Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

fHE WEEKLY fciOi TIMES. ' St"#? lorliqiiUur^ Jgonutstiq Olqonomg, f)oitte '?dT^' ;*<|#rrent IJtwi, of iht Ja#*.,.. . t < .... , . ??. ' ^ '- '* * VOL. X.?New Series. UNION C. H., SOUTH CAROLImBbWEMBER 19, 1879. NUMBER 38. nWPVDVn noma * ??*? I f??ii??iiv novo llbKO. A Terrible Plague Cahhyinu off Young Men in Oeorgia.?Yorkville, Go., September 7.?For the past month there has been a fearful disease raging in Polk, Paulding and Haralson Counties. The physicians ire bafflod" and the people are dying with unusal rapidity in this famously healthy section. I have asked several pbysioians what.this disease is, and they all say they do wot kcow. One thing is certain. It is fearfully fatal, and seems to continue to sproad. One very strange oirdumstance is that it attacks young men alone ; butono old man has yet died. Over fifty young meu, in the full flushofm&nhood.andi^N^h^hHrafiK^ea vic(11Tf'rrcnt from those of regular typhoid fever. As I write Clark White is being buried, and 1 saw his corpse. He Buffered terribly, and just before he died the blood oozed out of his mouth and ears ; his tongue turned very black and swelled terribly. The disease is fearfully fatal. I know one Drominent nhvaioinn wlin l?n#t * r ?j M " "w ,,M" twenty-cine cases, and not one recovered, though all received the most, careful treat^ wont. The people here are justly terrified ^ at the ravages of this fearful uialudy. Qcd knows what it is, but it is causing sorrow in many a household and spreading fear throughout tho neighborhood from which I write. Physicians hope that the approaching cool weather will check it.?Special to the Atlanta Constitution. Great Britain's Distress.?Clare Sowell Read and Albert Pell, members of the British House of Commons, arrived in New York on Saturday by the Steamship City of Montreal. Mr. Read represents South Norfolk and Mr. Pell South Leicestershire in Parliament, aud they come to this country as a sub-committee representing the parliamentary commission now engaged in investigating tho causes of tho prevailing distress in the agricultural districts of England. The sub-committee is mainly charged with inquiry into the condition of the agricultural classes in America and the methods undor which our agricultural system is carried on, with a view of supplying or adapting that system, if practicable, to the British agricultural system. The commissioners will visit the principal producing sections or States of this cquntry, and will confer ? isasrwar*s are charged with the supervision of agricultural interests or affairs. They will spend several months in this work, and it is oxpectcd that their report will form an important portion of tho facts and information gathered by the commission. Both lnrge farmers, and both are conserval ivA in niAt. - - Advertising a Terror i*> Thieves. ?"Before I ever stenl anything," reoiartt.4 a citizon of this county yesterday, in conversation with a newspaper man, "I am going to kill all the editors and have all the newspapers stopped." The occasion of this energetio utterance was this : The speaker sat op His front porch the other day reading the Obterver. His eye had just fallen upon an advertisement for a stolen horse, when a man rode up to the gate on horseback nod hailod him. He looked again at the advertisement and then at the borse. The description fitted the horse at the gate to a dot. He went out and tho rider engaged him in conversation. He proposed to sell the animal and offered it nt such a prico as to convince the citizen the moro fully that it was the one referred to in the advertisement, and he thereupon took both horse and rider into custody. Ilis suspicions were perfectly well-grounded, and, thanks to the advertisement, its legitimate owner is again in possession of the horse and the thief is in durance.?Charlotte Obterver. That boy'll be the death of his grandmother jet. He wasn't allowed to come lo * the first table, there were so many dinner goests, bat he kept them aware of his presence by calling oat now and then from the pantry, where he had been shot np, "Ain't it time for me yet ?" At last the pastry was placed on the table. That boy's keen nostrils mads him aware of this to him most interesting feature of the feast. He climbed np to the transom, pat his head out and ealled oat, "I say, folks, don't yon eat up all them piss 1" The FloruHan has conversed with several cotton planters in the vicinity of Tallahassee concerning the prospeetive yield, and it finds them generally of the opinion that they will not get more than a twothirds crop. The continued rains are doing no little damage, and, while the eaterpillars are injariog the erop upon some plantations, other fields are Buffering from rost. # In Leesbnrg, Fla., when a man is fined by the Mayor and he ean't pay, he is hired oat to a farmer, who pays the fine and takes the offender to work oat the amount on the farm. This b considered much better then feeding each people in jell at the expense of the county. > Sound advice?A locomotive's whistle to tell the people to get off the track. f *>' "i ' r ' - '*'l ' <4? TALES OF THE JIM-JAMBZola's story of "L'A&sominoir" recalls a chat I ODce had with ooo who might bo termed a professional drunkard. He had suffered terribly from cxcessivo drinking; he knew its evils far better thau one could tell him, and he realised his position thoroughly, yet ho clung to the habit and avowed himself a drunkard. Said he : I havo gono too far and too long on this road. My stomach has been made over and adapted to rum. Tho organ can't be revolutionised again It's too old to leave off.whis^ key. To chango its feed would kill me in a fortnight. It isn't so good a stomach as the ..tur.1one I mora or pof day. , tiHiu*" during 41mm iixay yeare, and YOU can't teach an^old stomach new tricks.'? Delirium tremens ? Snakes ? Jim-jams ? Yes, I've had touches of thorn. You want to know how it feels ? I'll tell you, although I never did much more thun just pass the jim-jams frontier. You have drank maybo a week, maybe more. You have kept extra "full" during that period. At last liquor ceases to cxcito, brace up, or tranquilise. Yon drink a half a pint of brandy and it has no more effect tban so much water. Then you are closo on the horrors. Food won't help vou. Your stomach reject* it. Now your punishment commences. You can't sleep. You are woary. Oh, so weary, but there is no rest. You are tired of thinking, yet the tired brain will think.? You Ho down, drop into a doze for a moment, and wake up with a shock as if touched by an electrio wire. You are covered with perspiration. You get up and walk tho room, walk the streets?walk, walk, walk, and then fling yourself down, praying for ever so few minutes' sleep. All this for days with people about you, and through nights, whose lono, silent dreary hours drag, drag, drag, while thus you lie down und get up, and merely to kill the timo you dress and undress, while people wonder what uneasy mortal is fussing in the next room and forever going up aud down stairs. To stay the live-long night in that lone room is horrible, you are stifled, buried, in it. To get out in the street is only to change the horror. Your exhausted body pleads for rest. Your brain pleads for rest. But no Chinese torturer employed in keeping some miserable criminal awake till he dies was ever more full of relentless vigilance tbaffjfoor abused nerves. They are mad. They have mutinied. They have borne and borne tho load of alcohol you havo imposed upon them until frenzied with the strain, they have taken the bit botween their teeth and run away with your body and bruin. You realize this. You feel yourself borne on from horror to horror by this unseen power within you. Dreads iudcscribuble seize you. Your hands have a sensation of being of an enormous size. They do sot look like it. They feel it. Your head in Ilk? manner feels as if enormously puffed out. Then >- ? i uivauavuuit:! npuauiuuicuily, hot flushes strike at the region of the heart, all the blood seems at Ittnea to rush in that direction, and you fight aimlessly foi life and expect to fall doad. This is 'the commencement of the horrors. Now you are fixed for seeing rats, and snake9, and vermin. How many attacks can a man stand ?? How many ? I've known men /ho weren't wholly free from the jim.jams for months. They saw tbo things continually. Didn't mind them at all. Oot used to them.? There was Qrecnwood, a lawyer in Sonora, Tuolumne County, Cal., he lived on whiskey as nearly as a man could live on it foi years. Sometimes he had the snakes very bad, and again they'd tone down to moderation, yet he had 'em all the same. Ho would sit in his office drawing up some legal document as straight and correct as the soberest legal head in the county, and all the time curse the ?rnir? /iim.iom ?? '?? ?JU? V.vwo, you know) for getting on his paper. There was French Louis, who kept a saloon at Jamestown, in the same county, who drank himself to death with his own liquor, xfe was a mass of bloat, yet he'd serve customers to the last, and all the time sec a string of monkeys (jim-jam monkeys) running round the cornices of his saloon. ''They amuse me," he would say, "and besides they are not so mischievous as roal monkeys." There's a man living in that same town to-day to whom a phase of mania a potu is of no more inconvenience, apparently, than a severe cold. I'll call him Donoaster, which isn't his real name, but comes pretty near it. That man is a living contradiction of the theory that whiskey in excess will kill people. He has for twenty years drank lakes of it, and the poorest whiskey in the world at that. After a howling drunk al night, he will do a hard day's work and keep UD both the work end ? mnJifia.! spree on more whiskey, foeiog all the time men aroaad him, (jimjam men,) who talk and threaten him. 'They plagued me at first,1 said be, "bat I told 'em to git and they got Ooe night I heard a lot of fellers under mj window plotting to rob and kill me. 1 thought t) myself, if that's your gamo I'll take a hand in it myself. So I got up, took my knifo and six-shooter and put out.? When I got oat of doors they seemed to m< about one hundred yards ahead in the dark neaa, and one hundred yards ahead the; # kept for two utiles, nor could^^Bt ad/ nearer to thetn. Sol travele^^^R they traveled, out of the catnp all t ha^^^Kee, until all at oncothey seemed toaun^Etopajght scoot oif the road, and I heard 'd^HS talkingou Graveyard Hill. ThcnIf^Kipi,aod say I, 'Snakes, by ,' and IJ^Hvabout and came borne." Then theng^HjAr. D. of the same camp. He knew I^Hk that ho was drinking himself to ded^^Hffewss treating cases of the jim-jaint4^|Wer the country, yet he knew his tun|^^K come. Ho feared it too.' For years real horrors got hold of him, he 9 rat or heard a cat s^uajljj^^JBlSiBBL-hn'fi s fcupuve of thoeo .W^FTm Mj heaYd them, too, in order to find out whether they wcro real rats and cats or jim-jam rats and cats. The boys detected this dread at last, aud used to frighten the doctor by asserting they heard nothing, while the cats were singing their highest notes. At last the real article got hold of him. Not in the shape of cats or rats, though. Worse. Men with clubs aud pistols. IJogotaclub himself and ran down main street screaming and beating the air with half the cauip after him. An incident in his case shows how, in these tits, a man may bo both in and nnt of his snhi>r s.msnsnt ihn snmnfimn Anions; those who were trying to soothe hiin alter he was stopped was oue Davo Horton, an ignorant but consequential person, and not at nny time a particular favorite of the doctor's. "There's nothing ifter you, doctor, nothing at all," said liorton, much in the tone he would have used toward a frightened child, when all at once the doctor hit him a lively rap on the hctd with his club. At this, Horton's benevolence turned all to gall and bitterness, and he wanted to fight the mad physician. Well, D. recovered from this fit, and a friend, at bis request, told him how he had raved uiid acted. Hut when he ulluded to Horton, the doctor remarked, with a curious expression : "Oh, yes ; I recollect that part of it. The fool a'inoyed mo and I wautcd to got i id of him." As was his wont, the doctor kept strictly sober some months and then he went at it, aud kept himself deluged wiih whiskey for weeks, unMI the men with clubs and pistols got after him again. Thattime they settled him, and the doctor know it, for, in one of his quiet spells, be turned to his intimate friend and said : "It's no use; salt can't save me. I know my case thoroughly, and the quicker I go tho better.!'ut Juuiatk'' ?r** Are not these good temperance lectures ? ?New York Graphic. Money.?It healt lacerated honor, satist* ? i ? nes jusnco ana Duys a square meal. .Everythiog resolves itself into cash, from a 'corner" in corn to the building of churches. Children ask for peunies, youth aspires to dimes and quarters, manhood is swayed by tho almighty dollar. The blacksmith swings tho sledge, the lawyer pleads for his client, and the judge dcoidoa tho question of life or death, for money. Money makes the man ; therefore man must make the monoy, if ho would be respected. Out i old neighbor, Ben Franklin, once said: ' "Knowledge is powor." Fogy idea. Moucj ' is power. Money, with a little feeble help i shoves the world ahead and keeps business moving. Money buys Brussels carpets, lac< curtains, Steinways, and builds marble man sions. It drives us to church in a splcndit "turnoutj" it secures tho best pews, and it some plaoea it pays the parson. It buys < Paisley and rich satins for the madam, splen - did silks, laces and kerchiefs for Matildt , Jane Anna. It commands the respect ol gaping crowds and secures the most obse ' quious attention. Money is useful. It cuables us to be kind and charitable, to seud tracts and bibles to the heathen in surrounding cities It makes and straightens railroads and i builds air-line railways. Money is a big > thing on salt-wells. Money bids care ban , ish. It is a soother in sickness. Its powei i stops short of nothing save the ugly mouth ' of the grim messenger, whose relentless hand spares no one, but levels all earthly distinctions, and toaches poor humanity that it is but dust. At the brink of eter; nity money goes back on us. The beggai ; and the millionaire rest side by side beneath the sod, to raiso in equality to respond tc > the final summons that awaits all. To Young Mkm.?Do not work for tame Work to do good. Qualify yours )lf to dc > all the good it is possible for you to do ' Improve the mind. Acquiro stores ol i knowlodgo, and use that knowedg to bene ' fit mankiud. Fame will come if you merit i it. If you do not merit it you may seek it till you go ot your grave and never grasp it. Have a definite object. Let that be a worthy one?a philanthropic nnn tf naoqlk 1a Klavak * vuv) vvwiwiwi iunivii ovcauiljf 1UI 7*MTU > not daily, bat hourly?towards the objeol f" you have io view. No matter what obsta i alee are to bo aoalqd, never yield till you ar< - victorious. Men who work for fame, nevei get it. It oomes, if at all, because it it merited; because of superior qualifioalioot ' exercised io the disoharge of duty ; because of noble deeds done for humanity?and, it I a hundrod other ways, because of worV > done meriting it. The only way to gain fame is to do nomo > thing worthy of it?but do not do that some thing to win it. If sought for in that way r it will avoid your grasp like an apparition * The Agricultural Outlook.?If far* mere arc proverbially greal croakers in times of adversity, it cannot be denied that they are as great blowers in times of prosperity. During tbe late drought they were literally burned up?the corn crop was lost beyond redemption, and tbo cotton was loo small and backward to promise more than half a crop; but the floods oamo, and lo I what a change comes over the old croaker's vision. Everything begins to assume tho couleur de rote. Now taaaols and shoots put in an appearance, awd the cotton takes a start and flares out 10 creamy and crimson blossoms; the grass and everybody is elated at the" prospbcc or the future harvest. It is queer how people will forget tho lessons of experience, aud halloo before they get out of the woods. Many corn-fields which give promise to the eye. when harvested will yield little but nubbins ; corn cauuot wait on work or the seasons; both must couic at tho proper time, or it is labor Lst. As to cotton, a wet spell or a dry spell may blast our hopes. The rainy season, which has been almost incessant for a mourn, nas run tlic plant to weed. It is beautiful to look at, but the forms will shed about as fast as they come, the lower bolls will rot or mature imperfectly, and should it even be a good soasou henceforth, it is too lute to hope for much benefit from it. This is not a very favorable outlook for the farmer, but there is consolatiou in the reflection that it might have been worse.? The wheat and oat crop has been good, and the eountry has been proverbially healthy. But however uncertain the crop prospects may be, there arc are souio thiogs which are rery certain. Taxes have to be paid, that fertilizer bill will tuke the cream of the crop, that lieu mortgage for supplies and labor must be met, aud preparations made for another year's struggle for success. Don't flatter yourself with the hope that a better time is coming, that a revival of business is near, that flush times and plenty of uioucy are back again, cotton fiftecu cents a pound, credit good and everybody honest and reliable. We have heard this sort of talk over aud over ngaiu ; it comes from men who have "axes to grind;" put no faith in it. Times will never grow better until tho legions of loafers who have congregated about cities, villages aud railroad statious take to tbe plow. Tbo great want of the tiuies is gcod, honest, fuithl'ul work iu the field. We must have more producers, fewer consumers. The balance of trade is against us. We pay out thousands for what we should produce at homo. We must reform all these evils if we desire better times. Put not fuith in fiuaneiul prophets. Work, economize in all things, take care of what you have, and don't go in debt, aro the only roads out of the wilderness. 1 Why Bees Work in tiie Dark.?A ' life-time might bo spent in investigating f the mysteries hiddcu in a bee-hive, and still half the secrets would be undiscovered. ' The formation of the cell has long been a i celebrated problem for the mathematician, 1 whilst tho changes which tbe honey under> goes offei at least an equal ipterest to the - chemist. Every ouo kuows what honey I fresh trom comb-is like. It is a clear, yel1 low syrup, without a traco of solid sugar in 1 it. Upon straining, however, it gradually ' assumes a crystalline appearance?it cau1 dies, as the saying is, and ultimately be^ couics a solid lump of sugar. It has not ' been suspected that this change was due to a photographic action ; that the same agent ' which alters the molecular arrangements of ' the iodine of silver on the excited coliodiun - plate, and determines tho formation of cam' phor and iodine of crystals in a bottle, ! causes tho syrup hooey to assume a crystal" line form. This, howevor, is the case.? M. scheiblor baa enclosed honey in stop1 pered flasks, some of which he has kept in 1 perfect darkness; while others have been ' exposed to the light. The invariable rosults ' have been that the sunned portion rapid' ly crystallised, while that kept in the dark ' has remained perfectly liquid. We now sec 1 why bees work in perfect darkness, and why * they are so careful to obscure the glass windows which are sometimes placed in their hives. The existence of thoir young depends upon the liquidity of saccharine food prescn? ted to them ; and if light were allowed access to the syrup it would gradually acquire a f more or less solid consistency; it would seal up tho cells, and in all probability prove t fatal to th.3 inmates of the hive. A method of refreshing rancid butter is \ published in many of the papers as follows: ) "To a pint of water add thirty drops (about half a teaspoonful) of liquor of chloride of t lime. Wash in tnis two and a half pounds . of ranoid butter. When every particlo of I the butter ha* mm* in nnni.nt ? :??. - r water, lei it aland an hour or two; then i wash the butter well in pure water. The i butter is then left without any odor, and i has the sweetness of fresh butter. These i preparations of lime have nothing in; juriou8 in them." A writer who claims to have tried this, says that the most rancid . butter was rendered so sweet by it that . able judges oould not distiognish it froin , new butter when placcdalong side tho latter . on the table* w Ginning and Spinning.?Witinsboro,' September 6.?Tho interesting article from your Audcrson correspondent, "W.," iu u recent issue of your enterprising paper upou the subject of manufacturing yarns from seed cotton, induces uio to soy a word or two explanatory of my resolution at tho late joint meeting of the State Agricultural Society and State Grange in Chester. The resolution as adopted authorizes the memorializing of the Legislature for a reward of 810,000 to pc paid for an iuvcution which will enable farmers, upon their plantations aud at paying rates, to convert their crops from the seed into yarns. 7" priocipnl object had in view when I _ _ UflVrcG ?l?|w vn n uu w u?r\ v? ?ttv ? ' tention of farmers and inventors to tho want oi such a machine, as well as to the practicability of perfecting it. I was aware of the experiment of Col. Harrison with the "Clement Attachment," which demonstrates the practicability of spiuning from the seed, but the machine is too costly for farm use, and could not compete for tho reward unless it was modified so as to come witnin the requirements. I remember, when I was a boy, seeing a hand machine which did the same tiling, i. e., spin yarn from seed cotton, the cotton being spread upon an eudless cloth bund which carried it to the saws, whence it was passed in proper condition to six spindles and then made iuto yarn, the whole operated by the turuiog of a crank. This macbiuo is as much too suiull as the other is too large, but equally well demonstrates the feasibility of the plan of spiuuiug from the seed. Now if the State will do what was doue in New York, when it wanted a steamboat for the Erie Canal, and iu Indiana, when a practical road steamer was needed?offer uu inducement to inventors?I havo no hesitation in saying that ere long we will havo the iutcrmedi.te of the two uiachiues alluded to, and, as the result, each farmer will, in additiou to the questionable profits now made by raising cotton, be ablo to pocket the very decided premium which accrues by converting it into yarn. Thero are two other ideas that present themselves in this conuectiou. Spin your stained cotton into yarns and ten cents worth of bleaching material will make them ?tho yicldings of a bale?as white as snow. You can now understand why special orders are frequently given to buyers to sc- . cure this olas of cotton, but always at reduced price of course. The other idea was suggested by seeing this year and last year an intimation by the New York Cotton Exchange that efforts would be made to deduct the weight of bagging and ties from tho weight of tho bale. If this is doue?and it is a well-known fact that farmers arc the victims in all combinations?then would lhn 1 ' 1 * j,.vuv.wv. iui iui3 uiucmue oe indeed paltry in comparison with the good that would be done to the Stato by its invention. Many of our best mechanics are too poor to risk their labor upon a venture, but offer them satisfactory remuneration for their talents and they will employ them. T. w. Woodward. I . Six Acres Better than Fifty.?All over our country wo are raising pitifully small crops from large fields. Time, labor and capital are sunk in fruitless toil. Is there not a better way? An extract from the Itcv. J. N. Glenn, Rockdale County, Georgia, suggests the auswer. Mr. Glcnu says : "In 1827-32 I was intimate iu the family of Mr. William Hudson, Hancock County, Georgia. I often observed a six aero lot, upon which he raised every year a fine crop of wheat. The crop of 1832 was the very best wheat I evor saw. Enquiring iuto tho secret of his success, ho told me, in substance, that ho had sown wheat in that lot for over twenty-one years in succession.? When he began with i', the land was worn and thin. #Thc secret of its redemption and surprising productiveness was, that ho be1 <?nt? '* * " gUU uy Djjn,uuing over it, in June, a heavy coating of uianuro from his gin and horse lot, preparatory to sowing peas. Having broken the ground deep, the peas were soon growing luxuriantly. Wheu the peas were about fifteen inches high, the first of October, he turned thorn under and sowed two bushels of wheat the to acre, harrowed and rolled the ground. The first year ho mado a good crop. When it was harvested ho sowed poas as before?turning the heavy stubble deep under. Again in October ho turned his peas under?sowing wheat and treating the ground as before. And sc, with a few interruptions, he had boon doing for twenty-one years. lie never failed to make a good crop, and used no fertilizers except what was furnished by his lots, the stubblo and the peas. He told mo that ho never had flour to buy when ho concentrated. on the six acres; when he trusted to fifty or a hundred acres on the common pVi, he had. flour to buy." Are there not many such experiences and observations, showing that six may bo better than fifty 1?Monro* t _V-?' | Just before tho Judge of the police court passed sentence ho w is stopped by the prisoner, who remarked : "You remind me of the crops, Judgo." "Why?" asked hishonor. "You are looking Jinewas the response. The conrt didn't belie its locks.