THE DECADENT.
Among the viril
Conspicuous f an
Of sexless beauty.
ace ;,
God's mighty purpose somehow had gone
wrong.
Then on his loom he wove a careful song,
Of sensuous threads, a web of wordy
lace,
Wherein the primal passions of the
race,
And his own sins, made wonder for the
throng.
A little pen-prick opened up a vein,
And gave the finished mesh, crimson
ot—
The last consummate touch of studied
art.
But those who knew strong passion and
keen pain,
Looked through, and through the pat-
tern, and found not
One single great emotion of the heart.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox, in the Century.
2.0.8... YT TT
Twice Told Tale.
By LOUIS TIDDEMAN.
he
Mr. Gillingham proposed to me be-
fore he left for Australia, when I had
just turned seventeen, he being ten
Years my senior. I went direct to my
father, as was my wont at any trouble
or perplexity, and told him, my arms
about his neck, my head pillowed on
his shoulder. For a while he did not
speak, then he said fervently: “Thank
God!” :
That decided me—that the sudden
clearing of his haggard, careworn face
as he clasped me in a close embrace
and spoke in flattering terms of my
lover, affirming that he was of all men
the one he would have chosen for a
son-in-law.
“His father is my oldest friend,” said
he. ‘Jack ig like him, brave as a lion,
true as steel and honest as the day.
God bless you for the news you have
brought, my child; now I shall die
happy.”
I clung to him in a passion of tears
and protested that he should not die,
and that God would never be so cruel
as to take him from me.
‘No, no, not for many years yet, I
hope,” answered he, returning my ca-
resses and comforting me as he alone
knew how.
Soon after this Mr. Gillingham left,
with the understanding that in three
years’ time I should go out to him, ac-
companied by my father. His voice
shook as he bade me good-bye, there
was even a suspicion of moisture in his
eyes; mine were tearless. I was sorry,
of course; we had been capital friends
all through the summer, but since our
engagement there had appeared to be
something strained in our relationship.
At seventeen one is not, as a rule,
much addicted to self-analysis, but it
did occur to me that in choosing a hus-
band a girl should be influenced by
other motives than the desire to please
a parent, however good and wise that
parent may be.
Suppose that when I went into soci-
ety I showld meet some cone I liked
ever so much better? Nothing of the
kind occurred; I returned from every
ball I attended quite convinced that
Mr. Gillingham was superior to any-
one whom I had met.
Meanwhile each mail brought me
long, lover-like letters, to which I re-
sponded in frank, friendly fashion. It
seemed to me only natural that he
should write as he did, for I, for my
part, was not—at least so it seemed—
at all sentimental, and it was contrary
to my dispositicn to make any pre-
tence.
Nevertheless, I was really sorry for
him when, as the three years drew to
a close, I found myself compelled to
write and tell him that, owing to the
state of my father’s health, it would be
impossible for me to keep my promise.
I felt for him in his loneliness, and
grieved for his disappointment, all the
more so because he strove to keep it in
the background and to comfort me.
“I can wait,” said he, “and will be
patient.”
He had need for patience, poor fel-
low, for my dear father lingered on,
and two more years passed befcre
death touched him. Then my sum-
mons came—a manly, affectionate let-
ter, and withal clear and business-like.
I was to take my passage on board the
Oriental. A friend of his—his dearest
friend—would travel in the same ves-
sel, and would be happy to do all in
his power to be of assistance to me
on the voyage.
I was glad to go; glad to turn my
back on the familiar scenes amid
which my life had been passed. Home
was home no longer now that my fath-
er was dead. I stcod on the deck of
the vessel and watched the well-known
shores recede from view, straining my
eyes to catch the last glimnse of them.
Then, turning suddenly, I confronted
Mr. Gillingham’s friend. He was very
tall, very bronzed, but for all that
good to look upon.
I know now, as I look back through
the mist of years, that there is such a
thing as love at first sight, but in these
dars I should have ridiculed such an
idea. But Mr. Gillingham’s friend was
the means of demonstrating its reality.
Hour by bour, without misgiving, I sat
and listened to his words, at first in-
terrupting him by questions relzating to
Mr. Gillingham, but eonly at first.
Pay by day he waited on me sedu-
lously, anticipating my every want.
Week by week I learned the silent lan-
guage of the eyes, the hidden secret of
a fleeting smile, and yet remained ig-
norant of my knowledge. He was so
much clder than I; besides I was en-
gaged and had been so for nearly six
years. There could be no danger.
Thus I dreamed on until the awiaken-
ing came—came with a fierce flash of
pain, an agony of self-abasement.
It happened one morning, when in
the midst of a pleasant chat that he
fell back suddenly in a dead faint. He
had had a severe illness recently, so!
he told me later, and had been subject |
to such attacks since then.
But I did |
not know this at the time, and was |
terribly frightened.
I remember kneeling at his feet,
frantically chafing his hands, sick at
heart and trembling. At length his
eyes opened slowly and rested on
me. I think we both knew then how it
was. In my mind, at least, there re-
mained no shadow of uncertainty.
I knew now what love meant. It was
no calm, friendly feeling, but a great,
unquenchable passion. Shame-strick-
en, I fled from his presence, and fought
out my battle alone; the strength of
my own feeling was a revelation to
me. I had at least sufficient honor to
despise myself.
Next day I feigned illness, and it
was not until the voyage came to an
end that we met again, and he stcod
at my side once more, helpful as ever
but reserved and distant. It made my
heart ache, but sympathy, possessing,
the rare tact that pierces through con-
ventionality.
“My dear,” she said, after we had
dined, “you wish to be alone; you are
in no mood for talking.”
I was about to reply as politeness
dictated, but she only smiled and
shook her head as she led me in fo’ the
cozy library, settled the comfortably
in the armchair by the firé and left
me. How I blessed her for her kindly
consideration. Left to myself I could
at least try to think.
I would be true to the promise I had
given so many years ago, but I would
not deceive the man who loved me—
I would tell him all.
So I sat thereinthe dark room and
waited till, out of sheer weariness, I
fell asleep.
A slight sound awakened me. I
rubbed my eyes: and peered through
the gloom. Surely that was a man
seated at the table his head buried in
his hands.
“Mr. Gillingham,” 1 whispered, “is
it you or am I still dreaming?”
The vessel had arrived a day earlier
than was expected. Mr. Gillingham
was not there to meet me, and I was
conducted by his friend to the house
of his aunt, who had offered to receive
me as a guest. She was a model host-
ess, gentle and full of I knew it was
best so; indeed, I mistrusted myself
so greatly that I would have shaken
him off had it been possible. TUn-
fortunately it was not.
“It is I,” he replied in a strange,
hollow voice. “And so my wife has
come to me at last, after six weary
years of waiting.
The word “wife” stung me into acute
self-consciousness.
“Yes, I answered slowly, “I have
come, but do not come near me, do not
touch me till you have heard all.”
He appeared little inclined to do so.
He might have been a figure carved in
stone, still and rigid, cold and hard.
“Listen,” I cried, flinging myself at his
feet; “I will be a faithful, loving wife
to you who have waited so long and
so patiently; but I will not come to you
with a lie upon my lips. “I have not
been true to you.”
“Not true!”’ he cried, rising to his
feet; “not true! Child, do you know
what you are saying? Who has come
between us?”
“Your friend, and that by no fault
of his own. I alone am to blame; he
never tried to win my love; he was
only kind—oh! so kind and thought-
ful.”
“So kind and thoughtful!” My words
were re-echoed mockingly, but I paid
no heed.
“It’s all over mow,” I continued;
“trust me; I will never see him again.
From this time forth I will put him
out of heart forever.”
“No, no,” cried my lover, “not for-
ever. I hope. Surely there is no need
for that.”
Then he clasped me in his arms and
covered my tear stained face with
kisses. It was good to know myself
forgiven, good to feel those strong
arms about me.
For a space I hid my head upon his
shoulder; when I had courage to lift
my" eyes to his I understood.
“Sweatheart,” he said, “it is for me
to ask forgiveness, for you to forgive.
I 2m both John Gillingham and his
friend. You gave me, your prcmise
so long ago that strange doubts and
fears beset me, and I was fain to do
by wooing over again. This time,
thank God, I have won.”—From The
New York Evening Journal.
The Sphinx and the Infinite.
' I can imagine the most determined
: atheist looking at the Sphinx and, in
a flash, not merely believing, but feel-
ing that he had before him proof of the
life of the soul of Khufu beyond the
tomb of his pyramid. Always as you
return to the Sphinx you wonder at it
more, you adore more strangely its
repose, you steep yourself more inti-
mately in the aloof peace that seems
to emanate from it as light emanates
from the sun. And as you look on it
at last perhaps you understand the
infinite; you understand where is the
bourne to which the finite flows with
all its greatness, as the great Nile
flows from beyond Victoria Nyanza
to the sea—From Robert Hichens’s
“The Spell of Egypt” in the Century.
In Nesd of Change.
A small girl recently entered a
grocer's shop in the suburbs of
Whitechapel and said to the shop-
man in a shrill, piping voice:
“Please, sir, I wants ’arf a pound of
butter and penn’orth of cheese
and muvver ses she will send a shill-
ing in when farver comes home.
“All right,” replied the man.
“But,” continued the child, “muv-
ver wants the change, ’cos she ’as
got to put a penny in the gas meter.”
—London Telegraph.
Nef Ppumpresmenindy
A Waning Christianity
s=and a:- -
- Waxing Mammonism
THE TWIN SPECTERS OF OUR AGE
By President Schurman of Cornell.
Urmston yn LI.
00000000000 HAT is the blight and malady of our time? 1s It not the
0990000600 mean and sordid conception of human life which everywhere
S 4 prevails? Among all classes and conditions of people do
* & you not find a vitally active, if generally unexpressed, belief
s 3 that the life of human beings, like the brute creatures about
: : them, consists in the enjoyment of the material things which
00000006 p perish in the using?
10000000000 To get and to have is the motto not only of the market,
: but of the altar and of the hearth. The energy of the nation
is pouring itself into production; we are coming to measure man—man with
his heart and mind and soul—in terms of mere acquisition and possession.
our age. . And between them not only the natural idealism of the spirit, but
the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule are disavowed or disregarded,
and in their plate, at least for the six active days of the week, is the ruthless
struggle for life and the success of the strongest, the most cunning or tne
most highly favored, whether by powers supernal cr by powers infernal.
: But the yast majority are fatally handicapped, and goaded either by the
“bangs of hunger or the pricks of envy or the stings of injustice, they bitterly
the good things of the weild. +
.The call to €arn‘a livelihood is two-fold. If you don’t you become a para-
site on the community and you stunt your own nature. The idle rich are an
excrescence in any properly organized community.
The vice of the age is that men want wealth without undergoing that toil
by which alone wealth is created. Among the rich and well-to-do business
and professional classes “grafting” has been so common that the very idea of
commercialism has become a by-word and a reproach.
Financiers, capitalists, corporations may be the most conspicuous sinners;
who shows his client how to circumvent the laws, or the scholar who glorifies
his patron’s success in business, irrespective of the method by which that suc-
cess was achieved, or the preacher who transfigures the ruthless oppresser
and robber of six days into the exemplary Christian of the seventh.
We are dealing with the virus of a universal infection. The whole nation
needs a new baptism of the old virtue of honesty. The love of money and the
reckless pursuit of it is undermining the national character.
But the nation, thank God, is beginning to perceive the fatal danger. The
reaction caused by recent revelations testifies to a moral awakening. At heart
the nation is still sound, though its moral sense has been too long hypnotized
by national prosperity. :
3 The Unlimited Power of 3
3 The People
PI
By Ex:Governor Frank §. Black,
of New York. eeprom) [3
T must be remembered that the people are all-powerful.
They can do whatever they decide to do. They are now
I checked by their Constitution, but they made even the Con-
stitution and they can unmake it. There are at least two
methods of doing this—one by amendment and the other by
revolution. But the prayer of every patriot in the land will
be that the Constitution shall not now be changed. The
ideas now most popular are also most dangerous. The clam-
or is for the limitation of fortunes, forgetting that that also
means the limitation of industry; for the curtailment of the power of the
courts, forgetting that that means death to the freedom of the individual; for
the equality of men by arbitrary rule, forgetting that this means to clog the
industrious and help the lazy. The spirit now abroad if given rein would make
the incompetent equal by law to the skilled, the dissolute equal to the sober,
the cheat and shirk equal to the honest man. The people, when they try, can
raze everything to the ground. They may unmake or remake their Constitu-
tion. They may, if they like, abolish their courts and legislatures and take
the reins of government directly in their own hands. This means revolution,
but are there no precedents for revolution? Is there any prophet abroad in
these days who can say how far the people would go in their present temper?
Would the majority vote to limit private fortunes? Would they vote to re-
distribute private estates which were large enough to tempt their cupidity?
Would they curtil the power of the courts? You can answer these questions
as well as any body of men now living, and you can also answer whether the
suggested changes would be wise. :
Rp ry
eg Sleeplessness .".
Ey George Lincoln Walton, M. D. 9
O one can acquire the habit of sleep who has not learned the
habit of concentration, of devoting himself single-minded to
the matter in hand. If we practice deveting our minds, as
we do our bodies, to one object at a time, we shall rot only
accomplish more, but with less exhaustion. Training in
this direction will help us, on retiring, to view sleep as our
present duty, and a sufficient duty, without taking the oppor-
tunity at that time to adjust ‘or to try to adjust) all our
tanglesy to review our past sources of discomfort, and to
speculate upon the ills of the future.
A. walk, a bath, a few gymnastic exercises, will often serve a useful pur-
pose before retiring, but if they are undertaken in a fretful and impatient
spirit, and are accompanied by doubts of their effectiveness and the insistent
thought that sleep will not follow these or any other procedure, they are likely
to accomplish little.
The best immediate preparation for sleep is the confidence that one will
sleep, and indifference if one does not. .
This frame of mind is best attained by the habitual adoption of the same
attitude toward all the affairs of life. It is an aid in its adoption as regards
sleep to learn that mary have for years slept only a few hours a night, with-
out noticeable impairment of their Lealth or comfort.—From Lippincott’s, ;
La Society's
Responsibility for Crime
By Deputy Commissioner Woods, of the New York
Police Department,
HERE is no such thing as a criminal class. Any statement
with reference to the so-called criminal] class makes the
prosperous feel entirely too comfortable, sitting at the club
with their after-dinner cigars. It removes the feeling of re-
sponsibility from that section of society where it properly be-
longs, and places it on heredity and circumstances over
which we have no control. In a large propertion of cases
the criminal is society, and not the poor fellow who has gone
wrong from lack of work, poverty, strangeness to the cus-
N
0 »
oflnen SG
pd
-
toms and language of the country, or the sudden flash
of passion common to all of us. Economic’ pressure and
social maladjustment, well within the scope of our power to remedy,
will explain very much of the crime and the making of very many of our crim-
inals. "And a great evil in our present social system is that it too often makes
a criminal of the first offender—the citizen who has slipped over into wrong-
doing once. It makes him hardened instead of dealing with him as a human
being.
A waning ‘Christianity and a waxing Mammonism are the twin spectres of _
denounce a social ordefin~witich favored claSses monopolize what they deem:
but equally guilty is the merchant who cheats his customers, or the lawyer.
PENNSYLVANIA STATE NEWS
DISBURSE HUGE SUMS.
But Pennsyivania State Treasury
Still Shows Healthy Balance.
Harrisburg.—Since the first of Jan-
uary Auditer General Young has col-
lected $6,655.279 of state revenue,
which is $213,668.31 more than the
total collections for the like period
of last year. The revenues for
March were $1,796,640.87 and for
February $2,219,331.75. Including
the quarterly payments on appropria-
tions to hospitals and charitaple in-
stitutions the disbursements for
March were $1,885,023.88.
The treasurv statement issued
April 1 shows a balance of $11,090,
952.52 in the general fund. One
month ago it was $11,167,219.12. The
sinking fund contains $2,492,458.42, as
compared with $2,504,599.70 last
month. .
MONEY IN THE FIRE
His $400
Renner’s Children Used
Roll to Play With. ;
Beaver Falls.—Distrusting banks,
Alexander Renner, a grocer, has been
keeping® his money at home. A few
days ago he took. from a cupboard
$400. in bills and placing.if on a table
began counting it. © Renner was call-
ed away for a few minutes and his
‘two :little sons began to play with
the .money. :
Finally one threw the roll of bills
at the other Missing its mark, the
wad landed in an open grate fire
where it was burning when the father
rushed in. After severely scorching
both hands, Renner rescued most of
the money in a partly destroyed con-
dition. This morning the charred
bills were forwarded to the United
States treasury for redemption.
. SAW FOUR COFFINS
Dream of - Dying Girl Is Fulfilled
Quidkly at Washington, Pa.
Washington.— When. the remains of
Mrs. Wilson L. Smith were buried in
the Washington cemetery the dream
of a dying girl was fulfilled.
Miss Bertha Breese, a sister of
Mrs. Smith, while ill five months ago,
had a vision in which she saw four
coffins, each occupied by members
of the family, one being herself. She
died shortly afterward. A few weeks
ago a 3-year-old daughter of Mr. and
Mrs. Smith died suddenly. Two
monthg ago a 5-months-old baby pass-
ed away and last Sunday Mrs.
Smith’s death occurred.
THOUSANDS RESUME WORK
Reading Collieries Will Begin Opera-
tions Again Today.
Reading.—The Reading Company is
making active preparations for the
resumption of mining at its collieries.
Mahoney Plane, which has been idle
since the shutdown,” will be started
up and the thousands of idle mine
workers will go back to the mines
with prospects of continued work
during the summer.
BALM FOR HER FEELINGS
Wealthy Young Farmer Sued for
Breach of Promise.
Washington.—Miss Margaret P.
Hewitt, daughter of the late Samuel
Hewitt of West Bethlehem township,
entered suit for breach of promise
against Joseph A. Wise, a wealthy
young farmer of the same township.
Miss Hewitt states that she is 22
years of age and that she and Wise,
who is 12 years her senior, became
engaged in 1901. The marriage
agreement was renewed, she says,
from time to time until last fall,
when Wise went west.- She claims
that after his departure he informed
her by letter he had decided to break
the engagement.
Wages Reduced at Lebanon.
I.ebanon.—Notices were posted at
the car barns of the Lebanon Valley
Street Railway Company, notifying
the employes of a general reduction
of wages. The reduction brings the
wages down to 15 cents an hour for
conductors and motormen and a 10
per cent decrease for car barn hands.
Expensive Chicken Coop.
Canonsburg.—Albert Strimmel of
Cecil, was arrested by Constable J.
Nugent and received a hearing Before
Justice of the Peace T. M. Reese on
‘a charge of building a chicken coop
on Sunday. Strimmell pleaded guil-
ty and was assessed a fine and costs,
amounting to $8.42.
To Collect 700,000,000 Eggs.
Harrisburg.—The state depart-
ment of fisheries inaugurated its an-
nual field work in gathering“the eggs
of wild fish. Large quantities of
eggs of perch, shad, Susquehanna
salmon, pike and pickerel will be col-
lectedd the estimate for this year be-
ing about 700,000,000 eggs.
Butler.—The exodus of foreigners
continues in the Butler district, 200
more having gone to Europe. Three
thousand have left for the old coun-
try in three months. Transportation
agents say the foreigners will not re-
teen until after the presidential elec-
ion.
Oil City.—During a severe electric-
al storm, lightning struck the house
of George Mudge, tearing a hole in
the rcof. Mrs. Thomas B., . Platt
and Mrs. Claude Hankey, who were
in a house two squares away, were
rendered unconscious by the shock.
Card Game Ends in Murder.
Washington.——A poker game and
all-night carousal at Westland, result-
ed in the murder of Lee Oliver. The
man who is accused of the killing,
Richard Lee, went to Constable Ay-
ers at Westland and gave himself up
claiming he shot in self-defense. He
was brought ‘o jail at Washington.
Gored to Death by Bull.
James McAllay, aged 60 years, was
gored to death by a buil while feed-
ing his stock on his farm near Crown
Clarion county. >
. | payments here have
BRIDGE 1S CONDEMNED
First Structure to Span Allegheny
at Oil City Probably Will
Be Removed.
Oil City—The petroleum bridge,
the first structure to span the Alle
gheny river at this point, connecting
the north and south sides of this:
city, has been condemned and closed:
to vehicles and street car traffic.
An examination was made by HE.
K. Morris, a bridge expert of Pitts
burg, at the request of the county
commissioners. The piers are de-
clared to be shifting down stream and
the super-structure has weakened. It
is thought the bridge will be closed
for a year until the new one can be
erected. .
It was built 35 years ago by a priv-
ate corporation and only recently
purchased by the county. It is near-
ly a quarter of a mile long.
SCREAMS SCARE ROBBER
Chloroform Fails to Silence Miss:
Pickett, but Thief Escapes.
Washington.—Miss Ann Pickett,
who lives with her brother, Peter
Pickett, was aroused early
morning by the pressure on her face
of a chloroform-saturated sponge.
“land aroused her brother. Pickett
followed the robber and overtaking.
him seized the thief’s coattail.
The robber wiggled out of the gar-
ment as he ran and turning into a.
dark alley escaped. - :
MORE MILLS RESUME"
American Sheet and Tinplate Plants
Again in Operation.
Vandergrift.—All the sheet floors,
blooming and bar mills and one-half
of the open-hearth steel departments:
of the American Sheet and Tinplate
Company here were put in operation:
this morning, making 10 more mills:
to resume operation after being clos-
ed for several weeks. Workmen of
the company from Leechburg, IIyde
Park and Saltsburg, where the mills
are still closed down, are employed
at 10 of the Vandergrift mills.
To Openjy Court Bachelors.
The Women’s Leap-Year Courting
Club of Independence this county,
has decided to abandon its policy of
secrecy, adopted at first, and will
hereafter conduct its operations as
fishers of men openly. Bachelors
residents of the community are un-
easy. “Once ,a week hereafter we
ber of the club, “and we are confident
of more success.
Children in New Home.
Washington.—The 70 inmates of
the Washington County Children’s
home were moved from the old home
at Caldwell to Arden, where a new
building has been completed. The
home has been newly furnished
throughout. The 10-mile journey
was made overland, 12 big moving
vans transporting the youngsters and
their effects.
Lehigh Collieries to Resume.
Hazleton.-—Orders were issued for
the resumption of collieries of the
Lehigh Valley Coal Company, in the
Hazleton district, April 1. “This in-
cludes the Hazleton Colliery, employ-
ing 400 hands, which has been idle
since December 1 on account of re-
pairs.
Children: Burned to eath.
Scranton.—Locked in their home
at Hughestown, mnear here, while
their mother, Mrs. Domtnick Jimitio,
went to the butcher shop, the house
caught fire and three children—
Mary, John and Joseph—were burned
to death. They were all under six
years of age.
Durham: Back from Florida.
Philadelphia.—Israel 'W. Durham,
who has been at St. Lucie, Fla., has
returned home. Mr. Durham made
it clear that he had nothing to say
her publicly of writing anonymous
situation.
1
}
Sues for Slander.
Sharon.—Mrs. J. H. Harford enter-
ed suit against M. P. Billig, alleging
slander and asking $10,000 damages.
They are members of the same lodge
and Mrs. Harford says Billig accused
her publicly of writinganonymous
letters.
Confesses to Murder.
‘Washington.—Louis Boje, charged
with being implicated in the murder
of Alex. Shumaker at Meadowlands,
admitted that he and not Shumak-
er's brother committed the murder.
He is held without bail.
i
Whooping Cough at 72.
Uniontown.—Mrs. Mary Jane Jac-
obs, aged 72 years of Masontown, is
il] with whooping cough, which she
contracted while taking care of a
child who had it.
Warren.—A $30,000 addition is to
be built in the rear of the Presby-
terian church. The basement will’
be given over to meeting and read-
Ing rooms, a gymnasium and a do-
mestic department.
Washington—Seth Holmes of this
place - entered suit against the Su-
preme Tent, Knights of the Macca-
bees to Tecover $1,000, with interest
from September 22, 1907, on an en-
dowment certificate.
Reading Lays Off Men.
Reading. —The Reading Railroad
Company indefinitely supsended 300
men at its car and locomotive shops
here. More, it is expected, will be
| laid off. The company’s monthly
ay dropped from
$350,000 to less than $200,000.
—_—
| Washington—James M. Lewis and
i A. B. Trockmorton, candidate for
Democratic nowiination for register
{and recorder of Greene county, have
withdrawn from the race. This
{leaves nine candidates.
in the
Her screamg drove the robber away"
shall hold a meeting,” said a mem- .
a AE
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