dred thousand more,"
there was an instant concensus of popular
opinion that they were coming to figlit and
not to lecture. There is everything graceful
in Mr. Curtis' attitude as a platform speaker,
but something is surely left to be desired in
an announcement so arranged that we are
led up to a disappointment which hovers on
the verge of the absurd instead of being
stimulated or even abandoned to enthu
siasm. invidious ADULATION.
Having hoisted his well-matured Youth
to the platform. Prof. Norton proceeds, in a
fashion that savors of the market place
rather than the college, to hew down other
men for his Youth to stand on, to "rouse
the dull conscience, the sluggish energies,
the lagging resolve of his fellows."
This is not Mr. Curtis' fault, and he must
have received this rather invidious adula
tion with poignant regret. No one knows
better than he that the same trumpet call
which summoned him roused also the eon
science, the energies, the resolve of his
countrymen. It would be wicked to de
tract in the smallest degree from the patriot
ism or xne emciencyoi jur. uurtis course
during the war. Is it other than wicked to
detract from the patriotism and efficiency
of his less gifted and less famous country
men, the unnamed rank and file, who loved
their land to the point, of last sacrifice?
Knowing, as Mr. Curtis knows, that he
spoke to a roused and resolute nation, whose
loyal flame was of no man's kindling, he
deserves commiseration, as a brave sailor
might who, working manfully with the
crew and passengers to keep the endangered
ship afloat, should afterward find himself
singled out and celebrated as having created
the winds and currents that, rightly availed
of by all, had carried them safe to port. The
quips and cranks of the lawless newspapers
do not permit a belle to assent to any other
woman's beauty, but we little exhect the
high culture of liberal learning to adopt so
illiberal a principle.
Warming with his words, Prof. Nor
ton leaves the green pastures, wherein it
must be admitted he has been prancing
rather freakishly, and vaults into the circus
ring with the agility of a circus rider, dis
guised under the grotesqueness of the
clown.
"His example was even more potent than
his words. Here was the man of mere let
ters flincing himself into the thick of the
contest of men. In himself he amply re
pelled the charge that ideal pursuits unfit
their high followers for practical counsel
and action."
Surely Mr. Curtis had the right to protest
that "an enemy hath done this." His own
modesty would never have permitted him
to claim that he was a man ot letters or that
he was engaged in ideal pursuits. Neither
bv education nor avocation would he be
likely to make such pretense. But if Prof.
Norton were not indulging in a most ill
timed and unbecoming sarcasm at the ex
pense of a friend, what must be thought of
his standard of "letters" and "high ideals ?"
A MAN OP LETTEBS.
No stress need be laid on he college cur
riculum, for the deepest and widest erudi
tion does not always emanate irom the col
lege campus. But what is it that in the
eyes of the highest culture, constitutes a
man of letters? "What is the classic notion of
ideal pursuits? Is it "Prue and I?" Does
ters? Does dancing attendance on Mrs.
"PntinTinr tinfifc htr niirli fnllnnrai. fii rani
vu.v-.u.. . . v.v.ih tub 1IMHI VI 11
Ixuci a.ue j uuw uttu milieu various iixe i
'notes, plucked many wayside flowers I
1SA.O fro... v..... i. 1....1 ..:...- ! t.i. I -.
,PITTSBUEa, SUNDAY,
charming, but denoting no erudition above
the level of the dhabeyah. A series of let
ters from various watering places haden
livened the columns of the metropolitan
press. Unquestionably a good newspaper
corresnoddent is a public as well as a pri-'
vate benefit, but is he what Cambridge and
Oxford mean by a man of letters? The
newspaper correspondents themselves show
a more real culture than Prof. Norton when
they disdain the name of "journalists" as
too pretentions, and insist on calling them
selves "newspaper men."
I do not know what shareMr. Curtis may
have had in writing Putnam's Monthly to
death. History only says euphuistically
that his connection with that periodical
"lasted till it virtually ceased to exist."
In',1853 Mr. Curtis lectured on the Lyceum
platforms with great acceptance.' In 1856 he
did good service as a Republican campaign
orator. In 1858 he addressed his country
men as an advocate of woman's rights. Un
der scrutiny it seems, then, that the "ideal
pursuits," " the "high following" of the
learned Professor are society sketches, bits
of travel, woman's rights, lectures, stump
speeches! The Youth .who elicited Prof.
Norton's almost convulsive admiration, by
leaving his closet and flinging himself into
the thick of the contest of men at his coun'
try's call, had.been leaving his closet period
ically and flinging himself into the contest
of men and," worse than that, of women, at
the call of twenty-five or a hundred
or so dollars a period lor a hail dozen
or more ears! In all this is nothing repre
hensiblenothing otherwise than meritori
ous. Is it meritorious, Is it not rather
reprehensiblefbat a high priest of culture,
a leader of thought and taste, should, even
under the exigencies of partisan politics, so
far forget his own high calling as to ridicule
the legitimate and successful attempts of an
honest man to earn an honest living by
danbing it all over with the untempered
mortar of an unchastened imagination
called in vulgate, "clap-trap?"
A K0NAWAY PEGASUS.
But Prof. Norton's Pegasus, having taken
the bits in his mouth, rushed across the
arena like any mustang of the "Wild "West.
Not content with general terms, "mere let
ters," "ideal pursuits," the ambitious orator
proceeded to file a bill of particulars and in
development of the true martyr spirit pre
sented his Youth "giving up the writing
of delightful "books with their thousand
readers for the writing of articles for the
newspaper with its hundred thousand!"
This is less a giving up than a giving
away. If there were ever martyrdom it
must have been when the harrow ot" this new
and unusual cruelty was dragged over Mr.
Qurtis' delicate literary sensibilities, thongh
he could give no sign. But had he not a
friend near to touch gently the oratoric arm
or to cry fire, or to bring any kind of a beast
caught in any kind of a thicket, for substi
tute in sacrifice? At least it may comfort
him to know that he had a hearty sympa
thizer in Mr. Frederic Harrison. "The very
silliest cant of the day," says that gentle
man, impatiently, "is cant about culture.
The man of culture in politics is one of the
poorest creatures alive." It is not an
American Congressman who says this; it is
an English scholar. In apt justification of
such judgment, the lucid eye of culture sees
an example of self-devotion more potent
than words in the exchange of a thousand
readers for a hundred thousand, in the ex
change of one newspaper for another news
paperman the prompt relinquishment of a
capricious wage for a certain salary ten
times as large! Very few indeed are the
men of -mere letters, of ideal pursuits, youths
or aauits, wno laid themselves on the altar
ot their country in such lordly fashion; very
few to whom their country's triumph blared
out any such call as that So much gain,
however, comes to the present political dis
cussion, in;that we know now what a Har
vard Proiessor, a high follower of ideal pur
suits, means by sell-sacrificing "patriotism;
and certainly it. isaaJike that other well
known definition, "the old flog aadanap;
propriation,." aS my'fingcrs tojny fingers..
No, Mr. Curtis had to endure to the
bitter end. The long-time .peaceful
Christian teacher was now fully possessed
of the military idea and refused to disband.
He had tasted blood and would not let go
his hold. His unhappy and entirely un
military victim anon appears in its reeking
rhetoric, "turning his pen handle into a
flaestaff and his sheet into a banner; with
this standard he led the host of the loyal
press."
UNFLINCHING HEROISM.
There are no vagaries which a man ot
peace may not suffer when he becomes a
man of war. "We cannot doubt Prof. Nor
ton's sincerity. He talks venison in full as
surance of faith that the Youth killed it,
though he was sodding pottage all the time.
The danger is that we shall forget how
really good, was the pottage, if culture in
sists on turning the cook into a mighty
hunter before the Lord.
- "Undaunted in defeat, never discour
aged, confident in final victory, he led the
advanced post" again the cat! of the
printing house in Franklin Square "gave
confidence to our armies in the field and
nerved with his serene courage the faint
Hearts at home."
r This is magnificent, and this is war. Not
indeed the war fought out by Grant and
Sherman and Sheridan and Thomas and the
boys in blue, but war according to Norton's
tactics. Culture has said it, and we must
re-read our histories and learn that it was
Commander-in-Chief Curtis, with his head
quirtersin a saddle of Staten Island mut
ton, who kept ihe enemy at bay. It was the
warrior-editor, Curtis, panoplied in United
States Mail and Adams Express loftily
waving to the printer's devil his banner
proofsheet on the boldly upreared flagstaff
ot his gutta-percha pennandle, who lead our
embattled hosts to victory. A trallant
Youth indeed, never to be discouraged on
the top wave of a great salary rolling into
his sanctum, undaunted by the slaughter of
the Wilderness, nerved to a'serener courage
by the advance on Gettysburg, and fortified
in steadfast resolve never to desert the
Franklin Square advanced post, 500 miles
in the rear-front of the foe!
Yet surely it required a stronger nerve, a
more unflinching resolve, to sit calm and
smiling while a ferocious friend was thus
hacking away at his heroism and his humor.
"Nor," resumed the indefatigable eulo
gist when this cruel war was over, "did he
retire wearied from the service of his coun
try!" "Why should he? There are few po
sitions in which the country pays higher
wages for service rendered. As a Senator
or Representative in Congress, as an army
officer in most of the grades, as a Supreme
-Court Judge, Mr. Curtis might have been
as high, but could not have been as high
priced a follower of patriotism as while
wearine the crown of martyrdon in Print
ing House square.
That it has been in some respects a crown
of martyrdom I do not deny. That it must
have been a crown of martyrdom I shall,
indeed, attempt to show. But it was not
pressed upon willing, if weary brows, or ac
cepted from lofty self-abnegation in our
country's service. It w as rather the melan
choly and inevitable result of over-close
clinging to a harp of 10,000 strines in the
too exigent service of the guild of harpers.
Gail Hamilton.
" Combnitlblo Architecture.
Edward Atkinson In tbe Century.
"Strange to say, some of the worst exam
ples of combustible architecture are to be
found among our prisons,hospitaIs,asylums,
and almshouses; next, among college build
ings, libraries, and schoolhouses; to these
may be' added churches, hotels, and thea
ters. In the year 1887, according to the
tables compiled by the Chronicle of New
York, there were burned within the limits
of the United States 45 hospitals, asylums,
almshouses, or jails, being nearly four per
month, in many cases accompanied by the
loss of a large number of lives; 126 college
buildings and libraries, being 10J per
month; 146 churches, being 2 8-10 per
weekj 52 theaters and Opera Houses, being
x per
day. ?
per wees; oio noteia, being 1 4-10 per
' EEBBUABY 3, 1889.
OEF THE IAIN LINE.
Trials of the Traveler Who is Com
pelled to Wait for a Train
AT A CODNTKI FLAG STATION.
A Dissertation on Depots, Also Some Aston
ishing Facts Snowing
HOW RURAL RAILWAYS ARE MANAGED
rWBITTEN FOB TUB DISPATCH.
i k
have been com
pelled, at sundry
times and in divers
places, to spend a
good many hours in
country railway
stations. Itwasbot
my fault, but my
misfortune, and dire
necessity drove me
to it I know there
are people, for I
have seen them,
who have such a
natural aptitude for
resting that they
can sit patiently in
a dingy waiting
room, pretending
to think, and enjoy themselves just as well
as it they were out in the grand old woods,
under the open sky, communing with
nature. Such folks would be contented
anywhere, provided they never had any
work to do. But, in my opinion, the man
who would rather loarin a country depot
than engage in honest toil has fallen so low
that it would be useless to waate tracts, pity
or contempt upon him.
To a hnman being in whose bosom de
pravity has not totally usurped the place of
manly self-respect there can be no greater
punishment than to be obliged to linger at a
way station awaiting the arrival of the 1130
train, which finally gets along, the engine
badly out of breath, at 3:40. If there is any
thing that will make a man feel meaner
when I say a man I don't mean a loafer I
hope it will remain undiscovered until tha
end of time. Even the most uncompromis
ing believer in the doctrine of future pun
ishment would certainly become convinced,
after a few such waits, that he was a miser
able sinner whose chastisement, even in this
world, was most severe.
GOOD DEPOTS AEB TEW.
In this country there are 140,000 miles of
railroad and all kinds of depots, including
good ones. I am told that there are 79 that
answer this latter description, but I cannot
vouch for the accuracy of the statement. I
have never seen over .14 myself, and none of
these were located back in the country. A
rural depot may be of any style of architec
ture irom a piain DoarawaiK to a yueen
Anne cottage. The reader must distinguish
between depot and station. A station is a
stopping place and so is a depot There may
be a station where there is no depot, but
never a depot without a station, for that
would be contrary to the rules of the com
pany. I hope I shall succeed in making
myself plain to any Englishman who may
chance to read this article. In the States
(y'kuow, -we have de-pos, "day-pos and d'pos
the Vs don't count Bvt I intend to con
fine these lucubrations mainly to depots
with"" the D prominent'. ,
Boilroads were built before depots. Some
railroads that I could specify have been
built a good while and the foundations for
most of the depots haven't been laid vet. In
securing the right of way through the coun
try it is usual for railroad projectors to
promise each farmer along the line that
there shall be a station on his farm. This
either inducos tho landholder to donate the
strip of land that the company desires, or
else causes him to make only moderate
claims for damages. Few of the stations
thus established ever become depots. "When
trains begin running they will stop for
freight or passengers, if any, where Farmer
A's cart road crosses tho track and also at
the township road which passes through
Ji s larm.
THE FAEMEB GETS EVEN.
This practice is kept up for two or three
months, then four-fifths of these supernu
merary stations are dropped. Then the
farmers perceive that they have been duped,
and begin leaving their pasture bars down,
so their cows and sheep may be run ovei
and killed. Cruel? Not a bit speedier
way than butchering; and the owners usu
ally get the carcasses and the hides and
"compromise" with the railroad company
by accepting about three times what the
animals would have brought if sold alive.
No one learns more quickly to appreciate
the advantages of being- near a railroad
than the farmer..
The Face at the Window.
Through thinly iettled regions and in sec
tions of the country where pedestrianism is
unsafe on account of the abundance of
stones, yawning chasms, wildcats, snakes
and other destructive agents, narrow gauge
railroads are frequentlV built. These re
semble gennine railroads as bridle paths
resemble turnpikes. They climb right over
hills, run down' into valleys which are wide
and cross on stilts those which are narrow.
A narrow gauge railway train will usually
stop on any level spot if a farmer or a
woodsman signals it. Not many depots are
needed, and three will suffice if tne road
isn't too long, two at the ends and one in the
middle. If the road is 48 miles in length
and a train starts from the northern ter
minus at 6 A. M. and dosen't reach the half
way station by the same hour in the evening
the officials know that
IT IS STUCK SOMEWHEBE
on the road. They sit up and wait for it
until 9 o'clock, then retire to rest. In the
morning, if it is still missing, a -section boss
and another man are sent out with a hand
car to hunt up the train. I've been 14
hours in getting 17 miles on one of these
railroads, walking the last seven miles, and
coming into the town I was in search of 40
minutes ahead of the train. Of course,
something was wrong with the track or the
machinery. There usually is.
One peculiarity of railroads is this: The
farther you get from civilization, and the
poorer the equipments, the more high
sounding is the title of the road. If you ex
amine a railroad gazetteer and chance
to strike " some such title as the
"Pemachoke, Ponticoke, Felaminoke
and Parnassus Bailway," you
will probably find that the Joad is 13 miles
long and runsfrom Goose Creek Junction
to BrushtownVery likely the Senegambia,
Cincinnati and New York, the Hickstown,
Chicago and Western and the Pipeville.
Paracelsus and Atlantic are each standard
j guage roads, equipped with a .combination
is '
lit
nip
car and a locomotive, and running from
some junction back to some ambitious vil
lage from five to nine miles distant I know
of one road, with a name fully as euphonious
as any of these, which is but seven miles
long and owns but one locomotiveand one
passenger car besides the proverbial "two
streaks of rust and the rieht of way." The
conductor is also brakeman, baggage master,
mail and express agent and, I think, train
dispatcher as well.
A VILLAGE OP ONE HOUSE.
Such economically managed lines need
hut few depots. Sometimes the company
sets up an old freight car on four pieces of
underpinning at a point where an office is
indispensable and fixes it up into a sort Of
coop that will hold the agent, a waiting
passenger, a trnnk or two and a time table.
This makes really a much better depot than
some of the structures erected at intervals
along the "West Penn and some other roads
leading out of Pittsburg for the accommo
dation of straggling country passengers.
These substitutes for station buildings, al
though open on three sides and built of
rough boards, are just like more pretentious
country depots in one respect they are hot
in summer and cool in winter. In July the
sweltering traveler can while away the time
that he must wait listening to the sweet
songs of the birds, and in February the
shivering unfortunate whose watch is too
fast can amuse himself by stamping his feet
to keep warm while hearkening to the voice
of the tuneful blizzard.
The most dismal depot I ever saw was lo
cated in the midst of a tamarack swamp in
Ohio. It was at a junction, and 1 had to
go there to take a train for some other place.
as all trains on the two roads stopped at
this junction Lawson, we'll call it I ex
pected to find there a town or at least a
village of considerable size.
A DISMAL PEOSPECT.
"When I got off the cars I discovered that
all there was of Lawson was contained in a
box-like wooden structure, one story in
height, and' perhaps 12x16 feet on the
ground, or rather on the posts which kept
the village out of the water. Lawson
boasted of a store and postoffice, waiting
room, baggage, ticket, freight, express and
telegraph office, all of which were literally
in the same box. There was no other build
ing in sight; I had no reading matter, and
my train wasn't due for four hours. Out
"West I have seen many villages like Law
son, but they usually have a suggestion
of civilization, in the shape of a beer saloon,
somewhere in their immediate vicinity. In
New England the villages were built'a cen
tury or two before the railroads, and the two
have scarcely anything in common. For
example, if your train stops and you get off
when the brakeman shouts "South
Eldredge," naturally you expect to find
yourself at that village. As likely as
not, however, you will discover that
you are exactly four miles and a quarter
from the place, and you must pay the man
who drives the mail wagon 50 cents to take
you over.
MISTAKEN FOB TASCOTT.
On one railroad that I have frequently
traversed it appeared as it there had been a
tacit understanding that each depot should
not be less than two or three miles from the
town for which it was named. "Where there
is no estrangement, so to speak, between
depot and village, I have witnessed some
interesting sights. A bevy of pretty girls,
by no means averse to flirting, usually come
around to wait for the train. They are not
going away, neither are they expecting
friends, they are simply there to see and be
seen and perchance cheer the lonelytravcler
by their bright smiles and ceaseless chatter.
The last time I waited in a country depot a
girl whose face obscured four panes of 7x9
glass came and looked at me through the
window exactly 28 times in less than three
quarters of an hour. I suppose she thought
I was Tascott or some other celebrity.
Where the station agent fills a half-dozen
other positions, such as switchman, post
master, telegraph operator and town clerk,
he usually gets tired and goes home about 9
o'clock at night If. as is rarely the case,
a person comes to the depot to take the 11 P.
M. express or the 5:30 a. m. accommodation,
he must flag it himself. The flags and lan
terns are locked up, of course, but perhaps
he can borrow a common lantern and tie a
red handkerchief around it I've seen a
train stopped at night by waving a burning
newspaper beside the track. I tried that
scheme once, hut I stopped the wrong train,
and it cost me a 5-bill to mate my peace
with the conductor.
Eliakim Eastman.
TBE PERSEVERING PEDDLER.
BIi Numerous VUIta Came a PItlibarc Fam
ily to Hire Extra Help.
"Yes, we keep a girl now wife couldn't
get along without one, peddlers are so num
erous this winter," said Hopkings to Hicks.
"And what has the number of peddlers
to do with your wife's housework?" asked
Hicks. ,
"A great deal. It requires all of one
woman's time to answer the door bell. Two
manage the things nicely. They take turns
a bout, you see. One day wife does the
cooking, sweeping, dishwashing, etc., and
the girl answers the door bell; next day the
girl does wife's work, and vice versa. Get
along very well in that -way. Before the
girl came wife tried the plan of omitting to
answer the bell whenever she thought
peddlers were ringing. Consequence was
tbe minister came twice to call thought we
didn't want to see him got indignant;
wife's aunt from Butler came on a visit
and couldn't get in, and my cousin from
Milwaukee had to go to a hotel to stop. So
we had to get a domestic or else offend all
our friends and relations."
e there really peddlers enough to
such an annoyance?"
ok here, Hicks, if you doubt my word
come up to my house and stay a few hours.
It's got to be an exceedingly cold or wet
day when you can look out the window and
not see a peddler somewhere on our street
I don't know how they all make a living
we never buy anything off them and few of
our neighbors ever do yet thev come
aronnd every day just the "same. "Wife says
there's one peddler who had called at our
house exactly 85 times. He never got a
cent or a kind word, yet he keeps coming.
Talk about perseverance and patience well
ifthereais more persevering and patient
man thau the average peddler, I hope he
will keep out of my sight, that's all."
Catarrh Cured.
A clergyman, after years of suffering from
that loathsome disease, catarrh, vainly trying
every known remedy, at last found a recipe
which completely cured and saved him from
death. Any sufferer from this dreadful disease
sending self-addressed stamped envelope to
Prof. J. A. Lawrence, 88 Warren st, New York
City, will receive tbe recipe free of charge.
JSjR
' n'rcM LMMT -;
AiType of the Western Depot.
,The Buried River; f
A Romance
WBITTEN FOR
JOA-QUIN
CHAPTEE I.
THE CONCAVE WOELD.
The following extract from the records of
the United States Senate, exact and literal,
lies before me under the great seal of the
nation. There can be no mistake about it
whatever. The Bichard M. Johnson re
ferred to was 6X one time Vice President ot
the United States. The other party named
was a brave and honorable officer of our
army, who foughtVwith Scott at Lundy's
Lane, and won eminent mention in many
battles. He was "Washington's Surveyor
General of the northwest territory; a man of
spotless honor, and the most distinguished
member of the family from which descended,
on the maternal side, the present President
elect of the United States.
It maybe mentioned that the same matter
can be found in Benton's Abridgement,
pagelTl. The writer mentions the last fact
so that any cafe who cares to inquire as to
literal truth of what is here set down has
only to turn to the works of Senator Thomas
H. Benton, and verify it all without appeal
ing to the archives of the Senate of the
United States. But here is a copy of the
extract which has just come to hand under
the great seal:
"Senate, March 7, A. D. 1822.
"Mr. Eichard M. Johnson, of Kentucky,
presented a petition from John Cleves
Symms, of Cincinnati, Ohio, stating his be
:
lief of the existence of an inhabited con-
cave of this globe; his desire to embark on a
voyage of discovery to the Polar regions,
and his belief in the great honor to his coun
try of the discoveries he would make."
This of itself and alone is of little weight
and consequence. But when, yon come to
read this old soldier's works, and follow the
paved way by which he climbed gradually
to his conclusions you will not be in haste
to dispute the idea which the title of this
very prosaic narrative cherishes. I will
quote but one paragraph from the published
works of the old friend and fellow soldier of
the Conqueror of Mexico. This is it:
"Buried in the bosom of the earth, I heard
her heart beat! Standing there alone in the
Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, with that
dark river laving and lapping my feet, I
cried out, '"Whence? "Whither? "Where do
you come from, oh river? And where do
you flow?' "
Let'us not pause to debate, but hasten on
with our statements and our story. At the
same time it may be suggested that if any
man, woman or child cares to answer this
question of the honest old soldier, which
has remained unanswered for a solid half
century and more, why of course let it be
done. "From whence, oh Biver? and
"Whither?" f
Go down into the bosom of the earth, as
the old soldier did, stand there in tbe awful
solemnity and silence as he stood, hear the
heart heats of nature as he heard them, feel
tne dare, deep river slip away to the un
discovered somewhere as he felt'it, and then
be stupidly stolid if you will. If you can
do this, I beg you lay this page aside. It
will not please yon. It will not even so
much as amuse you.
But if on the contrary you care to ask the
long unanswered question, "Whence, oh
Biver? And Whither?" why follow along
a little way. We may find gold.
And this mention of gold brings us at
once to the gold mines and the gold miners
of California.
Forty years ago the one continual talk
and topic was of this, the Buried Biver.
Snow or sun, fair or foul weather, always
came up this one subject around our camp
or cabin fires for years and years and years.
And why so continually? And why in Cal
ifornia so especially?
Let us explain. The gold, the larger half
of our hundreds and hundreds of millions at
least, was, from the first, and i even to this
day, taken out of the beds of ancient, dried
up rivers. Now what dried(up those rivers?
And where now flow the waters that once
filled them? Do not accuse the stout
hearted sold hunter of cultivating an un
healthy imagination when he tells you that
there is surely, surely a deeper river one
wide, deep river away down under all
these dried up rivers. Do not call him
foolish when he explains that this one wide,
deep river most certainly must be literally
paved with gold! The gold must be there,
or the laws of gravitation must be sus
pended. Yes, you may smile here. Laugh
at the old gold hunter if you will. But
who knows better than he the laws that
govern the lodgments of gold away down in
the deeps of the earth? Who knows better
than this man, who has grown gray at his
work, how deep down in the earth the gold
can hide away? Smile at the old gold
hunters of the Sierras and myself together,
if you will. But the last gold hunter of
California will be long in his grave before
you can dig up the belief that is in him of
his Buried river; and that river's bed a bed
of gold.
CHAPTER H.
TPEEFATOKY BITS OF HISTOEY.
As early as 1854a pamphlet was published
in California purporting to come from a man
who had made a voyage from the sink of the
Humboldt river to the Bay of San Francis
co by sailing under the Sierras. This man
was doubtless a liar. He claimed no great
discovery further than the fact of having
found a "way to reach California without
climbing over the then almost impassable
Sierras. His story was that he had stolen
an Indian canoe on the banks of the- Hum
bol'dt river, a desert region at that day, and
keeping the middle of the river, and drift
ing inly at night in order to escape, he had
finally drifted into the heart oi the grass
lined lake known as the "sins: of the Hum
boldt:" and was thence borne on under
4-. FARLA VISITS THE HDT.
groundsill he came out safe and sound into j
of California.
THE DISPATCH
MIXiIiEB.
the Strait of Carquinas. This Strait of Car
quinas,sometimes spelled Carqninees.beinga
portion of the "Bay of San Francisco; or
rather it should be, sincea part of San Pablo
Bay. However, it mav be best to explain
right here that the Strait of Carquinas, San
Pablo Bay, the Bay of San Francisco, Sui
sun Bay, and even the Golden Gate are all
one; all in line with the great muddy and
tumultuous Sacramento river, which flows
down from the gold mines, over the melting
snows of thfe Sierras, and debauches into tha
Pacific ocean, with its dusky and turbid wa
ters pointing straight toward the three steep
and stupendous islands of stone, and tha
10,000 sea lions that stand in savage and
solemn wrath at the Golden Gate. Thes
islands are called "le Farlones;" spelled
Farallones.
As indicated before, this man made no
mention of discovering gold in his dark
voyage underground. His hook fell at onca
into disrepute, and was soon forgotten. Ona
statement, however, fastened itself upon the
mind of the writer. He claimed to have
lived for a whole day and night at.or rather
in, the mouth ot his buried river, unable to
escape or get out from its narrow jaws into
the bay. He described his sufferings from,
thirst and hunger here in such a graphic
and at the yime time powerful fashion that
it was hard to forget. He asserted that h'a ,
could feel his buried river breathe; that he
was borne up and down, bumping against
rocks, logs, broken spars, the masts of
buried ships, which his breathing river had
swallowed, and was finally "vomited out"
that is his own expression into the open
bay by the sudden influx and overflow of
some tremendous tidal wave.
Of course, other bosks
have been put
this same sub
forth from time to time on
ject, but none of them have been so dismally
graphic as to fasten on the mind like this
morbid first one published. And no longer
ago than last jear the Christmas story of ono
of the oldest publications in San Francisco
waTinade up from theaccountof a man who
1
claimed to have fallen into an air hole of
the earth near Yosemite, escaping only
after a long voyage underground.
This latest liar of them all claimed to hays
found a new race of people on the banks ot
his burled river. His story was supported
by the affidavits of many good people. But
the man was perhaps out of his mind. At
least he is now, I am credibly informed, in
an asylum for the insane.
But let us pass hastily on over all this
ground; pausing only to remark, by the
way, that all these stories tend only to tell
of the continual, yet vague, idea that W9
have a great underground river here, rathir. .
than to give any real evidence of it AndLl
yet what shall we say of tha blind fishes"
that leap into the air up from our artesian
wells'.' The fishes of the Adriatic sea came
up to testify for St Anthony under the
heights of San Marino, when the people re
fused to hear him. Let us then take these
blind little fishes here as witnesses, and de
mand of the doubting Thomas that he shall
answer from whence they come, or be at
least respectfully silent One fact further
in relation to those fish from the undiscov
ered world under our feet, and we pass on.
These fish, these blind fish that leap up to
the light from newly-opened wells on this,
the western side of the Sierras, and within
40 and 50 miles of the ocean, are exactly the
same as those found in the fathomless lakes
on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada
Mountains, 1,000 and 2,000 miles from tha
ocean. Of this there can be no doubt. They
are of the same deep, dark, rich color, tha
same size and shape; and both examples are
absolutely without eyes, or even any sign of
place for eyes. And so it surely seems that
somehow, by means of lake, sea or river,
they must meet and mingle in this dark and
silent under-world.
A sight it is to see these glittering little
creatures leap into the air and fall, a
shower, in the grass round about the newly
bored well; leap and leap againl oncel
twice! thrice! The grass is all alive! Then
in a little time they lose all their strength.
They lie quite still; die almost instantly;
then melt away into nothingness, like
ghosts. And you almost doubt your senses;
till suddenly up leaps another school of
poor, fragile little fishes. Then they, too,
melt away into the air. as the water sinks
away into the dried earth. But the story
that the white seagnll ha3 been known to
come up through these wells must not be
credited.
The writer is a part owner in large estates
that lie in what is known as "the artesian
belt'' By "artesian belt" is meant the lands
that lie above and in the regioriof what wa
understand to be the buried rfver. Boring
these wens is tedious and costly worfe. -the
little wells of Artesia, France, are merely
poolsln comparison. The cost here is tre
mendous. The wells are very deep. Tha
excitement is intense-as the long, long task
nears completion. The arid world all about
for miles and miles is on tiptoe.
At last! 10, 20, 30, 40 feet in the air tha
white, foamy water leaps! and leapsl and
leaps! Then it falls off, melts away in the
hot air; drifts away in tbe wind, sinks
down up again; high, higher than ever
before. The little fishes fill the thirsty
cracks ,of the alklli earth and die. The
water flows on and down by a dusty, thirsty
ranch. A fanner is out with a hoe to turn
the welcome water into his garden. And
now he wants to turn it out There is too
much. He drops his hoe and rushes into
his adobe hut, and gathers wife and babe to
fly to the neighboring hill.
And now little black specks, far away in
the air The birds of heaven are coming to
drink. There is a little lake in the farmer's
melon patch. There is a floating hoe handle;
floating and floating round and round, as
the edying waters swirl in their new found
force. There will be a big bill of damages
for our company to pay the frightened old
farmer who dropped hi hoe and fled to tha
dusty hill.
But see! what is that?'and that? and that?
And still another, till a Jong white line baa
t
As
i
i
M
m
wi
&.
7