Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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e1p DEVOTED TO. POLITIC8, NORALITY, EDUCATION AND TO THE GENERAL INTERENT OF THE 00UNTRY. By D. F. BRADLEY & CO. PICKENS, S. C , THU RSDAY. OCTOBER 21, 1880V TMOUGHrTS OF THE PORTS ON GREAT NBAs. He who surpasses or subdues mankind Must look down on the hate of those belw. Bound him are icy rocks, and loudly blow Contending tempests on his naked head. -Byron's " Child Harold." High stations tumult, but not bliss, oreate: N4one think the great unhappy but the great. -Young's * Love qf Fame." Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footsteps on the sands of time. -Lon'felloso's POems. Who is a great man? It in he Who, from the universe of thought, A purpose self-conceived abstract, And by his mighty power and will Doth make it parent to his acts. -Wet's 'I. Chandler." 0 1 greatness I thou art but a flattering dream, A watery bubble, lighter than the air. -Tracy's 1 Perfander." Tnou hast not gained a real height, Nor art thou nearer to the light, Becatue the scale is infnite. -Tennuson's " Tco Voices.' SEC VENTY-FI VE MILES AN HOUR. I am a railroad engineer. Away along in '57, during the great panic, I was running on the F. & C. railroad. The railroad companies were going under in all directions. Every day we heard of new failures, and quite often in a quarter where we least expected it. Our road was generally looked upon as one of the most' substantial in the nation; nobody seemed to have any fears that it would fail to survive the general smash-up; but yet I did not fully share in the gen eral confidence. Wages were cut down, arrearges collected, and a great many other matters seemed to indicate to me that the road had got into rather deeper water than was agreeable all round. Among other things, the master me chanic had told me in the spring that the company had ordered four first quality Taunton engines for the fall passenger business. The road was put in the very best condition and other preparations were made to cut down the time and put the trains through quicker than was Aver known before, when the new engines should come. Well, there was but one of the engines came. I said there was but one engine came; but she was, in my opinion, altogether the best ever turned out at the Taunton works; and that is saying as much as can -be said in praise of any engine. She was put in my charge immediately, with the -understanding that she was mine. It was Saturday when she came out of Vthe shop, and I was to take a special train up to Y.-. The train was to carry up the President and several offi cers of the road to meet some officers of another road, which crossed ours there, and arrange some important business with them. I had no trouble at all in making my forty miles an hour in going out. The engine handled herself most beautifully. We were just holding up at Y-----, when Aldrich, the Treasurer, who had come out on the platform to put the brake on, slipped and fell. As We were still under good headway, he was much injured and was carried off to the hotel insensi ble. According to the President's direction I had switehed off my train, turned my engine, and stood ready to start back to C----- at a moment's notice. Akdrich's presence was of so much3lii portance that the business of the road could not be transacted without him; so all those I had brought out, except the President aued Aldrich. went back to C- on thle 8 o'clock express train. * This was the last regular train which * was to pass over the road until next Monday. Early in the evening I left the ma-. cline inl charge of my fireman and went over to an eating-house to see if I could not spend the time more pleasantly than on my engine. The hours dragged themselves away slowly. I was playing a game of dominoes with the station agenit when in came Roberts, the Presi dent, in a great state of excitement. " Harry," said he to me, " I want yoti to put me down in (J- at 12 o'clock." As it was nearly 11 o'clock then, and the distance was seventy-five miles, I thought ho was joking at first ; but, 4 when we got outside the door, he caught me by the arm and hurried me along so fast that I saw he was in earnest. " Hhrry," said he, " If you don't set ruine4. unan, and, this road is a ruined road. Aldrich isdead ; but he told me, befor) he died, that he had embozz' ' from time to time P500,000 of dur money, and his clerk is to start with it on the 12 o'cloek .boat from 0- for Canada. If we don't bav. that mone n Mourda morning, to make some payments with, the road goes into other hands ; and if you put me down in C- at the right time, so that I save the money, you shall have $5,000. Understand it, Harry. Five thousand dollars ! Of course I understood it. I saw now the reason why the wages had been cut down; I felt that I would save the road if I lived, and told Roberts so. ' " See that you do it, Harry I" he re plied as he climbed up on the steps of the coach, which was coupled to my en gine. I sprang up into the footboard, got up the switch-tender to help my fire man, opened the throttle, aud just as she commenced moving looked at my watch-it was just 11 o'clock, so that I had one hour to make my seventy-five miles in. From Y- to C- there were few curves on the road ; but there were sev eral heavy grades. I was perfectly ac quainted with every rod of it, so that I knew exactly what I had to encounter, and when I saw how the engine moved I felt very little fear for the result. The road for the first miles was an air line, and so smooth that my engine flow along with scarcely a perceptible jar. I was so busy posting myself up as to the amount of wood and water aboard, etc., that we danced by the first station almost before I was aware of it, having been five minutes out, and having five miles accomplished. " You are losing time !" yelled a voice from the coach. I looked around, and there stood Roberts with his watch in his hand. I knew very well that we would have to increase our speed by some means if we carried out our plans of reaching C- by midnight, and looked anxious ly around to see what I could do to ac complish that purpose. She was blow ing off steam fiercely at 110 pounds; so I turned down the valve to 200, for I knew we should need it all to make some of the heavy grades which lay be tween us and C-. It was three miles to the next station. With the exception of a few curves, the track was as good as the last. As we darted around what commonly seemed to be a rather long curve, at the station, but which was, at our high speed, short enough, I looked at my watch, and we had done it in two minutes and a half. "Gaining," I shouted back to Rob erts, who was yet standing on the plat form of the coach. " Look out for the heavy grades," he replied, and went inside the car. The next six miles rose gradually from a level the first, to ten and a half feet the last, which lay between us and the next station. My fireman kept her full, and now she began to get hot. The furnace door wa red, and the steam raised continually, so that she kept her speed and passed the station like a streak of lightning in five minutes. Now came nine miles like the last, over which she kept pace with her time, and passed the station in seven and a half minutes. Here, for ten miles, we had a twenty. foot grade to encounter ; but the worst of it all was, at this place we would be obliged to stop for wood. I was just going to speak to Roberts ab~out it when I looked around and saw him filling the tender from the coach with wood, which biad been placed there before starting, while he was gone after me. I believe we would have made this ten miles with the same speed as before, but, through the carelessness of the fire nan, the fountain valve on the left-hand side of the engine got opened, and the water rose in the boiler so fast as to run the steam down to 100 pounds before I liscovered where the difficulty was, At first Roberts didn't appear to no-. bice the decrease of speed, and kept at work at the wood as if for: dear-life. But presently he looked up, and, seeinig' the'speed had decreased, ho shouted : " Hiry, we~ are stopping 1 " and then, o0inng over to where I was, he said : " Why, here we have been ten minutes m the last ten miles, and I believe we will come to a dead stand if some ~hing is not done. The speed is con inually slacking. What is the matter ?" I explained the cause. He was appar mntly satisfied with my explanation, and, dter having tied down the safety-valve, ie climbed back over the tender, ex iorting me to "put her through, for *od's sake, or we are all beggars to gether I" Just then we passed the next station, tiaving taken nine minutes for eight miles. We were now more than half ver the road, but we had lost nearly ben minutes' time. and had loft twen ty-seven minutes to do thirty-four miles in. I had shut the water off from both my pumps a little distance back, when I dis covered what was the matter, and she was now making steam finely down a slight grade. From less than 100, with w)ich we started over that ten-mile stretch, she had 200 pounds before we finished it; and, as the gauge indicated no higher than that, and the valve was tied down, I could not tell how much over 200 pounds she carried, but she cer tainly carried none less the rest of the journey. And well might she carry such an enormous head of steam, for, af ter passing over that ten miles in eight minutes, there lay ten miles of five-feet up-grade, and fourteen miles of twenty feet-to-the-mile depression between us and C- , and it was now thirteen min ites to 12 o'clock. Now the engine was hot in earnest. The furnace door, smoke arch and chim ney all were red; while she seemed to fly onward as if the very Evil One him self operated her machinery. Six minutes emrried us over that ten miles; and we <tarted by the last station that had lain between us and C---. Now we had fourteen miles to go and my time showed fifty-three minutes past 11 o'clock. " If I live," said I to myself, "I will make it." And we plunged down that twenty-foot grade with all steam on. Persons who sa'w the train on that wild run said it was so soon after they heard the first sound of her approach, when the strange object, which looked as if it was a flame of fire, darted by, and then the sound of the traveling died away in the distance, that they could hardly convince themselves they had really seen anything. It seemed more like a creature of a wild dream than a sober reality. And now let me tell you that no en gine ever beat the time we made on those fourteen miles. Those great wheels, seven feet in diameter, spun around so swift that you couldn't begin to count the evolutions. The engine barely seemed to touch the track as she flew along; and, although the track was as true as it was possible for it to be, she swayed fearfully, and sometimes made such prodigious jolts that it required considerable skill for one to keep his feet. No engine could hold together if crowded to a greater speed. Well, -just as I came to a standstill in the depot at C- the big clock boomed out 12, and the steamboat was getting her steam on. Roberts got on board in time and nothing to spare. But he saved the money. He found it hid away in some old boxes as Aldrich had directed him. PE~RHAP8, .13UT I GUESB NOT. The Secretary of the Lime-Kiln Club announced a communicatjon from Oba diah G*lassfoot, of New York, saying that he was an enthusiast on the subject of discovering the North pole, and adding that he would be perfectly willing to take command of an expedition fitted out by the colored race of America for such a purpose. He argued that the black man had never yet done anything to en grave his name on the scrolls of fame, and that this golden opportunity should not be permitted to slip away. Immedliately upon the reading of the letter Paramount B3axter arose and offered a resolution to the effect that the Lime-Kiln Club at once appoint a com mittee of three, with power to send for persons and papers, to discover the North pole. The resolution was sec onded by thirty voices, and there was a slight crook to the end of the President's nose as he arose and said : "Doan' some o' you want a commit tee to examine do hinges on do gates of heaben ? What do you'uns down dar' in de body of do hall know about do Norf pole ? De nioar' we try to learn ye de less ye seem to know. Now, dei, in de fust place de cull'd race of dis kontry has all it kin do to mind its fish-poles an' bean-poles. If de white folks want to fool around dat's nuffin to us. De man who raises a bushel of onions fur market needn't be jealous of de man who risakivers do Norf pole. Jist 'tend right to your bisness and get yer feet ready fur a new crop of chilblains nex' win ter. "-Detroit Free Press. THE members of the New York Busi ness Men's Society for the Encourage ment of Moderation have caused to be built an enormous ice-water tank with a Dapacity of three tons. This is to be placed upon a truok, the use of which has been donated for the season, and it is to be filled with ice-water and to b, trtandled about the streets in the densely populated tenement districts, where the 3o01, pure water will be distributed free af charge. POETICAL CONTRIBUTORS. Some Observatios on Verse Writing. I want to say a word in friendly counsel to recently-fledged contributors to the press in general. In the first place, I hazard the assertion that, in the cases of nine out of ten " amateur "-if you will pardon that term-contributors to this and other journals, almost the first effort they make is in the direction of poetry. I say " in the direction," because very few of the number who make the effort succeed, or ever will or could succeed by any concatenation of circumstances. This mistake of sliding off into poetry every time you happen to hear an owl hoot or a blue-jay squawk is as lamenta ble as it is universal. I " know how it is myself," and several efforts of mine are now in existence, through the agency of a lenient and long-suffering editor, which, notwithstanding the stringency of the money market, I would give i dollar and a half could I obliterate, to gether with all consequences and re membrance of the same. But I can't so I'm just that amount in pocket. It generally happens in something this way: The victim of the delusive fancy, through some unfortunate cir cumstance, happens to become possessed of an idea. Perhaps it produces a strange sensation, as entirely new and " fresh " things are apt to do. He fidgets around for a while, and finally, in the excite ment attending the phenomenal occur rence, finds that lie has written a line of some six or seven word. Ho looks at it, and it presently strikes him that perhaps he can find something that will rhyme with it. At this point the mis chief begins to grow serious. In the in terest of a much-abused public the em bryo rhymeter should be brained on the spot. Perhaps the first line is some. thing after this fashion : The brightly-glowing Southern sun was sinking in the west. Now, it's too bad that Old Sol should have such sinking spells, but he has had them ever since you and I used to sink to rest over our mothers' knee-and beneath the shingle-and the chances are excellent for his continuing to have them after we are done writing po etry and paying our dog-tax, just the same as though we had never wor ried our little brains about him. But there is that line ; it is worthless alone, but there are great possibilities. He will experiment-and lie does. He runs his hands through his hair, and writes : As the Kansas squatterestlined, while pulling down his vest. By this time he has become feverish and well lhe may ! Who ever heard of a Kansas squatter saying anything about the "-Southern sun ?" and as for the vest-he never wears such a thing. But the divine aillatus is oin him with both leet, and so in his torment he concludes the outra~ge: And the vest was short, as was the day, and Southern as the sun And his sixteen boots blocked up the way--and the dreadful :leed was done I The deed was done, but another wvas left undone-a homicide, with the pos) sesson of the unfortunate delusion for the victim. But I am getting savage. To conclude, wh~en you have an idea, sleep over it ; and when you get up in the morning, if you still have the same idea, and possess the inclination and time to express it, do so-but do it in prose, Unless you are an experienced hand at the task you can gain nothing by a re sort to the muse, and you stand a very. fair chance of losing everything-by it, the idea included. Should you ever de sire to serve your country in a reporto-' vial or journalistic capacity on some great daily you will have to hold your situa tion on the merits of your prose produc tions ; your poetry will in all probability be assigned to the waste basket. Prose good prose-is frequently paid for, and liberally, but poetry never-that is, hardly --- With the best of intentions. Dod. AN old North Carolina farmeir got a double-barrel shot-gun when 'he heard that his daughter had elop&1 with a young man whomhle despised,pursued the couple into an adjoining county, found them just as the marriage oeremony was comleted, and emptied both barrels into the breast of Haverlock - Syes a youth whot had acted as groomaman at the wedding. LOUYISIANA planters have great hopes of a recent invention by which bagasse, the refuse canestalks left over from the process of manufacturing crude sugar, Ican be made inito paper fibre of good quality and that bleaches well. These stalks have been1 nesed to heat the evapo rating pans in which the sugar is boiled, but they will yield a ton of fibre to every I hogshaA of sugar. TRUB HEROISM The Retege of a Noble Gentlestas. The following anecdote, extracted from the unpublhslied memoirs .of a French nobleman, may, it is hoped, serve as an example, well worthy of being imitated by all who desire to be thought truly brave and courageous. It records an instance of a victory gained by a man over his owa passions-a victory more glorious, more honorable than any that has ever been purchased with fire and sword, with devastation and bloodshed. Two noblemen, the Marquis de Valaise and the Count do Meric, were educated under the same masters, and were re garded by all who know them as patterns of friendship, honor, and sensibility. Years succeeded years, and no quarrel had ever disgraced their attachment, when one uifortunate evening the two friends, having indulged rather freely in some excellent Burgundy, repaired to a neighboring hotel, and engaged in a game of backgammon. Fortune declared herself in favor of the Marquis; he won every game, and, in the thoughtless glee of the moment, laughed with exultation at his unusual good luck. The Count lost his teipper, and once or twice upbraided the Marquit for enjoying the pain which he had e - cited in the bosom of his friend. At Ist, upon another fortunate throw made'by the Marquis, by which lie gammoned his antagonist, the infuriated Count threw the box and dice in the face of his brother soldier. Every gentleman present was in amazement, and waited, almost breath lessly, for the moment when the Marqui would sheathe his sword in the bosom d the now-rejentant Count. "Gentlemen," said the Ma ' am a Frenchmgpreoldier, and a I have received a blow from a Frenche uaW, a soldier, and a friend. I knoW, and acknowledge the laws of honor, and I will obey them. Every man who-aee me wonders why I am tardy 14 vWting with vengeance the author Adja dis. grace. But, gentlemen, the heart of that man is entwined with my d" 4 our education was the same, or j)~ ples are alike, and our friendship d4 from our earliest years. But, will obey the laws of h France; I will stab himto il Upon this he threw his d his unhappy friend, and said: ' er Do Meric, I forgive you, if you 0 give me for the irritation I have 66 sioned in a sensitive mind by the lvity of my own. And now, gentlemen," add ed the Marquis, " though I have inllr preted the laws of honor my own way, if there remains in this room one French man who dares to doubt my resolution to resent even an improper smile at me, my sword is by my side to punish an affront, but not to murder a friend, for whom I would die, and who sits there a monument of contrition and bravery, ready with me to challenge the rest of the room to deadly combat if any man -lare to think amiss of this transaction." WERLF-INFL ICTED TROUBLEN AND A popular Macon minister spent the night thirty miles below Amerious with a backwoodsman, whose house consisted of only two rooms. The family, how ever, consisted of twenty-one, though, owing to a dance in the neighborhood, onl~y sove 'of the children were at hi ~ snister spent the nighkt will and sev roomi, dl1 B ing a~ . mber of the family respo1?S o fapplication for aw bowl, brought him an old tin pan, after the face toilet was complo hunted up about seven teeth of ano1 tucking comb for him to arrange his knir with. During the progress 9q- de important ceremony, the followingoeon. versation took place : "Mister, do you ~very mornin'?" "I do." "And byour hair, too?" " Yes." " Well, on't it look to you sometimes like you iA a leh of troubhoto yourself?"-Macon AN~ old man, supposed to be a tramp, plucked a bunch of grapes on the prem ises cf a widow residing near Agnew station, on the Ohio river, a few below Pgtsburgh. A gang ofraiM laborers, seeing the act, started ix pt suit of the offender and thre iones. at him. *To escape his tows the runaway jumped into the i zdmade for a sand-bar in the n ~of the stream. A missile thro' byone of th~e railroaders disabled hi ,~ and athe poor fellow sank nev~ to rise agair. Maniy persops witness9l the cruel tgt, merit indic.d% by the lbZhtal railroa4dd on the unfort1nate n, but not onie had the courage or m ~hleaa to ~ta againstitol2to defend4hiln. COAGRESSIONAL MANNER8. It used often to be a reproach by the Englisli and other foreigners that the manners displayed in the Amrican Con ;ress were rude, noisy, and sometimes lisgraeeful ; and there was a time "when 'his reproach was not a very unjust one. Not twenty-tive years ago, it was not in altogether unheard-of event for pis :ols to be drawn, not only in the Na lional House of Representatives, but in ie more sedate and dignified Senate felf. Amid the violence of the party war 'are, just beforo the outbreak of the !ivil war, many scenes occurred in the talls of Congress which were the ro ;erse of creditable to the actors in them. On one occasion, during a debate in the louse, a sharp altercation took place between two members from Illinois. One of them had bitterly attacked Stophen A. Douglas, then a great party 'eader; and the other, a devoted friend ->f Douglas, had savagely retorted, spy. '.ng, as he closed, that the other had "sneaked like a cur from the proof of his charges." The first member made a rush for his intagonist; but, before he had reached him; the champion of Douglas bad natched up his overcoat and had drawn a pistol -from his pocket, which lie point ei. directlat. his approachiig enemy. Members, however, rushed in between them, and thus prevented what seemed about to become a bloody fray. At another time, the venerable Thad deus Stevens was making a very bitter 4 ech, which so stung his political op enta that twenty or thirty rushed to rda him, some of them grasping wea 'kets, while Stevens' -'hmfor hist dd pro n At tht moti & par * ' ithe House-seemed on i6 verg $of general personal conflict, Such scenes, happily, never occur in these more orderly and civilized days It la very rarely, indeed,* that we hear of anything like a personal encounter between members of Congress, either inside or outside its halls. The debates are often warm, and soqmetimes descend into unbecoming violence of speech. Members twit each otr, and are sarcastic, and scold each other,. and use severe epithets ; but Con gressional duels are obsolete, and Con greuuional fisticuffs occur so seldom that gesreely an instance can be remembered for years. In the House of Representatives, moreover, in which, being the more pop ulous body, 'we should naturally expect less decorum than in the Senate, there are now much less noise and confusion and obtrusive bad manners than existed twenty years ago. Members who make speeches, often very long-:and dull, are listened to with more patience than formerly ; and it is seldom that the House so far loses its self-control as to deprive the Speaker of the power to quell it at will. It is not too much to say, indeed, that the manners of our Congresg. of to-day compare very favdrabty with those of the great deliberative bodies of the-O1(1 World. In the English NIouse of Com mons, membemi .sBi wear their hate while the body lis in lle~on:; an unpop ular speaker's voice is still coughed down, 7md drowned amid unmsmly cat.. th uescraping of feet; and ~? m i nistelnwhen they say unipleas~nt things, aeinterruptedan d~asurbed b.y loud vocal disapproval. The6 Ftenol' 0haniber of JSeputies presenite, If ppedblei, a yet worse exam leQ aR~nners.."iimroely'a week passes edlaye *4$o9iiae does not occur In it hall; an sobieotimes these scenes are really disgraceful in eminent and in NAT shootin~ isa peuliar feature of Oalifori a in~t a recent contest on Scott's ra 4 M dan SIfver bridge, ohefe oad inll .en p cup, in which he pr lqs am-qSD lke '1r4 accoordingly, U~ ie sport than butt shi oh the marksman, lying on With hshead on hisarm, a34 p Igsd on hi. toes, and with sisu for somne minutes at * and then at last. touches The ualifopnia Jackson, IF uoat bat shootina. is er