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^ ISSUED t. m. grist's sons. Pubii?her?. j % Ifamilg Jtespager: Jfor (he promotion of the political, Social. Agricultural and Commercial Interests of the fSeople. {ters?n0^c2rvrive c?nt? K established 1855. YORKVTLLE S. C., FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1908. jSTO. 75. 4* 4* 4* 4* 4~ 4- 4* 4* 4* 4* 4* 4H 1 HOW WIDO\ ! WAS SOLE ! By Mr*. MAR <r <r 1' <r 1- 1' f </ <f 1 fc* T T T T *$* T? T V T *T? "1? 1 CHAPTER IV. Have You Quite Forgotten Me? The morrow came. It was a quiet, breezeless summer day. All the world of Pottstown flocked to the sale?the few to buy, the many to see how the house was furnished, and judge whether the widow was a good manager. "They say she's got chists full of the best linen sheets and piller-cases," remarked a thrifty old lady as she laboriously ascended the stairs. "The little wife of the inn-keeper's son was busy among the crockery'. She had selected her purchases, and stood guarding them with the vigilance of a small but particularly fierce dragon, determined to have them, as she said, if everybody in Pottstown bid against her. In one of the smallest rooms upstairs stood Lucy and the Widow Willets, watching the gathering cfowd. And a motley assemblage it was of lumbering old carts, family carriages, one-horse chaises, light spring-wagons, gayly painted, horses of every description, saddles of the most antique pattern; while the men, women and children who had come, intending to make a day of it, crowded into the yard, ran through the pleasant rooms and up and downstairs, with much chattering and shrill laughter. Old Deacon Pitt, who was a good friend to the widow, poked among the kitchen utensils with his cane, "Several of us neighbors were going to buy up things," he said, eyeing a nest of pans wistfully; "but they say some stranger's made a bid for the hull lot, cash down. I'm mighty sorry for the widder?mighty sorry." "Old Pinchbeck deserves a coat of tar and feathers, and I know somebody who'd like to give it to him," spoke up twelve-year-old Tom, the deacon's son. "Silence, sir!" said the deacon, gravely, then added, in an aside to another old deacon, "it would be the best fit he ever had in his life." Meantime the clamor outside increased. It was nearing high noon. Those who had brought lunches were comfortably seated, regaling themselves with doughnuts and sandwiches. The children cried from weariness, and some of them were put to sleep in the shade. Lucy and her mother watched the proceedings from their little perch, themselves unseen. "Why don't they begin?" said Lucy, in a nervous tremor. "The auctioneer is here. Oh, how I dread it!" At that moment, amid the shoutt of a crowd of small boys. Peter Pinchbeck mounted his stand?the smoothly cut trunk of a tree, which Lucy had made beautiful with vines, but now the pretty green tendrils lay prone and trampled in the dust. Presently business commenced. Two anxious old farmers bid against each other till they were hoarse, when suddenly a deep, low. masterful voice exclaimed: "Five thousand dollars for the place jusi as 11 sianus?evei/ si:vn. ui umber, every rod of land, every article of furniture!" "Widow and daughter included?" queried Peter Pinchbeck, making an attempt to be facetious; but on a sudden he recoiled, and in stepping back ?for he saw that ominous look in the stranger's face as the latter came viciously forward?down he went amidst the broken vines and tumbled grass, and a roar of laughter went up from the throats of the assembled urchins. "It will be safer for you if you keep your tongue within your teeth," was the low-uttered warning, "or I won't be responsible for what might happen," and the attorney gained his perch, looking white, scared and crestfallen. Meantime the people were talking in groups. Of course nobody could compete with a man who bid in that fashion. The property was not worth much over three thousand, and who could this stranger be who felt such an interest in this out-of-the way place, and was so rich that he could afford to throw away his money. mi X ?Aiif /InutrVititr 1 lie lllll-RCVJICI O IIV ,, uuubi.ivn stood tremblingly guarding what she had made sure was hers. Deacon Pitt proposed that a contribution be taken for the purpose of setting the widow up in housekeeping. Lucy turned to her mother as the house was knocked down to the highest bidder, and threw herself in her arms as she cried: "It is all over, and we are beggars!" "Not quite, Lucy. You forget we can work. God will overrule this great misfortune for our good." "How can you be so quiet over it, mamma!" asked Lucy. "It was I who was going to be so brave, and now look at me." "Did you see the purchaser?" "Yes?a tall man with a heavy beard. Oh, I hope we need not meet him! But there, he is coming in. Let us go." She flew to the door and opened St. meditating a retreat. The groups outside fell back at sight of her white face. A heavy step was heard ascending the stairs. As she stood there, uncertain and expectant, it drew nearer. It was the man with the heavy beard. She could see in her fright and almost hate, that his face was working with emotion. As if it were his right, he passed into the little room, shut the door, and as Lucy retreated, planted himself against it. Then he gazed searching from mother to daughter. Then he held out both hands beseechingly. and with a cry that was almost a wall, exclaimed, piteously: "Have you quite forgotten me?you and little Lucy?" "Mother, it is my father!" screamed Lucy, and ran straight into his open arms. "I knew all at once," she sobbed?"all at once! Oh, fath V WILLETS i ? ? 1 ) OUT. ! i 4 t Y A. DENIS ON j 1 ft <r t* f ! lr lr f ! f tr ir r T *T? f t f t' *T T T T *T *T er, father! Mother, come here?father has come back from the dead!" The woman thus appealed to staggered to her feet, still regarding him with bewildered eyes and dizzy brain. "John, John! and you were killed, they told me!" she cried, in hollow tones. "Yes; I was taken up for dead from under the wrecked cars. For weeks and weeks I was in the hospiI tal. Afterward I saw the report of my death and let it go. I was dead in a certain sense?I felt myself a ruined man. You had bid me never come back; and when I was dismissed, cured, having taken care to conceal my name, I went to California, and tried to forget that I was human. Rot there were eood influences thrown ab.out me at last. I worked like a slave, determined to call no man master. I conquered myself after years and years of bootless trial, and then I resolved to come back and, if I found you as I left you, make a new home for you. and give you back through Heaven's grace, a new husband and a better man." "John, have you forgiven me?" asked his wife, in a faint voice, as she clung to his arm. "What had I to forgive? You were the sufferer. Thank God I've come back rich, and we will try and forget the past. I bought this place because I wanted to give that brute out there a lesson that will last him his lifetime, I reckon. He thinks he is having his revenge. Come down-stairs with me." Gladly they went, beaming faces) and brightening eyes taking the place of pallor and tears. One by one the groups within doors comprehended. The crowds outside heard a ringing cheer. Louder and more exultant it grew. They had prepared themselves for the sorrowing exit of the widow and her daughter, but an answering ?mii#? hrnkp over their faces as the three appeared on the little vine-covered porch. Peter Pinchbeck was talking volubly, but at this sight he stood dumb, his mouth half open and his rheumy eyes starting forward. "Friends," said the stranger, in his deep tones, "I bought this house as a gift for my wife, who, with my daughter, you have long known. Some of you remember that I left home ten years ago?" The dullest of the throng comprehended now, and on the instant there arose a deafening cheer, in which the very babies seemed to join. Hurrah followed hurrah, caps were thrown ^p, handkerchiefs waved, the men shouted themselves hoarse, and then laughed themselves clear again in order to raise another cheer. In the midst of all this glee and rudely expressed joy stood Peter Pinchbeck, like a grim and evil spirit, his face ashen and his teeth set. He had never been a favorite, and most of the townspeople knew the history of the mortgage, and the sight >f pretty, smiling Lucy, so radiant in her new-found happiness, turned the current of their thoughts at once. "Three groans for Peter Pinchbeck!" cried a small, thin voice?'.he voice, indeed, of the deacon's son, and which was the signal for an uproar ious tumult, wnicn resuuea in me ignominious retreat of the attorney, followed by a number of small missiles, such as the ingenuity of youth invents as it finds occasion for. That night a happy company gatnered round the tea-table, for busy hands and light hearts had been at work, and the little room was restored to its usual and beautiful order. And yet tears were very near smiles. The sign of Peter Pinchbeck no longer decorates the office in which that worthy spider-at-law wove his toils. Finding the place too hot for him, he moved to other quarters. I don't think anybody but the bride at the inn murmured over the return of the long-lost citizen. She always regretted the lost opportunity to buy up all Widow Willet's chinaware. To Be Concluded. ; CAUGHT THE WOLVES ALIVE. But Roosevelt's Friend was Badly Bitten In Doing It. With his hands, arms and legs covered with wounds inflicted by the teeth of two lobo wolves, John Abernathy, United States marshal for the Western district of Oklahoma, is being treated by his physician to save him from blood poisoning, says a Guthrie, Oklahoma. letter. Abernathy catches wolves alive with his bare hands. He performed this feat several times for the entertainment of President Roosevelt when the latter hunted in the Ki owa and Comanche Indian pasture in southwestern Oklahoma. Abernathy was then a rancher in Oklahoma. Later he was appointed United States marshal in Oklahoma Territory. The encounter with the wolves in which he received his wounds occurred in August. Symptoms of blood poisoning followed, and at one time it was feared that two of his fingers would have to be amputated. His wounds now are yielding to treatment. In seeking encounters with wolves Abernathy is impelled by the same motives that send other men up in balloons or through Niagara rapids in barrels. He enjoys the thrill and excitement of adventure. He lived most of his life in western Texas and is a man of great physical strength. In attacking a wolf Abernathy presents his right hand, and the wolf springs to seize it. It is here that Abernathy uses his skill, gained after long practice. As his hand passes into the wolf's mouth he takes hold of the wolf's lower jaw back of the long canine teeth and grips it with all his strength. The wolf may close its jaws, but is unable to Lite. Abernathy's safety depends upon his not relaxing his hold until assistance comes and the wolfs jaws are bound together with wire. Its feet are then tied and it is thrown across a horse and carried to camp and caged. Abernathy was in summer camp with friends in the Wichita game preserve, near the town of Cache. There are many wolves in the Wichita mountain region, some of them being of the lobo species, of great size and without fear of men. The lobo wolf can easily kill a horse or a steer. Abernathy prepared for his hunt by placing a number of wolves in wire cages in the mountains. They are a better decoy than a calf or a goat. Fourteen trained wolf dogs, twelve of them being greyhounds and two staghounds, were in camp to run the wolves down. Abernathy had been told of the presence of lobo wolves in the vicinity and had been waiting for them to be drawn near the camp by the caged wolves. One afternoon a single wolf was seen loping up the mountain side about half a mile distant. The dogs were released and the game pointed. After a run of less than a mile the wolf turned against the dogs in a shallow ravine. Some of the dogs were knocked fifteen and twenty feet when struck by the wolf. A number were badly crippled and two were killed. The wolf was in an open place when it turned and came toward Abernathy, who saw that he would be attacked. Abernathy sprang from his horse and unluckily found himself on a bed of pebbles that had been worn smooth by washing rains. He slipped and fell to his knees just as he presented his hand and the wolf caught his hand with all .its teeth. Abernathy's safety depended upon his holding on. which he did, throwing himself bodily upon the wolf to restrain its struggles. Two of Abernathy's companions came to his assistance and seized the wolf by the feet. Abernathy was in great pain and when the wolf's lips were raised it was seen that one of its fangs had passed entirely through Abernathy's hand and that the wolfs jaws were locked in a viselike hold. Abernathy remained in this situation until wire was brought and the wolf securely muzzled. Abernathy started for camp without waiting to wire its paws together. He was compelled to ride with the bridle reins between his teeth. His horse was fiery. In its struggles the wolf scratched the horse with its sharp claws, causing the horse to plunge and run away. Abernathy lost the reins going down a steep mountain side and was in danger of being thrown. Two companions overtook him and seizing the loose reins led his horse to camp. The captured wolf was a female. Abernathy knew that her mate must be somewhere around. Then he learned that another wolf had been seen and was described as one of the largest ever seen in southwestern Oklahoma. Abernathy began hunting for this wolf, but ten days passed before he caught sight of it. Abernathy had been riding hard all forenoon and was lying under a tree fagged out when one of the women in camp cried out, "Look at that great wolf." The wolf was about 200 yards distant. "It was the biggest wolf I ever saw." said Abernathy, telling of his adventure. "He was taller than any dog I ever saw and heavier than the biggest mastiff. Later I found that his head was not less than sixteen inches in length, and my hand slipped into his mouth as easily as into a corncrib." This second wolf began making its fight against the dogs in an open place. Abernathy made a skilful pass, and seizing the wolfs jaw bore the lobo to the ground without being bitten. The wolf was muzzled with wire and its feet tied and it was thrown across Abernathy's horse in front of his saddle. Just as Abernathy was mounting he heard a popping sound, and instantly saw the wolf with mouth wide open coming toward him from off the horse. T-ho. *..nlf hoH hrnlren its wire mUZZle. Abernathy grabbed the wolfs lower jaw with his left hand in midair and the two went to the ground in a heap. He was again unlucky and his hand was badly lacerated. The wolf was bound again, carried to camp and caged. In less than an hour it broke the wires of its cage and ran to a nearby creek when the dogs started in pursuit. The wolf plunged into the water, swam to the opposite side and backed up against a steep bluff at the water's edge. Abernathy swam the creek, but before he could get a firm foothold the wolf lunged toward him in the water. He seized the wolf by the jaw and the two disappeared under the water, which was about five feet deep. In this encounter Abernathy's thumb was split and his leg cut. The wolf was pulled finally into shallower water and wui cu. The wolves were taken to Oklahoma City and placed in the zoo at Wheeler Park. EARTHWORMS. They Can Move About Only When the Ground Is Damp. Ever since Darwin wrote his remarkable book on earthworms the general public has taken an interest in these lowly creatures. Everybody has observed thousands of them on the cement walks during and after a rain, but the true cause of these remarkable wanderings is not often written about. The fact is that earthworms can move about only when the ground and the grass are wet. The truth of this is easily shown by placing an earthworm on some dry sand, when the dry grains will stick to its slimy skin and make it helpless. All living creatures are endowed with the instinct to move and spread over the earth. Human beings, higher animals and birds prefer to move about in fair weather. To the earthworm and other lowly creatures, like frogs, salamanders, slugs and land snails, rainy days are the only fair days for traveling. When the sun out and dries the roads and the meadows, they withdraw into their hiding places. As earthworms cannot see clearly, they crawl about in an aimless sort of way. Tf they happen to get on a board or cement walk, when the sky clears they soon die and shrivel up. When a dry season or winter approaches, the earthworms burrow deeper into the ground. At a depth varying from six inches to two feet each worm coils up into a little ball. By aid of secreted slime it makes a case <>f dirt round itself, and in this state it remains dormant until abundant rains or the spring thaws call it back to a more active life.?St. Louis Republic. MESSAGE TO THE UNION. The Annual Address of President C. S. Barrett. "IN UNION THERE IS PROTECTION." "Without Organization You Will Be as Helpless Against the Man Who Would Prey Upon Your Efforts as One Man Would Be Against an Army. Following is the adress of Hon. C. S. Barrett, president of the National Farmers' Union to the Fourth Annual convention at Fort Worth, Texas, on September 1. Gentlemen of the Fourth Annual Convention: Brethren: As I greet you today I am impressed with the thought that it is? especiiuiy appiupiiaic mat wc na?c selected the state of Texas as the meeting place for our convention of this year, and the genial hospitality already extended to us by the people of Fort Worth vindicates the wisdom displayed In the choice of this particular city. Texas is the birth place of the Farmers' Union. It was in the far-peneetrating mind of a Texan, Newton Gresham, of Point, that the principles upon which this order is builded first took their definite form and character. With a vision that included the lessons of the past, some of them bitter, and that reached far into the needs of the future, and I doubt if any of us have as yet fully comprehended their scope, he dreamed the dream that has today grown Into proportions of substance, vast beyond even his imagination, and stretching their influence into the four quarters of civilization. So it seems singularly appropriate that in the year wherein our development and our purpose have begun to reveal their true greatness, speaking in vigorous language of the foundations already laid and prophesying in resolute terms of the conquests yet to be made, we should gather in the state of our birth to debate the problems of the present and devise the policies of the future. I tninK, too, tnat tne very vaamess of this imperial state, larger tha"n kingdoms of Europe, the ruggedness and independence of its people spoken in a way In which they became a part of America, and the unending variety of its splendid resources are somewhat symbolic of its vastness of our organ- I ization, the rugged independence of our people and the many large aims to the accomplishment of which we are committed. If the past year has been productive! of great results in the work that we have marked out to our hands, you must not lose sight of the fact that these results have been only attained through the fidelity and the neverresting zeal of the men you have chosen to direct this organization. I desire, in this connection, to express my gratitude, in the warmest terms, to the national officials with whom it has been my pleasure to co-operate in guiding the larger affairs of the Union. Our secretary-treasurer and your board of directors are each and all men of zeal, energy and the instinct for selfsacrifice. At every juncture I have found them upholding my hands and giving me their finest loyalty in meeting the demands of each new problem as it pressed itself upon us for our solution. The work of organizing and reorganizing during the year has also secured us a splendid equipment of state officers, men of quick intelligence, thoroughly informed regarding our purposes, characterized by integrity and admirably fitted to labor in harmony with the national officials. I want to impress upon you, gentle men, as never in uie previuun m?iui) of this Union, the tremendous significance of our organization and the revolutionary importance of the ends we are striving to promote. I want you to feel, as vividly as I feel, that upon the full success of our mission depends the very welfare of this country, and I can say, without! exaggeration, the permanence of Amer- I ican institutions. I want you to realize that we are fighting a battle that no political party, however great, no crusade, however vital and widespreading, has attempted. We are fighting the battle of the producers of the wealth of this country, the most wonderful country in history. We are doing what no crusader or reformer ever dared to undertake. We are saying to the man whose toil feeds and clothes nearly a hundred million people, not to mention the teaming hordes of Europe and Asia: "Without organization and co-operation, without education and persistent, never-tiring effort, without sacrifice and obedience to discipline you can never attain the true reward for your labor, you can never rise as a class above the hardships and the oppression that have always been visited upon the man who creates wealth in the sweat of his brow; you can never win the income to which you are entitled that you may properly feed and clothe and house and educate your wife and your children. "Without organization you will be as helpless against the man who would prey upon your efforts as one man would be against an army." It is true we are talking not alone to the cotton farmer of the south, but to the wheat and corn growers of the west and the fruit producers of the Pacific slope. And they are giving heed to our words. They are recognizing the common sense and the justice in our arguments. The man who creates the sub stance that becomes the vast wealth in the hands of the manufacturer, the railroad, the bank and the trust, is coming to see that it is through the use of system and combination, the application of plain business methods that these vast industries have succeeded in concentrating vast fortunes. He is seeing1 that his business, the business of providing the crude material for this wealth making, has been neglected. That the speculator, the spinner and the consumer have been content to let him raise all the cotton that made the south the most independent section of the nation during the recent stringency, and to give him what they pleased for it. He sees that year after year his just earnings have been rifled by gamblers a thou sand miles away, to whom the word, conscience had no meaning, and to whom it was a matter of indifference whether the children of the farmer had bread or a stone; whether lie lived in a mortgaged hovel or in a home to which the world-value of his labor entitled him. ; He sees, too, that comprising seventenths of the population of this country he is possessed of only one-eighth of Its wealth. Some of my more prejudiced friends may ask: "What else can you expect in a cut-throat age?" I say it is not a cut-throat age any more than the fifteenth century was a cut-throat age. Kings, lords and barons then held the producers of wealth in bondage, demanding rrom mem me fruits of their toil, and kindly returning just enough upon which to eke out a bare existence that they might make more wealth for the masters. The difference is, and still is, that the kings, lords and barons were organized and had force and the authority of law on their side. Education, the triumph of democracy, has done away with these conditions. The man who produces the food and clothing for the nation and the world today is not in bondage to the modern kings and barons and lords of industry and finance unless he puts on and rivets his own shackles! The kings, lords and barons of 1908 speedily adjusted themselves to changed conditions. They recognized that organization, system and business-like methods have taken the place of the old ways of concentrating wealth and raising themselves up In supremacy over its producers. That they have been able to do this with any degree of success, that every farmer is not receiving a just compensation for his labor, solely is due to the fact that the producer of cotton and corn and wheat and fruit and what not, has placed himself upon a plane of equality with the modern kings and lords and barons. Mo has fallerl to ficht them with the modern weapons of organization, system and co-operation, and he pays the penalty. He clings to the methods that w*re in use at the time of Adam, and cotnplains because of the results! The farmer is the one man who brings his product into the market and aslts meekly: "What will you give me?" And then take what is given him! Up to a few years ago there was not even a semblance of a trade about it. The buyer simply dictated what he was willing to give, and the producer humbly accepted! The farmer as a class form the greatest producing corporation in the country. What other corporation, one-horse or Standard oil, would calmly submit to sucb conditions? Is it-any wonder, then, that wealth is ^cumulated in a few hands, that wd , find trouble developing our waste plants; that the farmer, as a class, is the poorest of our population, when he conditions and a determination to remove them that the Farmers' Union was founded. It appealed with vigor and persistence to the masses of the country's wealth producer, dealing the facts I have roughly outlined to you. The result has been that today, scarcely five years from our organization, we have a membership approaching 3,000,000 of the people upon whose efforts the prosperity of this country depends. As the reward for our activeness and for the loyalty of our members, the south has received more money for its great basic cotton crop in the last four years than at any time in its history, and this, in spite of powerful influences that have wrought cunningly at the old game to break the solid front of the farmers, with the intention of securing cotton at their own prices. The cotton farmer no longer goes meekly to market and takes what is given him. He says: "My cotton is worth so much to me and to you. I demand this or that price for it. It is my property and I have a right to put a price on it." The movement, it Is true, is yet in its infancy. We have still to combat poverty and fear in our ranks, and fierce attacks from the outside. It is difficult to get a man to hold his cotton when his debts cry for payment and his family for necessities. We are fast removing these obstacles, the only ones that stand in the way of full success. Our claim of warehouses stretches from the Atlantic to the Rio Grande: it is being strengthened and given more links each month. We find ourselves constantly more able to secure such financial assistance for our members as will enable them to continue to work in harmony for our mutual ends. I believe in time that cotton scrip will be negotiable in every southern state and city and town. And we are just in the beginning of this plan also. Our meeting on the 18th of July at Memphis perfected a system for each of the cotton states which will enable every farmer, if he will abide by the rules of the Union, to secure for his staple exactly what it is worth. I cannot emphasize this triumph too strongly. It marks a turning point in the progress of the Union. Our warehouses, too, are only a portion of the enterprises undertaken and accomplished by our members. Every state where the Union is organized maintains many industries in which stock is held by its members. This is a feature of co-operation in which the stock is held by its members. This is a feature of co-operation that the Union strongly encourages. Our people must find investments for their surplus money, remunerative investment, which will increase communities' properties. * ?i ...UJU It may no: De out or piace wunc ur this subject to direct your attention to the request sent out earlier in the year to the effect that members plow up cotton already planted where it seemed apparent that production might exceed the proportions of demand due to temporary influences. Responses to this request assures me that it has been universally complied with, though I do not deem it advisable to make public what percentage of the yield will be Influenced thereby. Legislation for the past four years bears the imprint of the Farmers' Union. We don't go into politics personally. I have made it a point to caution our members against partisanship in any nature, form or variety. It has been the death of organizations that once sought to do the work we are doing, and it must not and will not be allowed to creep into this one. But our influence upon the enactment of just law for the regulation of transportation problems and for protecting the rights of property has been large and effective. We do not hesitate to take the initiative in legislation that vitally concerns our membership, and our every aim is to encourage lofty ideals of citizenship. Sneaking of legislation, I want to tell I you that my experience at the nation- I al capltol during1 the last session of l congress, assures me that the Farmers' Union is recognized with reverence, even awe, by our law makers. These gentlemen were never too busy with keeping those troublesome fences at home from tumbling down, that they didn't have time to discuss with me pending or prospective measures which would affect our membership and our aims. What we have accomplished has been made possible through education, patience and persistence. We have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for lectures and teachers, for newspapers and literature which should rouse the producers of this country's wealth to the meeting of our mission. My time, personally, has been, ceaselessly occupied n supervision of the work a.t all points, personal visits at points of weakness. I have not hesitated to discipline, and discipline harshly where disaffection, petty Jealousies or failure to abide by the rules seemed to me to threaten the future of any particular state or local organization. I have made enemies in this process. I regret it, but am willing to accept unpleasantness in the larger end of holding in solid formation and advancing the Interests of this Union. It has been my ambition in this con nectlon to make my duties with the Farmers' Union carry out every hour of the day that fine Scriptural phrase, "He who would be greatest among you, let him be your servant." Do you realize what it means to be a good servant to the Farmers' Union? When you do you will appreciate the vastness of the organization and the demands its affairs make on those whose business it is to supervise them. In the process, then, of being a good servant in the biblical meaning, I have traveled more than forty-one thousand nine hundred miles since last September. That means a distance of nearly twice around the world and many times across this continent. The good servant does not either count his own comfort or his own pleasure when it comes to being about his master's business. My master is the Farmers' Union, and in advancing Its cause I have spent in the neighborhood of three hundred and twentyeight days of the past year away from mv home. A man's wife and a man's cmldren, next to his Maker, are the fr?hest, purest, brightest influences in his life. It is the thought of the wife, the woman who has fought hard times and good times by your side, and who believes In you when the rest of the world forsakes you, that keeps you vigorous and hopeful and cheerful during the hours of the day when the task bears hard on tired muscles and tired brain. The knowledge that she will be at the door to greet you when the dusk comes, makes the heat of the sun less exhausting, the weary round of duty less fatiguing. It is an inspiration, too, to know that at nightfall the little children with which God has blessed your life will be climbing over you as you rest * * ? Ut??. or 1 y? on tne porcil, mugmiiK OIIU pia.>iii5 II. a loving way, chasing away the wrinkles of worry, letting a bit of heaven's sunshine into your heart. I wonder how many of you have felt keenly the absence of this consolation of home when you have been forced to leave it one or two 'or three days, perhaps a week? I confess to you that during these weeks that I have not known the smile of my wife, or the smile of my children, or the quiet of home, sometimes the ordeal has been a hard one. I have been sustained by the remembrance that she whom the Almighty sent to lighten my life was in thorough sympathy with the work we are all trying to pursue faithfully, and that she wanted me to do a man's part in the greatest work yet undertaken for the toiling masses of our country. I have indulged in this personal talk, friends, as a means of showing you how strongly I feel the obligation resting upon all of us. I want you to understand the task that confronts us all merely upon the threshold of our work. It is my belief that ultimately every farmer in the country, large or small, will see that his personal interests lies in affiliation with us. Constant education and inspiration are required, too, to maintain the ground we have gained and to record further progress. The instant we imagine we have the fight won and relax our efforts, that instant is sounded the death-knell of this organization. We are faced also by the crafty and powerful enemies ready to exert force and to spend money liberally to break up or weaken the army we have formed with such patient toil. As I firmly believe that the great prosperity of the south for the last four years has been largely due to the efforts of this order, T believe as firmly that any blow aimed at its integrity will redound to the injury of every industry and every man, woman and child in the south. We have gained the farmer a reputation and clothed him with ability as a business man in a manner new in the history of the world. We have merely begun to teach him the power, his responsibilities to himself and to the community. We do not ask for him any more than his dues, but we intend to see that ho gets that due. We are not, a-s some of our enemies claim, striving: to upset economic laws, to ignore the law of supply and demand, or to take unrighteous advantage of our patrons. We are simply seeking, in a businesslike way. to secure the rights and privileges that belong to us, and which will not come to us without effort on our part. Already the larger future of the Union is beginning to materialize. We are getting Into direct relations with the spinner and the consumer everywhere. The Spinners' and the Growers' Conference, held in Atlanta last fall at which your president and other officials participated, is an instance in that direction. When we meet spinners and consumers we lose no time in impressing upon them the honesty, sincerity and practicability of our purposes. And we are gaining headway in their conlidence every day. We are invading Europe, too, with the advance guard of an organization WHICH ?Udll cvcmuaiij' ruauic uo tu dispose of our products directly to the old world consumer, eliminating' the gambler and the middle man in this country. Calmly, systematically, without flurry or excitement, we are going about the solution of these problems that have puzzled men since buying and selling became regular, economic functions. In this greatest battle of the ages, the battle for the rights and the development of the producer of the nation's wealth, I ask your earnest, unselfish and unsleeping co-operation. JUDGE PRITCHARD SUSTAINED. State Loses Decision In Famous Dispensary Case. In an opinion handed down by the circuit court of appeals, last Tuesday at Richmond, Va., Judge J. C. Pritchard Is sustained in his findings in the now famous case of Flelschmann & Company and others against the South Carolina dispensary commission. The opinion in this case was written by Judge Jas. E. Boyd, district judge of Greensboro, N. C., and concurred in by his associates, District Judge Waddill and Chief Justice Fuller. The opinion is quite lengthy, consuming more than forty pages of closely typewritten matter. A great part of this, however, is devoted to the statement of facts. In the opinion proper, Judge Boyd says in part: "There are two main propositions: first, the Jurisdictional, which presents the question whether this is a suit against the state of South Carolina and therefore forbidden by the eleventh amendment: and, second, whether the dispensary commission is a court incapable of having its proceedings stayed by a writ of injunction granted by a Federal court. Does this case come within the limits prescribed? In this connection it becomes necessary to inquire if the state has any present interest in the fund in controversy which can be divested by a Judicial determination of the true amount, if any, justly due, the complainant, or has the state by an act of the legislature relinquished all right, if any existed, to enough of the fund to pay all the just debts of the state dispensary? "The proposition rests largely upon the construction to be given the act of the South Carolina legislature of February 16, 1907, providing for the appointment of a commission to wind up the affairs of the state dispensary and section 47 of another act abolishing the state dispensary. "The state through its legislature, has nassed both the title and possession of the funds to the commission for the purposes designated in the act. The fund being- in the hands of the commission, charged with this duty, the state has no Interest in so much thereof, as Is necessary to pay the Just debts. The court cites the case of the United States against Planters' Bank of Georgia, 22 U. S., and many other decisions sustaining this position, including the case of Gunter, attorney general, against Atlantic Coast Line railroad, 200 U. S. In what capacity, asks the court, are the members of the commission acting. Are they officers of the state of South Carolina, or are they agents appointed under an act of the legislature empuwerea i" ianc ^050slon of a certain fund and directed to administer such fund In a certain manner? "We are constrained to hold that the funds in their hands are held In trust for the payment of the debts mentioned and that creditors of the state dispensary have a property In the fund in the hands -of the commission to the extent that the debts are shown to be joint and that a judicial determination of the true amount of such debts can In no way affect the rights and interests of the state. "Having therefore determined the relation of the appellants to the funds I In controversy, we answer the question propounded in the outset that this is not a suit against the state and that the complainant is not forbidden to maintain his action by the eleventh amendment of the constitution of the United States. Thus it is not against the state nor is the state an indispensable party. "Treating the fund in the hands of the appellants as a trust fund and the duties of the trustees being clearly defined, the trustor is not even a necessary party to a suit brought to compel the trustees to discharge their duties. Their position appears to be that the agents and representatives of the debtor should constitute a tribunal absolute in its character to arbitrarily pass upon what, if anything, is due an alleged creditor, and if a claim be adjudged invalid, to put an end to it without further opportunity for redress on the part of the creditor. To uphold such a contention would be to deprive such a creditor of his property without due process of low." The court further announces that in the conception and adoption of the eleventh amendment it never entered the minds of the framers of that amendment that a sovereign state would engage in the liquor business and become a trader by buying and selling an article of common traffic In competition with the citizens of the country. It may be questioned, therefore, whether the state of South Carolina was exercising a governmental prerogative in performing a function necessarily or properly incident to its autonomy as a state. In reference to the provisions of the eleventh amendment Judge Boyd uses the following language: "Undoubtedly the eleventh amendment was intended to prevent the Federal court, in suits prosecuted by citizens of another state or citizens or subjects of a foreign state, rrom interfering with a state in the preservation of its autonomy In maintaining Its own system of self-government, so long as such system is in harmony with the constitution of the United States. To this end therefore, the funds of the state. In its treasury', or held by its officers or agents for use in the administration of governmental affairs of the state, are not to be affected by the process of a Federal court, nor can such court entertain jurisdiction of an action which has for its purpose the invasion of rights of a state to manage and control Its Internal affairs, or of an action which will obstruct the state authority or Impair the state Instrumentalities In the discharge of legitimate functions in the maintenance of the state's integrity. To be more concise, the constitutional limitation is to the effect that the courts of the United States cannot entertain Jurisdiction in an action at the instance of a citizen who seeks to recover as against the state, property belonging to the state or the purpose of which is, and the result of which would be, to disturb the l^gal and orderly administration of the state's internal governmental affairs by Its duly appointed officers and agents." As to whether or not the dispensary commission Is a court Is briefly considered, Judge Boyd citing the constitution of the state of South Carolina, providing for the establishment of the different courts of the state, the court holding that while It Is true that the commissioners were empowered to investigate the transactions connected with the management and control of the state dispensary before Its abolishment, these were not empowered to determine any Issue of fact, enter any Judgment or conclude any party that might be investigated as to any right or interest involved. Judge Boyd then refers to the opinion of the supreme court of South Carolina deciding that a suit against the dispensary commission was a suit against the state. "The South Carolina supreme court," says the judge, "Is entitled to and has our most profound respect, but we do not feel entitled to adopt the construction given by that tribunal to the statute of South Carolina. The law governing us is well settled In the case of Burgess vs. Seligman, 107 U. S. It Is our conclusion, therefore that the conclusion of the circuit court for the district of South Carolina appealed from should be affirmed." It will be seen from this that Judge Pritchard has been affirmed in every particular. On motion of Attorney Stevenson for the commission a stay of mandate was granted foi; forty days. Mr. McCullough's Statement Mr. Jos. A. McCulIough, one of the receivers named sometime ago by Judge Pritchard for the dispensary fund, said yesterday upon reading the court's decision: "I presume that the state will apply for a writ of certiorari which In effect is an appeal to the supreme court of the United States from the decision of the court below. Judge Prltchard's order appealed from being an interlocutory order, and there is some doubt as to whether or not the appeal lies at this stage of the case. If this application is granted, I presume the matter will stand in abeyance until the supreme court of the United States passes upon the question. If it be refused, I presume that the receivers will be ordered to take charge of the funds. Of course the receivers will do nothing until they receive their instructions from the proper tribunal." AN EFFECTIVE SERMON. Trumpet Blast That Drove the People to Repentance. Ole Peter Cartwright was a famous preacher and circuit rider many years ago. The exhorter was holding a campmeeting in Ohio. There was a great number of campers on the field, and the eccentric speaker, addressed vast concourses at every service, but he thought too few were being converted. He felt that something should be done to stir the sinners to repentance, so he prepared a strong sermon on the second coming of Christ. He told how the world would go on in its sin and onH nt Inst OnhHf?l would sound his trumpet and time would come to an end. He described the horrors of the lost and the Joys of those who were saved. The sermon grew in Intensity, and he brought his people up to a grand climax, when suddenly the sound of a trumpet smote the ears of the anxious throng. There was a great sensation, and many fell upon their knees in terror and began to repent and pray. Women screamed and strong men groaned. Pandemonium was let loose for a few minutes. After the terror had somewhat ceased the preacher called to a man up a tree, and he descended with a long tin horn in his hand. The speaker then turned in fierce wrath and upbraided the people. He cried out in stentorian tones that, if a man with a tin horn up a tree could frightI en them so, how would it be in thelast great end when Gabriel's trumpet sounded the knell of the world! The sermon had a great effect upon the vast audience, and many hundreds flocked to the front and were converted. AN ANCIENT HIGHWAY. England's Great North Road Is Two Thousand Years Old. Before we reached Hatfield, a few miles out of London, we had already been impressed with the magnificence of this Great North road, which is said to have been built by a Mr. Caesar, whose headquarters were in Rome at the time. It is the direct route from London to Edinburgh and has been traveled for so many centuries that the earliest histories of England contain certain accounts of the movement of troops upon it. It is a great thoroughfare for vehicles of all sorts, motorists and cyclists, and in these modern days there are well worn footpaths along either side for pedestrians. We passed scores of motors, and I was told while in England that the popularity of motoring had noticeably diminished the num ber of first class travelers Dy ran. We found the road for Its entire length of 400 miles in perfect condition. In many portions the macadam is said to be nine feet thick. Long sections of the road are oiled, and on no part of it was there any appreciable amount of dust. There are few sharp curves, and the grades are so slight that it has become a great thoroughfare for speeders, with the result that there are many police traps for which one has to watch. We found that we could stop in almost any little village and get information as to Just where the traps were located?as, for instance, they told us at Bigleswade, which is a better looking place than its name, to look out for traps, just the other side of Buckden and again in approaching Weston.?Frank Presbrey in Outing Magazine.