at' 'TERMS J Ol.as Per Year,) 'ear,) ' ) AN . INDEPENDENT FAMILY NEWSPAPER. 78 Cents for O Months i I 40 Cta. for 8 months. IN AD VANCE, Vol. VI. New I31oonifleltl, 3?a., Tiiesdny-, November lO, 1872. IVo. 47. ft m wmw ta i: ii us h hies IS PUBLISHED EVERT TUESDAY MORNING, BT FRANZ MORTIMER & CO., .'At Now Bloomfleld, Terry Co., Ta. Being provided with Bteam Tower, and large Cylinder and Job-Presses, we are prepared to do all kinds of Job-l'rintliig lu good style and at Low Trices. ADVEItTISING KATES I ' Trantimt 8 Cents per line for one Insertion. 19 " " two Insertions 15 " " "three Insertions. Business Notices In Local Column 10 Cents per line. Notices of Marriages or Deaths Inserted free. Tributes of Respect, fec, Ten cents per line. YEARLY ADVERTISEMENTS. One Inch one year J10.00 Two inches" ' 118.00 .For longer yearly adv'ts terms will be given upon application. Tho Haunted Closet. MY sistor wrote to roe that she had taken a house for the summor, "a queer, old-fashioned house" away down on the lonely coast, where the children would have the benefit of the sea-breeze and the surf-bathing prescribed for them after a sickly spring season. And she urged me at once to come and join thorn in their new abode. Queer and old-fashioned indcod I found it; each room bad the appearance of having been built separately, by successive owners. At the back of the main building pro jected a sort of long and narrow wooden gallery, consisting of a row of throe or four mall rooms, last used, it appeared, as store rooms for grain and vegetables, all open ing upon a covered passage-way connecting with a brick office which had formerly 'Stood separate from the house. These rooms and the office were unused by the family as too remote to be desirable; be sides there was plenty of room in the main building. Yet the first time I visited the little brick office, it at once took my fancy. It was a good-sized, comfortable room, with a fire place on one side, and a queer little trian gular closet, or cupboard in a corner, bear ing the marks of books and ink-stands on the shelves. The very place, I thought, for a study, so I at once chose this little room for my own, bedroom and Btudy in one, and after giving it a thorough purifi cation and airing, took possession. It proved quite as pleasant as I antici pated. Here, awaking in the morning, I would open the windows and let in the fresh sea-breeze; and when evening came, I would sit in my little garden-door, and re joice in the quiet and seclusion which I loved so muoh. Thus I was sitting, about twilight a few days after I had moved into my little her mitage, as I called it. The air was very still : scarce a rustle disturbed the branches of the willow, and the surf rippling on the beach made but a low murmur. Suddenly, I became aware of a faint, uncertain sound, like the whispering of voices and rustling of garments. Fancying that my sister or the children had playfully stolen upon me I looked around; but to my surprise, there was no one visible. It must have been fancy, of course, I thought, and turned once more to the book ; but hardly had I done so when again I heard the rustling of drapery, and what sounded like a foot fall on the floor. I was startled and sat breathless, staring around and listening. Once or twice it was repeat ed and thea all was as still as before. That my story may be credited, I must tell the reader that I was at this time a woman of four-and-twenty, bad never in my life been ill or nervous, was the farth est possible from being superstitiously in clined, and bad been accustomed to regard with rldioule all stories concerning ghosts, goblins, aud other so-called spiritual mani festations. Such being the case I set It down as one of those odd and fleeting fan cies which do sometimes puzzle aud bewil der even the most rational. But on the following day, aud agaiu on the next, the mystorlous sounds which I have described were repeated. It was exact ly a though some person or persons were occupying the room with me moving with coft footsteps and speaking in low whis pers, as if unwilling to be beard. Once I distinctly distinguished a grating noise, as of a key turned In a look; sfter which, all was quiet Should I tell my sister and brother-in-law f No; I shrank frem the thought of heir laughter. Finally and the reader will credit me with the possession of almost more than feminine courage in so doing I resolved to keop silence for the present, and spend the night as usual In my little office room. The first few hours passed away quiet ly, and I was just falling into a doze, when I was aroused by the door of the corner closet slowly creaking. The moonlight enabled me to see that this door stood ajar, though I distinctly recollected having closed it before retiring. It bad neither lock nor bolt by which it could be secured. I sat up in bod, watched tho closet and looking half-fearfully around the room; and and as I looked, with my eyes fixed upon the half-open door, I heard within a jingle of glasses and phials. It was a sound not to be mistaken, and almost at the same instant a voice said near me, in a hoarse whisper: " Bring a light 1" I started up trembling, and with a cold perspiration breaking out on my forehead, reached for a match and the lamp, and tried to strike a light, but in vain. I had but one or two matches left, and as I dropped the last in despair, I heard the voice which had before spoken, say slowly and distinctly: "Poison !" Sly first impulse was to flee from this haunted room, but had my life depended upon it, I could not have passod that closet aud sped through the long deserted gallery alone. I sank back upon my pillow and drew the sheets about my head, and re mained thus until daybreak. It was now no longer a question with me as to whether I should or should not in form my relatives of what had occurred. I told them the whole, and as I had ex pected, was met with, laughter and badin age. "Try it, yourself?" was all I could say in answer; and on that night my brother-in-law, Mr. Walton, agreed to occupy the office-room, I remaining with my sister. " Well, Kichard,did you see or hear any thing of Louisa's ghost?" inquired my sister, playfully, on our meeting at the breakfast table in the morning. "I saw nothing," he answered thought fully. " But really, Emma, it did appear as though, moro than once during the night, I heard some unaccountable Bounds tho turning of a key in the lock, a sort of moan ing and sobbing child's voice, and very dis tinctly the shutting of a small door. And this last sound," he added decidedly, "cer tainly came from the closet er cupboard in the corner of the room." Emma opened her eyes and looked fright ened. "Oh, Richard ! you don't really think that you heard these sounds in tho room, with no one there but yourself?" " It is very unaccountable at present, I admit; but you know that I do not beliove in the supernatural. We must oxamine more fully into the matter." For some days he kept sole possession of the room, reporting once or twice that ho bad again heard the mysterious noises, and especially the grating of a rusty key, as in the lock of the corner cupboard, was very distinctly audible. And yet, as we all knew, there was neither lock nor key to the cupboard door, only traces of one that had been there. There was no room ad joining, no cellar below or garret above, and the whole thing was most singular and unaccountable. And once he even hesi tatingly suggested, " Could it be, after all, spiritual manifestations?" My own mind echoed the inquiry. Our nearest neighbor was a farmer who lived about a mile distant, and of himself and wife we made inquiries in regard to the former occupants of the houso. It had for twenty years within his mem ory, Mr. Orover said, belonged to a small farmer, an illiterate but good sort of man, who had finally sold out and purchased a better place farther south. Then the house, with a part of the laud adjoining, had been taken by a gentleman who was known as Dr. Mather, and was understood to be very learned and a writer. Mr. Orover and the rest of the neighb ors believed him to be " a little cracked." He used to go about the country gathering sea-weeds, plants, and insects, but would repel all ap proach to acquaintance. Ho had a wife with whom it was said he lived on bad terms, and three sickly children whose pres. cuce he would scarcely tolerate. The wife and two of the children died, and then Dr. Mather went away with the remaining child, leaving the place to an agent for sale. It was then rented for a time by some people, who, for reasons known only to themselves, would not remain their term out; and finally, we had taken it, furnished as it was, for the summer. This was all that Mr. Orover knew. Upon hearing this simple account, then instinctively formed in my mind an expla nation, if such it can be called, of the mys terious circumstances which had so puzzled and disturbed us. " They had all three died." and my memory reverted with a shudder to the word " Poison 1" which I had heard uttered by that mysterious voice. Perhaps murder had been committed in this house even in that very office-room which I had appropriated ; and this im pression was deepened upon being informed by Mr. Grover, in answer to my inquiries, that room had in reality been Dr. Mathor's study or library, into which no one was ever admitted; and that he would some times remain in it whole days and nights together without being interrupted hav ing bis meals brought aud deposited out-, side the door, in the adjoining gallory. The office and gallery were now carefully shunned by us all, with the exception of Mr. Walton, who haunted it with a per sistency doubtless equal to that of the ghost itself. He was determined, he said, to learn all that could be learned of this mys tery, and if possible, to thoroughly un ravel it. One evening after a rain, a heavy sea-fog set in upon the const, and the atmosphere became all at once so damp and chilly as to render a fire indispensable to comfort. The two most comfortable apartments of tho house for cool weather were tho nursery and the office-room, which wore situated at opposite extremities of the long building. So, leaving the former to the nurses and children, Mr. Walton proposed that he and Emma and I should make ourselves com fortable for the evening in the haunted room, as ho now called it, maugre the ghost; and, as an inducement, promised us a hot oyster supper. The oysters were to be had fresh out of the water, almost at our very door, just for the trouble of picking them up. Certainly the room, as Emma and I rath er hesitatingly entered it, looked pleasant and cheerful enough, with its blazing wood fire, and the tea-kettle steaming on the hearth. No one made any allusion to the ghost. Supper ovor, Mr. Walton who was a fine reader, entertained us with some chapters from Dickens' latest work, and we were soon so much interested as to forget every thing else. In the very midst of this, how ever, I was startled by feeling a faint breath of cool air upon my nock, and at the same instant saw my sister's eyes lifted with a frightened glance toward the corner closet behind me. I "instinctively started up and crossed over to the opposite side of tho fireplace. " What is it Louisa ?,' said Emma, ner vously, " I saw the door of the closet open." Mr. Walton closed bis book and sat look ing attentively at the cupboard. And it was while we were all thus, perfectly silent and motionless, that a sound broke the stillness at first what seemed tho jingling of phials, and tattling of chains, and then the faint, uncertain sound of muffled voices which I had heard more than once before, all coming unmistakably from the little triangular closet in the corner. "O Richard, do you hear?" gasped Em ma, seizing fast hold of her husband's arm. For myself, I came very near screaming outright. "Hush the quiot," said Mr. Walton. And taking the lamp, he advanced to the cupboard, threw wide open the door, and surveyed it minutely. It was simply a closet built of deal boards against the naked whitewashed -walls of the room. Three rickety ink. stained shelves were all it contained. Be tween tho lower and middlo shelves was a Btrip of wood nailed against the wall, as if to cover a place, where, as we could see, the plaster had fallen away, and beneath this strip could be discerned part of what seem ed to be a rat hole. Besides these, not a thing was visible in the closet. And yet as I live, while we throe stood there gazing Into the empty closet, from its recesses came a holtow laugh, and a low, childish voice said plaintively: "Three all dead poisoned!" Emma sank down, half swooning Even Mr. Walton's face as I fancied, be came a shade pale ; aud then we heard the voice again: " Bury them grave under the walnut " I looked again at my brother-in-law, and saw bis lips compress and a kind of des peration appear In his face. Ho advanced close to the closet, put his head almost within, aud shouted loudly and distinctly: " Who are you t Who is it that speaks?" " In answer came a shriek, loud and sp palling, ringing in our very ears. Then the saine breath of cold air swept past, followed by the violent shutting of a door and grating of a key in a lock. We looked at each other aghast, but before we had time to utter a word, we were again star tled by a different sound that of children's cries, and footsteps hurrying along the gal lery to the room in which we were. The next moment the door burst open, and in rushed nurse, bearing baby in her arms, followed by her assistant, dragging the three elder children after her all the latter pale and terrified, and Freddy in particular shrieking shrilly. "What is the matter? What has hap pened ?" - screamed Emma, forgetting her own recent terror in alarm for her children. "Oh, master I oh, missus 1" grasped nurse, pitoously, hor eyes rolling white in their sockets, " A ghost ! A ghost in the nursery I" "A ghost?" " In the cornor closet iu the nursery I I heerd itl We all heerd it 1 Master Freddy was looking in that closet to see if there was any mice in the trap that he'd set, and somebody in the closet hollered out ' Who are you? What are you talking about?" We all heerd it." Mr. Walton turned around and once more looked into the closet. Then taking the tongs from the hearth, he inserted thorn behind the bit of board which I have mentioned asnailed to the wall, and wrench ed it away, exposing, as ho did so, a small aperture surrounded by a metallic ring. " I have discovered tho mystery at last!" he said, turning to us with a smile. " It is no ghost, but simply a speaking-tube. Stay here, and when you hear the spirits, place your mouth to this and answer them." " He left the room, and in a few moments we again heard the mysterious, sepulchral voice in the closet, only much more distinct now, since the board had been removed. "How are you all ?" I summoned courage to answer: " Much better 1" And then there came a low laugh, ghostly enough certainly, to have caused our blood to curdle, had we not been aware of the idoutity of tho apparent ghost. And so it was all explained, and the mys tery of the haunted closet cleared up. There was as Mr. Walton had said, a speaking-tube communicating between the office room and the distant nursery placed there doubtless by the eccentric naturalist, Dr. Mather, for his own convenience; and he on leaving the houso, had simply carelessly boarded over the mouth of the tube, not dreaming of or indifferent to tho consequen ces of this negligence. The explanation of the various sounds board by us in the office-room is vory sim ple. The corresponding mouth of the tube was in a closet in the nursery, precisely similar to that In the office. Nurse stored in this closet the varipus cups, phials, and so-forth, used in the nursery, and, to secure these from the children, the closet was gen erally kept locked. It was tho opening and shutting of this closet door, with the gra ting of the key in the rusty lock, that bad so often alarmed me ; aud when it was open and a search going on among its contents for some special article, the noise thus made and the words spoken in the closet could be heard, more or less distinctly, in the office. Also, when the closet door was suddenly shut to, it would produce a cur rent of air through the tube sufficient to slightly open the loosely hung door of the office cupboard. Master Freddy's idea of setting a mouse-trap iu the closet, baited with poisoned food, had added much to the effect of the mystery ; and it was little Ma ry's voioe which had pleaded so patheti cally for the three victims of her brother's experiment, imploring that they might be buried under the walnut-tree. Mr. Walton used to say that it was al most a pity that the secret of the tube should have been discovered, and thereby so capital a ghost story spoiled. A California Dairyman. In the year 1855 or 1850, or thereabout, says the Qrass Valley Union, we know a man in Nevada City who milked two or three cows and who used to walk around the towu and sell the lacteal fluid. He car ried two cans on a wooden yoke, which was placed over his neck and shoulders. He lias flourished since then, and now has lauds aud horned cattle down in Montgom ery county. He is now engaged in milking 1,200 cows, and be makes butter and cheese. Next spring be will milk 1,500 cows. His oows are of excellent stock, consisting of Devon, Short Horn and Akloruey blood. The name of this successful luilkist and ex Nevada City man is 8. C. Abbott. His property is assessed at 1 400, 000, and we doubt much if he would soli out at that figure. , An Address by thn United States Centen nial Commission To the people of t7te United Statee: ' The Congress of the United States has enacted that the completion of the One Hundreth Year of American Indipendence Bhall be celebrated by an International Ex hibition of the Arts, Manufactures and Products of the soil and mine, to be held at Philadelphia in 1870, and has appointed a commission, consisting of representatives from each State and Territory, to conduct the celebration. Originating under the auspices of the National Legislature, controlled by a Nat ional Commission, and designed as it is to " Commemorate the first Century of our ' existence, by an Exhibition of the Natural Resources of the Country and their devel opment, and in our progress in those Arts which benefit mankind, in comparison wjth those of older Nations," it is to the people at largo that the Commission look for the aid which is necessary to make the Central Celebration the greatest anniversary the world has ever scon. That the completion of the first ceutury of our existence should be marked by some imposing demonstration is, we bolieve, the patriotio wish of the people of the whole country. The Congress of the United States has wisely decidod that the Birth-day of the Great Republic can bo most fittingly celebrated by the universal collection and display of all tho trophies of its progress. It is designed to bring to gether, within a building covering fifty acres, not only the varied productions of our mines and of the soil, but types of all tho intellectual triumphs of our citizens, specimens of everything that America can furnish , whether from the brains or hands of her children, and thus make evident to the world tho advancement of which a self governed people is capable. 1 In this "Celebration" all nations will be invited to participate; its charactor being International. Europe will display hor arts aud manufactures, India her curious fab rics, while newly opened China and' Japan will lay bare the treasures which for centuries their ingenious people have been perfecting. Each land will compete in generous rivalry for the palm of superior excellence. To this grand gathering every zone will contribute its fruits and cereals. No min eral shall be wanting; for what the East lacks the West will supply. Under one roof will the South display in rich luxur iance her growing cotton, and the North in miniature, the ceaseless machinery of her mills converting that cotton into cloth. Each section of the globe will send its best offerings to this exhibition, and each State of the Union, as a member of one united body politic, will show to her sistor States and to the world, how much she can add to the greatness of the nation of which she is a harmonious part. To make the Centennial Celebration such a success as the patriotism and the prido of every American demands will require the co-oporation of the people of the whole country. The United States Centennial Commission has received no government aid, such as England extended to her World's Fair, and Franco to hor Universal Exposition, yet the labor and responsibility imposed upon the Commission is as great as in either of those undertakings. It is estimated that ten millions of dollars will be required, and this sum Congress has provided shall be raised by stock subscrip tion, and that the people shall have the op portunity of subscribing in proportion to the population of their respective' States and Territories. The Commission looks to the unfailing patriotism uf every section, to see that each contributes its share to the expenses, and receives Its share of the benefits of an enterprise in which all are so deeply in terested. It would further earnestly urge the formation in each State and Territory of a contonnial organization, which shall in time see that county associations are formed, so that when the nations are gath ered together in 1870 each Commonwealth can view with prido the contributions she has made to the national glory. Confidently relying on the zeal and pa triotism ever displayed by mtf people lu every national Undertaking, we pledge and prophesy, that the Centennial Celebration will worthily show how greatness, wealth and intelligence, can be fostered by such institutions as those which have for one hundred years blessed the people of the United States. ' ' Jos. R. Hawlkt, President. -Lewis Walk Smith, Temporary Seo'y.
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