University of South Carolina Libraries
' -1 von .iv. HILL IVY 10 TACK I /I0? TIUO CLAM. Au<l lit 111m Owii AVny Tollw Th? N?tv A'orlc AVorltl** How Il?* llroamo Truly llopontunt. Probably the American clam is Icsr fully understood than any other feature of fnir boasted civilization, lie is eilPer greatly overestimated on account of his naturally taciturn manner and reserve, or else he is regarded as an intellectual dwarf because he never tries to shine in society. ^ ^ * uiams are or two classes ?viz , tiie little-neck clams and the other clams. One of tho peculiarities of the New York clam is that he has no vitativenoss, as the phrenologists call it. xiio pale bluish growth in the middle of the clam is not vivp tiveness or love of life, for ho does not care to live. Neither does he care whether anybody else lives or not. I bought a dozen raw clams of a globular man in a white apron a short time ago, having at that time a very enormous idea about clams in the abstract or in the shell. Having been accustomed to the antique or canned clam which we used to get by bull team in an incredibilly short time from Leavenworth and other ports, where the land-locked or malleable clam is found, I knew little of the true Manhattan clam. I only knew that he cared little for life, but died easily. I had heard that the male clam would turn when trodden upon, but I regarded him as generally undemonstrative and in favor of arbitration. I was misled also by the calm and unruffled demeanor of tho Eastern clam, so I ate these twelve pachyderms hurriedly in order to catch a car, fearing that my seat in the City Ilall Park would be taken by some one else. In less than half an hourj if I had read an advertisement in the paper offering a reward for the return of thoso clams, I would have hunted up the owner and said to him: "Sir, I do not wish to wrong any man. Here are your clams." This feeling grew ort me till I went to a drug store and bought a v. dose, which I scattered in among those turbulent elements. It was a mixture of things which the drug gist sells during the summer us an Asiatic cholera mixture and in winter as a fire-kindler. I could not ^ help asking myself, as I drank it and afterwards threw in one of those patent grenades for putting out a fire, why a man should put an incenV diary, under his vest to steal away | his brains. I then went to the Batj tcry and lay down under a tree. [ People who saw me tearing up the I greensward and kicking the bark off hthe tree for a distance of seven feet above the ground said that it was too bad and claimed that no man j^onght to allow his dog run loose in J\ugust to get hydrophobia and then bite innocent people. People who still think that the ^ pallid and aimless clam does not . care for intestine strife or turmoil ought to go and see the way that tree is Kicked to pieces. I was telling a friend afterwards about the lawn festival and clam i colic recital that I had been giv* ing, and he said that I made a / mistake in eating the clams raw. } Haw clams at this season of the year, he said, were liable to be overcome by the heat, or they might be -{ * s old and blase when they were caught, bat if 1 could eat them in the form 4. or chqwder I would like them, and they wbuld do me good. He knew a good place to get clam chowder and I went with him. It was a very ricohet place, and I was / told that Commodore Vamlerbilt f eamo there and ate olam ohowdor only a abort time before his death. So did I. Chowder, however, is made by shooting two-year-old clams out of i a gtin, Ana then cooking them with other things nntil they seem to lose JEjldS their identity. It does not hurt I jWrpeople who are used to it, but a man IdB Q-' who has most always liyed on canW' ned Lima beans ought to harve his W post-office address and the address cf fflf ' his favorite undertaker in his pocket before he gives himself up to the ^ L false jpys of clam chowder. * '. jf, ( After we had eaten . our chowder we went to call 011 a friend, and 1 heard afterwards that he said I was a very much overestimated man. I can see now how he came to form that opinion. 1 cannot remember 1 ..l.io K.i< >1 iJ?u M wiiuc nit 1110 ileum, IMII if I said anything that would do to writo in an autograph album T must have done so mechanically. I then went home, where 1 did not have to he polite. I have often I thought that in referring to the joys i of home, writers and sculptors do ' not bear down hard enough on the fact that we can he as mean as we liko around our own hearthstone and play a kind of Jekyll Hyde business for years sometimes without being discovered. In the meantime our wives are requested to always meet us with a smile and a pair of warm slippers, so that we will not become dissatisfied with our home and go somewhere else to do our drinking. 1 presume that as many as two or three men have been driven to irretrievable ruin by this means. The other man was ruined by eating pudding sauce that had elderberry wine in it. 1 went home because I was afraid that among strangers, the way I was feeling, I could not carry sunshine wherever 1 went or be the life of the party. So I went homo where nobody expected it. Looking back over that long, dark afternoon, 1 am proud to say that 1 did not kick any of the children. No member of my family can ever truthfully say that I kicked him, even while under the influence of clams. I sent for a physician and requested that he would come as soon as possible, no! because 1 thought he could save my life, but because I wanted some one to lean npon and show my tongue to. Ho said I had colic. I had more than half suspected it all the time. He then made himself unpopular at our house by saying that he did not think 1 would die. After that he wrote a brief editorial in a foreign tongue and asked me if I had any one I could send to the drug store witll it. I said J was atraid not. My butler had gone down to the glaizer's to get ono of the family diamonds reset and the footman was busy putting a new handle on our crest, but as soon as I was well enough I would go myself. I said this in a tone of biting sarcasm, for I have no butler and would't know how I could keep him busy if I had one. I've never seen the day yet when 1 couldn't do my own butlering and still have time for my other work. He then said he would send the prescription himself if I would ' tell him of some druggist whom I felt I that I could trust most. I said I felt that I could trust most any druggist around here, and I hoped they felt ' the same way towards me. I took a great deal of medcitie that night, but continued restless and clamorous for some time. I suffered very mueh and said things that were calculated to discouraged the use of clams in our midst. I do not say that the clam, for every one, is absolutely indigestible, but I do say that I cannot see why people can eat uiiuiim, uiiu huh iicsiiure tiDOUt eating pounded glass Neither do T understand why any one should buy clams on the half shell and then throw away the shell. Clams grow best in low wet grounds and do not go out very much. They live to a great age and their plumage is not gaudy, even in the tropics. Many believe the juice of the clam to be a good disinfectant for those who imagine they see funny reptiles and polka-dot insects floating through the air, but I do not know whether it is or not. Some say that a cold clam is a good thing to put on a boil. I hare often thought that if I had a large and restless boil I would like to put a clam on it and then watch them from a distance. The methods of the two are so utterly different that o combat between a cofd and austere clatn and a hotheaded, tight-fitting boil would be very instructive. Clams do not produce their young alive, but hatch them from eggs with which they are wisely provided by nature. It takes the female elfins a long time to hatch out her young, owing to the !qw temperature of her feet. Jf I had a large flock of female olams who manifested a desire to hatoh out somo young olams. I would fool them while they were looking the other way and watoh their surprise when thev came off the nest with a large brood of oysters. Bill Nyk. Th? Lumber I^and lloom. There is evidently a boom in South Carolina timber lands. At present it is in its inoipiency, but it is growing every day, and the next few years promise to see the State's vast resources in lumber ntilized and lands i never before tread by the foot of man opened up and developed by North'k ^ ^<>u "Be True to Your X)NWAY, S. C. urn pioneers and capitalists. In her virgin forests alone the State has a wealth that is almost in- i' estimable and they are increasing in 1 value every day as ihe more accessi- 1 ble forests of trie North and West'1 disappear before the blade of the ' axmen and the saw of the mill owrer. ( The first thincr about these lands that strikes the prospective buyers who have visited them is the remarkably | low price at which they are held. , They are also struck bv the superior , . 1 quality and wonderful! variety of tho timber. It is said that nearly one-half the j area of the Stato is rich in hard wood forests that are as yet undeveloped, J and that some of them can bo bought i as low as 50 cents an acre. The re< markably low valuation of these lands is accounted for by the fact that a | largo part of them are held by the Stato for taxes and are sold on tax ( titles, white in cases whore they are still held by individuals the owners have paid taxes on them so long ...... 11 ?iiiiwul ^uun1^ roturn m?i wmv | aro now forced to Bel), them for what I" i they can get. Mention, was made in The News ^ and Courier yesterday of the salo of t twenty thousand acres of land on the ( Santeo to Messrs Hathbone & Heidler, I of Chicago. There are also now other Northern investors in Charleston, and the prospects are that more capitalists will he induced to come j hero as soon as the resources of tho State become more widely known. Tho News and Courier has repeatedly called attention to tho wonderful advantages of South Carolina in this ] respect, and the truth of all that has been said about them is now boin?r ! verified, and the more it has realized the more will tho State lie developed and improved. Mr. J. I). Lacy, of fho firm of Robinson k Lucy, Grand Rapids, Michigan, is now in Charleston, negotiating for timber lands. Grand Rapids is one of the largest furniture manufacturing centres in the United States, and is tho domand thero for Southern lumber and hard woods that Mr. hacy, whose firm are extensive ' :.. o .1 ?: ?? i - ? lioitiuis 111 ouuuium limner lands, OXpoets to l)o kept hero and to locate with his family in Charleston nextwinter. On Monday night Mr. Lacy wont up to Fort Motto to complete the details of the salo made to Messrs Rathbone & Beidlor, which sale was consummated principally through the efforts of himself and Capt. J. A. Peterkin, of Fort Motte. Mr. Lacy has been operating in Southern timber lands since 1880, and has been instrumental in bringing largo amounts of Northern and Western capital to the South for such investments. Mr. John Bradley, who is wellknown in Charleston as superintendent of the Seaview Railroad, is now in the city looking out for timber lands. He is now in negotiation for several tracts on the Santee River for parties who have capital to invest. Speaking on the subject to a Reporter yesterday, Mr, Bradley said that the cheapness of the lands in this vicinity was remarkable. They wertf destined, in his opinion, to become a source of wonderful wealth to this city and State, He thought that Charleston was verv far from c having reached the end of her destU . 8 nv as Home people believed she y had.?JVewa and Conner. ( Hukai' for the lNn?i>le. Pfiir.ADULiMiiA, Pa., August 8.? Glaus Spreckles, the great sugar manufacturer whose mammoth rolin* i ery on the Doleware is now one of i the landmarks of Philadelphia, has ' < decided to # duplicate his plant, j i Spreckles is in Ii]urope with his son ( Adolph. Glaus IJ. Spreckles, who is ( associated with his father in the man- * agement of the great rofinery, has i notified the contractor of the con- t struction of buildings, and George A. ] Watson, general manager of Sprock- 1 leg, that the capacity of the refinery 1 would be doubled. The work of < erecting additional buildings, which | will adjoin those now in course of 1 constructing, and placing in them the > ^ Lt , ' iw?B?*rjr maomnery, will negtn scon. ] The producing capacity of the works < when completed will b? about 4,000,000 pounds of augw daily. The pn- \ tira cost pf the plant wi|l \>e between j 4,00f),000 ?nd *5,000,000. i a ACJCO 80*U. . '?"* ; brill"tboT.r word arid Your wor, THURSDAY, Wuiuuutiki'i'on t l*o AVI row. Washington, August.5?The folowing lotter from Postmaster General Wanamakerto I)r. Norvin Green, >rosi<lent of the Western Union Telegraph Company, was mailo public ;o-day: p., n..... i i viniiirriv n i/r.rnu i .ui'.w it f )ki-'k k PostmArtTicit Gknkkai., j[ Wabiunion, I). C., Aug. 2.?Mr. Norvin Green, Position t NVostorn Union Telegraph Company, Now York--Dour sir: Iteforring to your letters of July lltli, 10th and 27th, which have hoon given to the public prooi through channels other than this departmont, and in which you protest against aiky new rate for Government telegrams, and offer various lrguments to prove that the old rate jf one cent a word is as low as your company can accept without loss, 1 Lteg leave to sav: First. Your unqualified statement that the privileges and benefits dorived by your company through Acts if Congress are purely imaginary," ind the companion assertion that pour company never "took a stone or i stick of timber or appropriated a FflfU nf limit linlivlliriin* '? tl.n ,??V V.. wvivyii^ui^ u; mo VJTW V J srnment" under such Acts aro not sustained by the facts. It is an miloniablo fact that * ho telegraph couimny in accepting the Act of 18(M uul afterwards the su piemen tary Acts, considered tlioy wore gaining special and actual benefits which fully compensated them for the low ates intended to bo granted to the Liovernment, and the representatives >f the Government likewise supposed hey were securing some benefits for he valuable concessions bolng made o the companies. The telegraph companies not only accepted the Acts, expecting substantial benoAts would ensue, but to the Western Unon Telegraph Company notably jreat and conspicuous benefits have ilrcady accrued. I nder those grants company has daimed the right to use, without :ompensation of any kind as to right )f way, all the highways of the connry, on the grounds of their being lost roads. It has broadened this daim to the oxtont that the streets of jities and towns aro also postronds, uul thereforo open and free to Its oc jupanoy and use. The Conrts havo mstainod it in this claim. You arc nieessarily familiar with the Pensa>olu oaso, in which the Supreme Jourt of the United States decided hat the Western Union Telegraph Company had rights which oven the broreign Stato of Florida could not mnul This under the benefits of his Act, instead of not occupying a dot of public land as you assort, you ire in fact occupying many housands of miles of postroads, and ire privileged to occupy all highway! u the U. S. You havo thus been enabled to ocmpy all the highways and use the treets* in the large cities of Philulelphia and New York, regardless >f the views of local authorities and ilmost regardiess of public opinion, fiven the elevated railroads of New fork City havo been claimed as postoads and the claim sustained. The State of Now York may regulate the ise, but it is not able to deprive you >f these great privileges secured to olograph companies, and maintain>d to them alone by the Congreslional Act of IHOd, beyond this, the itroots of all other cltlos and towns >f the United States havo been kept >pen to your uso. NOt I'URKI.Y 1MAG1XAKY. I am snro thnt on reflection you vill hardly clai^ji that such great ben >fits are "purely imaginary." In I )ther respects your company and oth)r telegraph companies havo gocur5(1 substantial benefits from the Gov* jrnmopt and from the public under \cts of Congress, but these I havo nontioned are enough 1 think to ?train my former reference to the privileges and benefits given to you >y the Government, the value of which in my judgement is beyond calculation. Conferring such groat privileges and benefits on you, the Government, in my belief, expected ind is entitled to receive not simply rour exceptionally low rates to oth' ?rs but even a lower spepial rate. Second. As to yopr quostion of hp legal power of the postmaster general to fix a rate for Government rnessnges, I would only remark that localities the yield "willA co.npan; id can produce." The in Halti.nore .^l ib follows; Up- veloping the if ai]<) Your (iov AUGUST lo, 1 such right appears to have been understood by previous postmaster genj orals as an official duly, and their ox ercise or ttie right or performance oF ' the <)uty has been generally and constantly aocepted and respected by the telegraph companies. In any event 1 should say we may agroo that the Act (if Congress at least imposes on the postmaster general the duty to name the rate and maintain it until by a Court of Inquiry the rate has boon shown to he unjust. Third. As to your qualified statement thaf no corporations have received a rate equal to the proposed Government rate of one mill a word. Your statement that press associations aro not corporations is hardly justified by the facts, and is not material to the question. They may not be corporations for general business, but most, if not all of thorn, aro incorporated under the laws of some State, and their dealings with the telegraph company is as corporations not as individuals. ONK Ml LI. A WOll l>. You will nol deny, indeed, one of I vour officials has adim'tfod mo ?!>.?? I | %x' ,,,v) | some of the press associations got j their news reports for a mill a word | to each newspaper, and in one assoj oiution the rato is ovon lower than j taat. I do not criticise the press rato; it is not too low. It would ho better, in my judgement, for the public pross j and the* telegraph companies if it were*still lower. As to the Associa| ted Press there is forco in your statement that it is \vholosale rate, as it were, for the same dispatch sent over j the same wire at the same time to sovoral customers, but it is not true that, the rate given to some portions of tho press effectively oontradicts your statement that for messages transmitted to a singlo address "tho Government is our otdy customer on* joying reduced rates.M j By this 1 presumo you mean that the Government has the lowest rate givon to any single customer, its lowest rate being one oont a word for r? day and throe-fourths of a coot for a night message. Hut this charge is made, not only upon the message itself, but upon the address and signa turo as well, so that for ten words in address and signature, the above rate is, in fact, two cents per word in the day and one and a half cents per word at night. Is it not true that the large papers of New York, Chicago, and other large cities havo half a cent rate for their special dispatches in the day and cne-fourthof a cent at night, or a rate ono half lower than the Government has been granted? Is it not true also that this patronage from the enterprising press is tho moat profitable that you have, and It would, in fact, givo you still more profit if made still lower. Reduced rates bring inoreased business and enlarged profit. Your own testimony before committees of Congress at various times has boon steadily to the effect that every time your company reduoed prices it 1ms gained an increased income. This accords with my view that a constantly decreasing rate, where there aro large numbers of customers, will better servo the pub'io and better profit any business, I believe that tho now rate proposed for the Government business would nut materially alter tho amount of cash received by you, while tho Government would bo enabled to greatly quicken and vitalise the transaction of its business in all departments It is quite true, as you say, that tho Government is able to pay proper rates, and 1 may add that, ho far us I know, i* willing to pay just rates, and that it is the farthestfrom my thought that "the people" should suffer by reason of the losses you claim that you are now making And would still further make on Government business. LOW Hit TUB liATKS ALL AltOlTNI)! I fur satisfied the people could and should havo much 'lower rates than now exist, and that neither the people nor the Government should] suffer because the specially low rates are given to favored customers, Whilp claiming that the C|o.yernrnent has received the lowest single address rate, you not only admit a lower rate to the press,'byt also plainly say that pertain railroads or transportation companies are given "half commer-j rial rates." When it is considered / /. > y Is now be?riR 1U"??W? for the purpose of doinvention and placing FRU parket. The ftrat place <1 Ml. .889. that in (Joverntnent messages all words are counted, the address and signature as well as the rnossago, and in all other telegrams the message only is counted, is it not true that tll!? lllllf l-olii to A I ...... min IU nnvil VWIIIpit 11ICH in 'II ' least as low as the Government rate, and in some instances lower? For instance, a Govoriiinent message from ! Washington to New York, containing twenty words in tho message, and ton words in the address and ; signturo, would he charged at 30 cents which is nearly 50 per cent more than the transportation companies would I pay fcr tho same message. 1 am not speaking now of, and 1 do not wish to have confused with this part of tho discussion, the free service you g.ve to railroads for certain service to you. Those pay| moots 1 understand to ho for rights | of way, etc. More than that I am informed your company in many cases actually pays largo sums of money to railraods for rights of way, and it does not seem unreasonable to suppose that it would not he out of place for telegraph companies to he expected to make compensation of soino kind to the Government for its much larger concessions, which, in effect, have secured to you, particularly in citties and|to\vns,Jmuch more valuable rights of way. Til H (JUKSTIOX OF COST. Fourth. As to your statement that no messago can he carried and delivered hv a telegraph company for loss than twenty cents without tho service being done at loss. The cost of telegraph service ap pears 10 no a very <11llicu11 tiling to ascertain definitely. Porhaps establishing a proper ruto for tlio Governmont to pay, this subject limy best bo 'referred to a commission to ascertain the facts. In one of your lottors you put the average cost of a message to the company in receiving, carrying and delivering at twenty- three and twotenths cents. In this cost do you not include large sums paid for rentals of leased linos, some of which are not now in nso, but only valuable to you in removing competitive rights of way on railroads and on other iic counts, which nro obviously chargeable to capital account and not to operating expenses. Is it not true that in a few years and for several years in succession largo volumes of business have been handled by your company and other companiosata minimun rate IOconts a message, and did not this rate continue till tho Western Union absorbed the competing lines?A table of statistics given in your memorial to the Senate committee in 1888 shows that during a period of ton years your company did not lose money but made largo profits. If this wero possible then, and ospocially as your business has grown very largely in volumn since, it would seem that it might be practicable now. I understand that signal service reports make up a very large proportion of the entire amount of Government telepragh business, Your schedule shows that for eleven years the Government has been paying out throe cents a word for each circuit over which Government messages are transmitted. No reduction what over 1ms been made in that rato since 1877, but within that timo you have reduced tho public ruto from sixtytwo and a half cents to thirty cents per message, moro than f>0 per cent reduction, and the cost of handling telegrams has boen reduced during the same period from forty-throe and four-tonths cents to twenty-three and two-tenths cents per inessago, or over 40 percent reduction. AVitliin the past five years tho public rate has fallen 18 per oont, und the cost of transmission about 8 per cent, but in that time there has been no reduction whatever in Government rates. UNTCLKSAM JMPOSKI) ON. rp.L! i nKing an inose facts into account, J I believe that the Government has been paving for its telegraph service more than avy other customer, giving a like or approximate amount of business, and that within the period first named there has not been so great a reduction in Government rates as to tho general public and the press. i Waiving entirely the question of ' benefits occurring to telegragh com'' . "** vcPI t-J'i **"C >1 NO; 5. panics under the Act of 1800, the Government ou^ht to he put upon a? favorable a basis as t*> telegraph rates as your most favorod customers. Inasmuch as this discussion has taken a wider ran^o than I anticipated, and it may bo proper to add, rer.?? - ? ??> lunur, uiut j'ou are right iti saying thut the acceptance by the telegraph companies of the Act of 1800, "rendered it to all intents and purposes a compact between the Government and the telegraph companies." Hut 1 do not agree with all of your next succeeding statement. For instance, the printed copy of your memorial presented to the Senate postotlice coniinitoe last year misquotes the Act of 1800, which should read, "provided, however, that the I'nited States may at any time purchase all telograph lines, property andefFcetsof anyorall companies acting under the provisions of the Act of July 24, 1800." MINI) YOl'US n'SANI) tj's. The words "any" and "or" are omitted in your memorial. This omission was, of course, an error, but as your correspondence expresses the same meaning I mention the matter merely to romark that your views on that particular aro not adopted by this department. The Act of 1800 was, as you say, a compromise moasure, in which the I 'uited States for time being waived its inherent rights to the porforinanco of telegraph service in conjunction with the postrtice. The first telegraph line in this country was built with Government aid, and thn/ the Government did not continue to exercise its undoubted prerogatives by extending ami operating the telegraph as a more speedy means of communication than the past, was, as known, purely an accident. I have given full and respectful consideration to your protest, weighed arguments and investigated the subject for myself through such channels as are onen to ine. ilesininrr _f - 1 r-i only to protect the interests of the Government, In conclusion I beg to remind you that in my letter of July 13, in answer to yours protesting against tho 0 reduction, I consented to your re* ijuest for a conference on tho subject before any otlicial order to tho departments fixing rates should bo issued, and I am vet quito willing to entertain uny resonablo proposition based upon known facts. I have tho honor to romain veryrespctfully yours, John Wanamakek, Postmaster General. >riHt n u en. It is not disgraceful to make a mistake. Those who never make mistakes never do anything worth mentioning. The attitude of men with reference to their mistakes is sometimes disgraceful. One who cannot see his own errors even when they are pointed out will not make improvement. Until we discover and deplore our defects, we will not take pains to remedy them. Frankness in confessing faults is a great grace. When one becomes so perfect in his own estimation that he has no occasion to confess his faults to his neighbors, he is well nigh beyond the reach of hope. A Christian who believed that his holiness had reached the point of faultlessness once gave way to a violent fit of temper, and when forced to apologize told his story well enough until he came to the conclusion, and then spoiled it by saying, "I cannot tell what made me use such language; I think it must havo been inspired; 1 am sure I was nat angry.M "Who can understand his errors?" A <Jot>?l Nnine. I What is moro valuable in any pursuit than a good name? ft is often the key-noto of success in your calling. It is worth ten times its cost to its possessor during life; and after death, what more precious legacy can be left for children? Besides, the value of a good name does not accrue to yourself and children alone. The whole community is benefitted thereby. Your noble traits of character . remain as a stimulus to others, encouraging them to efforts of self im provement. J.s|To a young man, ambitions of a position of honor and profit in the business world, a good name is of the *2 first importance. Without this, n? one is wanted in any position of ' v ^ ^ Jd