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^ ISSUED SBXI'WSEHL^ i. m. orist's sons. pdbii.her?. J % Jfantilg JJerospaper: |[or the promotion of the political, Social. Agricultural and Commercial Interests of the people. {TE sino^b copVrivE cBNT?VA'wli established 1855. yorkville7s. c\7 friday7qctober i(>,190b. isto. 83. FOR HE By AGNES LOl Part One. A blazing July sun glittered down on the river, striking an unbearable flash from every ripple, parching the grasses in the fields beyond, and beating relentlessly on the backs of toiling, sweating men who were repairing the railroad bridge which stretched across ?h?? rivor like a hutre centipede. Even the great piers, which were the centipede's legs, had soaked In the heat until they were scorching to the touch, and dazzling little waves seemed to quiver .a the atmosphere around them. Beyond the river and the bridge the hot shining lines of rail stretched awaypast burntout fields, flat and blank and uninteresting, and on one side a thin strip of woodland crept down to the river's edge to relieve the tired eye with a bit of cool green and restful shadow. Tilled fields were in the far distance, and near to these, the heavy, solid bulk of great buildings, gray and somber and square. Littlo black dots, which on nearer view would have been windows, peppered the massive walls from end to end, but there was nothing else to relieve the huge, forbidding blankness of heavy masonry. There was a wall all around these buildings, too, and on it tiny watch towers, posted at regular intervals. Richard Everard, C. E? mopped his brow and turned his aching eyes from the river to fields, from fields back to his toiling gang of workmen. The work was important, and it was behind, for he was short-handed, two of his men having been overcome by the heat early in the afternoon. Everard and his assistant had rolled up their own sleeves to piece out the work of the two sick men. and were toiling with the rest, collarless, coatless, and none too clean. The assistant was unused to work of this kind, but he was plucky, and plodded doggedly away with a little blue line creeping around his lips. Everard himself was dizzy and tired. "Whew!" he whistled warmly. "Rest a bit, Willis, we'll get through now. If we have many more days like this, I'm going to chuck civil engineering and get a job washing dishes." The big, coppery sun dropped lower in the sky, 6 o'clock came and the weary gang gathered up its tools and piled on a hand-car for home. Everard, his assistant, and his foreman, a great, strong animal to whom fatigue seemed ar. unknown quantity, stayed to go over the work accomplished and test every inch of it. There was another hand car on the siding awaiting their use. From far out over the sun-baked fields an echoing "boom" came to the three men who stayed. They straightened up, looked at one another inquiringly, and then at the distant bulk of gray buildings. The heavy sound came again. "Another convict escaped," commented Everard, "and they've just missed him. Poor devils, they may be unmitigated blackguards, and a menace to the community, but I always feel rather sorry for them when they escape and get caught again. It must be { a horrible sort of sensation to feel that you're being hunted down." "would you give one ui mem u?ci, If he came your way?" Inquired the assistant. "Hanged if I know what I'd do. It would be the right thing, of course, but it seems rather a sneaky thing to tell on anybody." Out from the sheltering fringe of woods on the left, a pallid, close-cropped head peered at them unseen. The watching eyes were desperate, and cautiously alert, the bleached pallor of prison was on the face, fear and dogged determination curiously blended in every line, and every nerve in the crouching figure seemed to quiver, as the watcher hesitated whether to spring or to turn about and creep softly back on his track. The first boom of the prison bell came to him, and he started and shivered. Which should he do? The alarm was out for him. and already men were on his track. On the bridge by which he had meant to flee swiftly beyond the reach of these, stood three men, strong, steady-eyed, and little likely to have anything in common with an escaping criminal. Before him lay the river, where if he swam they would see his first stroke, and besides, the trembling weakness of his body told him that he could not reach the other side. He had been discharged from the prison hospital but the day before, and when this afternoon he had taken advantage of an unexpected and miraculously unnoticed chance for escape, the feverish haste of his exertions had left him dizzy and weak. The warning boom from the prison came again, inexorable. insistent. The law was behind him. warning all law-abiding citizens that a criminal was abroad, and that their duty was to apprehend and deliver him up to justice. Three men on tne Driage entrance started as the crouching, gliding figure came swiftly toward them, unmistakable with its shaven head and betraying stripes, and the shifting watchfulness of the eyes. By subtle recognition of master and men, the convict went straight to Everard. "I have just escaped from the prison, and the alarm is out for me now. It's for you to give me up or to let me go on. And if I don't get some clothes to cover up these stripes, I'm a gone man anyway. Willis and the foreman watched their young chief with curious and excited eyes. Everard hesitated, looking the convict over with half-disgusted, halfpitying intentness, angry with himself and with criminals in general. "There's a pair of overalls on the bank. Get into them and cut." said Everard. shortly, and turned his back and started out at the river as the man ran for them. It was the wrong thing t-> do; he knew that, but rejoiced in his heart that he had done it. Willis grinned appreciatively, and one garment after another was taken off and its absence concealed as well as possl R SAKE. USE PROVOST. ble, until the convict was transformed in a hasty patchwork of three other men's clothes. Finally Everard handed the man his own hat. "Here," he ordered, "cover up that head." A few moments later, when searching parties from the prison, scouring the country In hot haste, arrived at the river, all they saw was silent water shining in the slanting rays of the sun, an empty bridge and long lines of glistening rails. And, far in the distance, a rapidly lessening blot, which was a hand-car. When Mr. Richard Everard hastily glanced over his paper before going to work the next morning, he noted with grim amusement an account of the escape of a convict from the penitentiary the day before, and emitted a cautious whistle or surprise when he saw what manner of a man he had assisted to escape from his just dties. ANOTHER CONVICT ESCAPED! Embezzler Carter Had Served Three Years of Twenty Year Term! Everard rubbed his chin ruefully. Mr. Ralph Carter, who was at this moment showing a clean pair of heels to the law, leaving a balance due of seventeen years on his prison account, had held a position of trust in the Fidelity Savings Institution in Everard's own native city, and had appropriated the funds of the institution to such an extent that it had almost collapsed after his defalcation. He had been a young man to plan so enormous an embezzlement of other people's money?only twenty-six when sentenced?but he had gone through both trial and sentence with a dogged composure which many a criminal might have envied. None of the embezzled funds had ever been recovered; jndeed, the mystery was what the convicted man could have done with such an enormous sum of money, since they could discover no trace of the manner in which he had spent it, his mode of living being, on the surface, quiet and blameless, as became his position of trust and supposed income. Had it not been for this shrewd cleverness on his part, the de falcatlon could not have proceeded so far without being suspected. The inference was that either he had lost it in quiet speculations, which was doubtful, or had it hidden away snugly, intending at first to take flight with it, or after discovery, to quietly recover for his own use after his release from prison. _ _ "Whew!" murmured Everard softly. "Whew! Dickard. you did a nice little job yesterday, didn't you? Fidelity Savings Institution! Seems to me the paternal was a director, or treasurer, or some sort of high monkey-monk, there once, I hope this didn't hit him financially." The paternal was Everard's stepfather, Mr. George Wendell, all the father he had ever known, since his own had died in childhood. Everard rolled the paper up and scribbled his father's name and address on it, knowing Mr. Wendell would be interested, but he forebore to add any comments as to his own active participation in the events of the day before. It isn't neeessarv to advertise one's mistakes. "I must warn Willis and Gallagher to keep quiet," he thought, as he started out. "It might not be so awfully pleasant for us If the authorities knew that we had not only dressed this gentleman up to disguise him from the law, but that I had also given him a lift on the hand-car, and a couple of dollars to start on. The police are apt to be a little nasty when they catch officious citizens meddling in things like that. Seems to me I always did have a genius for putting my foot in it." A little over a year later, when Mr. Richard Everard, C. E., arrived on the scene of his new labors and surveyed it with a critical eye, It seemed that the only way to run cars over those massive Sierras was to equip them with wings and make them fly over. "But I'll do it!" said Everard, defiantly. scowling at the magnificent sun-bathed heights before him. "I'll run a railroad through there if I have to eat those big chunks of rock as I go along." This was a very extravagant statement for a conservative civil engineer to make, but Everard was no friend to niggardly caution. From his point of view an obstacle was merely something to be rushed at, head down, and triumphantly forced out of the way. There was plenty of pushing before him now. The necessity for this new railroad had arisen suddenly. About a year before. Investors in mining stock noted, first with casual, and then with inquiring. interest, the incorporation of a new silver mine, in a locality where no one had suspected that silver was to be found, deep in the rugged Sierras of the southwest. Then, for a time, peonle forgot the Croesus mine, as mines before have been capitalized and forgotten. until capitalists awoke to a realization that the output was enor-. mous, and a rush for Croesus stock began. And. with the rush, Croesus stock went up. It was said that two men were the owners of all this vast chamber of wealth which was being dug out of the mountains, one of them, John Thornton, a well known Chicago capitalist. and that one or both of them was at the mine continually, keeping an eagle eye on every ton of ore that came to the surface. They were progressive, pushing men, these two who carried the Croesus mine on their shoulders. Here were vast amounts of ore to be transported to smelting works; the mine was isolated, the nearest railroad touching at the I county seat, many miles off. They would have a branch road to connect the main line and the Croesus mine, and. through the happy stroke of a friend in power. Richard Everard, C. E. was suggested and accepted to master the engineering difficulties of the scheme: in fact, Everard was to build j the new road. It was an honor and a I heavy responsibility for so young a man. but Everard shouldered It joyously, and his mother, In a far away eastern city, wept tears of joy and tender pride as she read his exuberant letter, and Bettine, the sunny-haired stepsister, sang and trilled about the house as she had not for many months, for Bettine was growing daily more listess and fragile, and their utmost efforts might not hope to keep her with them long. The roving nature of Everard's profession kept him much away from home, and their mother's letters to him bravely concealed the constant grief which Bettine's hopeless illness caused her, but Everard knew that the little sister was not well, and the thought worried him. When he took up his headquarters In the raw, ugly "hotel" in the mining camp, and looked around at the rough men, the miners and his own workmen, who would be his daily companions for months to come, the sociable Mr. Everard shrugged his shoulders philosophically. "Well, I don't think I shall wear out many dress suits and patent leatners here. It must be a nice, economical placo to live in!" The mining town itself was not beautiful, even with the great mountains for its background. There was one thoroughfare, called by courtesy "a street," miners' shanties without number, the aforesaid "hotel," two well-patronized saloons and a very ugly "Town Hall" for general use as a place of amusement or headquarters for the settling of disputes. Everything was new, hideously new. There was just one building to be ?seen which could be called a residence, and Everard's eyes spied it at once and stared at it hungrily. It was half a mile or more from the town, lower down on the mountain side, and nestled on the sunniest of slopes, a roomy, well-built cottage where President Thornton took his comfortable ease during his visits to the mine. President Thornton could afford little luxuries like these. On the afternoon after his arrival, as Everard was already busy working with his men, coatless, collarless and dressed for hard work, a stranger came toward them with comfortable swinging stride, and stood for a few moments impartially inspecting Everard. his men and the landscape in general. Everard was beginning to feel irritable under surveillance, when the stranger came forward and held out a friendly hand. "Mr. Everard, I presume?" "That's what they call me. And if I may ask?" "My name is Hartley. I belong around here." "un: i snouia tnina you aia." Gerard laughed from pure delight of finding an agreeable companion, and In huge amusement at Mr. Hartley's modest announcement of his Identity. For the name of Hartley was a power here. He was the other owner of the Croesus mine, Its treasurer by office, and by choice Its superintendent also. It was said that he had not been away from the mine a singly day since the first miner had arrived on the scene, that he knew every ounce of ore that came from it, every man who worked in it, down to the very least, and handled them all with the iron fist of stern authority or the velvet glove of tact, as occasion might require. Hartley, in short, was the success of the Croesus mine, and here stood Hartley, goodhumored. pleasant-voiced and unassuming, with the shoulders and cleancut build of an athlete and the look of a boy in his browned face and alert eyes, although on closer inspection there were fine lines at the corners of the eyes and across his forehead, and the thick, dark hair at his temples was lightly brushed with gray. "I have word that Mr. Thornton and /IniiflrhfAM nrHl VlO Koro AmArrAtL* " 1110 uaufiuici ?? lit wv jiviu vx/iiiw. w *? t this modest man of money and power was saying, pleasantly. "He wishes me to bring you down as soon as possible. There are so few of us, you know, that we have to hang together and be friends, so you must make up your I mind to like us, for we're desperately sociable in this isolated place. Miss Thornton is courageous enough to accompany her father to make a home for him here, and she is our only link with civilization. Keeps us from getting savage and eating with our knives, and all that sort of things." He was off again with a friendly nod. and as Everard watched him swinging vigorously off in the direction of the mine, he felt a strong admiration rising within him for this pleasant, vigorous man, who owned half of an enormous mine and ruled a mass of turbulent men by the steady power of his single hand, but who had the face and manner of an enthusiastic boy, even with the microscopic wrinkles and gray hairs, which told of much responsibility and experience. He would like this Hartley, he was sure of that. H'm! What kind of a young woman ?or old one?could this be, who was heiress to millions, perhaps, but came to live in an isolated and potentially riotous mining camp, because her father's business interest called him there? Everard puzzled over it. and hoped that she was tolerably presentable, and somewhere near his own age. Sometimes these western capitalists made their money so swiftly that their poor families, thus suddenly and dizzily elevated, were rather a hard social pill to swallow. Everard was no snob, but he was a very fastidious gentleman in his notions of what a gentle-woman should be. Oh, well, she might be as homely as a hedge fence, but she was a woman, probably a very good-hearted one, if she would bury herself here for her father's comfort, and she would therefr\rck Ko rx ry In thft Hp.QPft Everard looked over his wardrobe with critical eyes that night. He had not expected social frlvolite9, and had not provided for very ceremonial occasions. Nevertheless, it was a very trim-looking young gentleman who started with the friendly treasurer and superintendent on the following evening, and Hartley eyed the immaculately neat costume with amused approval. A feeling of surprise and delight came to Everard as they were ushered into the Thornton cottage. What a rest this was to tired eyes, after looking at that hideously blank "hotel!" Here were no raw colors and crudely bright tones, nor no superfluity of riches crowding for space and recognition, only the softest, warmest harmony everywhere, the simplicity which best became a home in such a locality, and a vast abundance of hospitable comfort. There were evidences of wealth in plenty?Everard's well educated eye saw that at once?but it was not the kind of wealth, so Insecure of its position, that it must offensively push itself forward for notice. The president of the Croesus mine, ruddy, genial and obviously good-natured, gave Everard's hand a hospitable grip before Hartley could open his mouth for an introduction. "Mr. Everard, of course. I'm delighted, sir, delighted. I hope you will consider my house at your disposal as long as you are here. Jessica, my dear, let me introduce Mr. Everard, who is building a railroad for you to buy trinkets with, just as Hartley and I are running a mine for the same purpose." Everard took into his a hand warm and cordial, and as delicately tinted as a sea-shell, and looked Into eyes of softest brown, with tantalizing amber lights in them. The bloom of a wild rose was in her cheek, laughed on her Hds. as though life held for her nothing but what was fair and joyous and good, and above it all her head was crowned with living glory of red-brown hair, where the sunset tints had caught and lingered. "Mr. Everard, you are more than welcome to our primitive bungalow. We are delighted to have an addition to the diminutive circle we have formed for sociability and defense against the loneliness. There are so few of us, you know, that we must be friends, so we shall not allow you to be unsociable." Just what Hartley had said! Now, was this splendid young woman quoting Hartley, or had the treasurer and superintendent of the Croesus mine been quoting Miss Thornton? Somehow, Everard rather resented it, and laughed to himself at his own unreasonableness. "I may come so often that you will vote me a nuisance," he suggested, but she shook her head and smiled charmingly. "Impossible. We are never so delighted as when people are here. Poor Mr. Hartley is under standing orders to come down and keep us entertained." "Lucky Hartley!" thought Everard. Miss Thornton was more than gracious to the new guest. Hartley she met on the ground of perfect friendly understanding, and when she permitted Everard almost to monopolize her, when in all decency he should have given much more of his attention to his host and business-chief, the pleasant voiced treasurer merelv smiled drvlv. and de voted his conversation to Mr. Thornton. who took this sort of thing as a matter of course. He was used to having impetuous young gentlemen forget his very existence as he sat there; It was one of the penalties of having a beautiful daughter, and therefore to be accepted amiably. Miss Thornton sang for them In a beautiful contralto voice which crept Into one's soul and stayed there, she talked with Everard of books and men. the opera, the stage and great eastern cities which they both knew in common, and proved herself a rarely Interesting companion. She even vouchsafed fo step with with him through one of the long French windows for a moment, to view the silver glory of moonlight which flooded the mountains, making bright day of black ravines and sinister little hollows, and bathing the huge frowning rocks in quicksilver. When they finally arose to leave, Hartley turned to his hostess plaintively: "Please invite me to dinner. I've lived on those hideous messes at that hovel of a hotel until my temper Is ruined." "Why, of course, you shall come to dinner, both of you," she cried warmly, all her father's bubbling hospitality aroused at once. "You poor, halfstarved children, you shall have all the good things procurable in this place. I shall superintend that dinner myself. Tomorrow night, please, p.nd I shall expect you both." The journey back to the mining camp was a quiet one. Hartley seemed thoughtful and abstracted, which Indeed was not remarkable In a man carrying so much responsibility, and Everard was busy with the dizzy confusion of his own thoughts. Every tree, bathed in the white glory of the moonlight, every shrub and boulder sang aloud for him. the music of the spheres surrounded him with its vast harmony. Cold reason was whispering in his ear, scornful and mocking: "You can't have her. She is meant for some great multi-millionaire, or a foreign title as old as these mountains, while you are a promising young nobody. You are a gibbering Idiot to think of such a thing." But Everard shook his head impatiently, and reveled in the delight of the present. Reason was a niggardly old curmudgeon, always Jealously trying to steal the sweetness away from irresponsible joy. All that night he threshed around wakefuly, awaiting the dawn of another day only because it brought him that much nearer in seeing her again. Poor Dick Everard! Only one brief evening, and he was hopelessly, insanely, unreasonably, head-over-ears in love. The weeks and months which followed flashed by with kaleidoscopic brightness. Years after, they formed a vivid succession of pictures to Everard, in which the figures were always the same. In the background the huge bulk of the mountains, now frowning with formidable masses of rock, and again covered with soft verdure and bathed in warmest sunlight; in the middle distance the rough, noisy men, with their boisterous mirth or quarrels, the busy, difficult work of each day, Hartley with his miners, himself with his own toiling gangs; in the foreground, standing quite alone, a fair woman. In these days Everard shifted in rapid alternation between irresponsible joy and black despair. The day's work, with all its importance was but an interval between the times that he might seener; no excuse was wu uueau-uaic to send him down the path which led to the Thornton cottage. He even put himself to a vast amount of inconvenience. as the road progressed, in staying at the barren hotel and riding back and forth to his work, because it was intolerable to think of being where he could not see her. The thought of Hartley troubled him. What was this pleasant voiced treasurer to her or she to Hartley? They were on terms of unruffled friendliness ' which Everard had never reached. Did this mean an understanding, a quiet engagement so assured of its per feet security that Hartley could afford to let an Infatuated young donkey hang around her hour after hour? He often caught Hartley watching him with a thoughtful, half troubled contemplation. but from Jessica Thornton he had never received the faintest sign which would indicate that she knew he considered her more than an admired and well-liked friend. Miss Thornton was a wise young woman. But what of the days when she would go away, back to the social triumphs which were her natural world, and leave him to the black isolation of his work? At first Everard would not think of It, would only drain the cup of joy while his eager hands could hold It, and when the dregs came?but he could not admit the thought of that. There came a day, however, when Mr. Everard made a heroic decision. He would stop being a driveling Idiot and an unreasoning lunatic! He would know his fate at once, brace up and take It like a man If she sent him away from her, and get away from that part of the country as soon as his work would permit. With this tremendous resolution In view, Everard started out In the light of early evening?hours were extremely unconventional here?and took the upper path toward the Thornton cottage. There were two of these paths, the other, leading direct from the mines, being twenty feet below, by a slightly slanting ledge. Everard was about two-thirds the distance to his destination, which was In full view, when he saw Hartley on the lower path, evidently bound for the same place. The treasurer was walking head down In deep and seemingly troubled thought; he walked with no knowledge of time, nor place, nor men, his hands in his pockets and his broad shoulders swaying with a regular, rhythmic motion. "Oh, hang, him," thought Everard, impatiently and stopped aghast. "By Jove!" His swift glance flashed furtively toward the Thornton cottage. There was the flutter of a light dress there, as Jessica and her father came out to look at the heavenly afterglow of the sunset. A second more and their eyes might fall on both these approaching guests. Rival or no rival, this must stop! Everard took the twenty foot drop with- a reckless succession of scrambles. and landed on his feet with a shower of loose dirt following after. A moment later the treasurer was jerked about by a heavy hand on his shoulder. "Stop that!" commanded Everard, sharply. "Stop what?" Hartley looked at him questionlngly, but as though he had already guessed the answer. His lips twitched, a slow grayness crept over his face. He looked like a sick man. "Was I " "You were," said Everard, sternly. "I worked near a prison for six months, and I know that there's no mistaking a lock-step anywhere In this world." A quick. Involuntary sigh escaped Hartley as though In regret for all the concealment which had come to naught. He set his teeth with a sort of dull bitterness, and stared blackly Into the valley below them. "It's the first time I've done that in six months, and no one has ever caught me at it before. My God, Everard, I walked lock-step for three solid years, the cruelist invention a man ever made to brand another one through all the years of his life, and It's the only thing that I can't shake off before men. I've got will enough, I can do it some day. but In the meantime " Hart ley paused suaaeniy. uumg iu give me up again, Everard?" "You deserve it.' "Do you recognize me?" Everard stared, a trifle fastidiously. "No. I must say I have never had any friends in your line of business." Hartley passed this; he had to. "You done me a generous turn once. [ wore your hat for months." Everard started and peered at him Incredulously. Who would have known this browned man, was splendid specimen of physical development, who held men In the palm of his hand, for the pallid, shrinking convict who had slunk down to the river's edge on that hot July afternoon? "You're Carter," he said slowly, and there was a hard ring in the treasurer's voice as he answered: "Yes, I'm Carter. No, sir, I was Carter." "You can come back to camp with me," Everard ordered briefly. "I'm too dirty to go on myself, and you?you haven't any right to go to Thornton's." "You can believe me or not, though I don't suppose you consider a convict's word worth much, but since the day you gave me a lift on that hand-car, I've lived as straight as you have." To be Continued. GUM-TRAGACANTH. A Vegetable Substance Indigenous In Asia Minor. Gum-tragacanth, a useful vegetable substance which is applied to such diverse uses as the manufacture of lozenges, stiffening fabrics and marbling books, is being supplied in constantly diminishing amounts. The best variety is that exported from Smyrna, in Asia Minor. It is not grown, however, in the immediate vicinity of Smyrna, but comes from the interior, where the plant from which it exudes grows wild. This kind of gum consists of white, yellow and red hardened substances, which have become congealed after oozing out of the bush, or tree, in the hot sun of a Levantine summer. The gum is secured by an incision in the branch, which is made in the spring and summer of 1- ?>? tVio film Is llSliallV ettl'II yC'll, auu inv o , scraped !n September, when the first rains begin to fall. During the last twenty years the gumtragccanth trade of Smyrna has decreased. It has been estimated that the trace has fallen from 600,000 pounds to 55,000 pounds during that length of time. One of the main reasons for this decline advanced is that the trade needs a large amount of capital, relatively speaking, to keep it going. Nowadays this product is shipped from the interior of the country to Smyrna in an unsorted condition. It is there sorted into some different qualities in order to meet the demands of foreign markets, especially those in England, Germany and France, where only certain grades are purchased. Should the Smyrna merchant be unable to place all he has on hand in one season he usually finds considerable difficulty in disposing of it all. On the whole the trade seems to be passing more and more to Constantinople. The value of the exports of Smyrna tragacanth to the United States during 1907 amounted to only $15,656.?Harper's Weekly. iHisccllancous pending. HERMAN RIDDER. Familiar Appreciation of Democratic T re a surer. Philadelphia Public Ledger. Noah Webster said that a lightning rod was a metallic rod set up on a building or on the mast of a vessel, and connected with the earth or water below, for the purpose of protecting the building or vessel from lightning. Herman Rldder, the new treasurer of the Democratic national committee, is the lightning rod of the party in more ways than one, and, strange as it may seem, Mr. Rldder rather looks the part. A portly, well-fed looking individual stepped out of the elevator into the corridor of the Hoffman house, New York, where the Democratic national headquarters are, a day or two ago and met a friend. "What's the matter?" asked the friend. "You look as if you had been struck by lightning. What time is it?" "I don't know," said the portly, wellfed man, sadly. "You'll have to ask Rldder. He's got my watch." Succeeding Governor C. N. Haskell as treasurer of the Democratic committee is no easy Job; but if the Democrats had looked high and low, east and west, they would have had a hard time finding a better man than Mr. Ridder. When Mr. Ridder shakes hands he holds on to the hand until he gets something, and that is a trait that, while displayed unconsciously, is almost invaluable in a campaign treasurer in these days of hard sledding for campaign committees and publication of names before election. It isn't always money that Mr. Ridder gets, of course; but if he doesn't get money for the fund it's a sign that he didn't start out after money. Sometimes he wants information: sometimes he wants Just good will. No matter what he wants, he holds on to the hand he shakes until he gets it. He has been that way all Ma Hn luat r*a n'1 V?Pln It Tlfn vhA that is why Norman E. Mack, the chairman of the committee, chose him for treasurer. Mr. Mack has no sense of humor where politics are concerned. Overcoming Obstacles. The chances are that Mr. Ridder would not have accepted his new position if it had been offered to him in any other year or under any other circumstances. He is fond of expounding the theory that the only real enjoyment In life comes from overcoming obstacles. When Haskell resigned and the whole national committee emulated the Wright brothers, and went up in the air, the unhumorous Mr. Mack, remembering, possibly, what Mr. Ridder had said on some occasion or other, must have cogitated thus: "Well, here's a nice state of affairs. Obstacles, obstacles, obstacles. Humph! Ridder likes overcoming obstacles. I'll appoint Ridder to Haskell's Job." AnAJtidder was appointed. Th^ttell a story, and by the way, In campaign times it is astonishing how many stories "they" tell?they tell a story about the way Mr. Ridder went to work for the Staats Zeitung. They say that one bleak morning he appeared at the home of Oswald Ottendorfer, who owned the Staats, smiling with his eyes and being serious with his chin, as Is his wont. When he saw Mr. Ottendorfer he said: "Well, Mr. Ottendorfer, I've come to help you run your paper." He has been running the Staats ever since. But aside from this, Mr. Ridder still remains a lightning rod. There is proDaoiy no umei man in mc i/cmvrcratic party who has been offered so many nominations and never held public office. The "lightning" never seems to get a real grip on him. Some cheerful human chair radiator in the Hoffman house announced the other night that he had figured out that If Mr. Rldder had accepted all the nominations that had been offered him and had been nominated each time he was mentioned as a candidate, he would have been president of the United States, governor of New York, mayor of New York city and commissioner of public health, all at one and the same time. Mr. Ridder denies that such is the case. He says he wouldn't have been health commissioner. Pen-Picture of the Man. Mr. RIdder Is tall, and, while broad, is stoop-shouldered. He has a "longhead" in more ways than one, and his straw-colored hair Is brushed straight up off his forehead. He must have been the nicest sort of a boy to look at about the time he began doing long division. It is probable, though, that when he got to the trigonometry stage he began wrinkling up his brow and acquired the frcwn he still has. It is wonderful how trigonometry brings wrinkles. However, the frown may have resulted, to be a little slangy, In Mr. Ridder becoming more conversant with the various "angles" of life. He still has the frown, to be sure, but he also retains the knowledge of angles. He has even been called an angular man. but that, of course, was a Joke. A long while ago, Mr. Ridder says it's forty years at least, the new treasurer began to take notice of the fact that there was something in politics. Some people who don't like Mr. Ridder assert that he was then four years old and very, very precocious. This is almost certainly a misstatement. Mr. Ridder was perhaps 18. Whether he was precocious or not may be judged by' the fact that when he was 18 he stumped the whole lower East Side, and before he cast his first vote he managed and controlled a convention, nominated his own candidate for district judge and elected his rr.an. Fate With Large F. It would really seem, in glancing over Mr. Ridder*s career, that he had been fated, almost from birth, to become the treasurer of the Democratic national committee in the year 1908. Think of it! He was once an Insurance agent. Is there a better training for such a job as Mr. Ridder now holds than is gained by an Insurance agent? Of course, he might have been a book agent, but then there are so many unsuccessful book agents. No, fate de creed that Mr. Rldder should be an Insurance agent, and an Insurance agent he was?until he went Into the newspaper business. There again Is the hand of Fate?Fate with a large F. He went from the Insurance business into the newspaper business and now he is getting up a nice little list of contributors to the campaign fund that Is to be published in the newspapers. First to get the contributors, then to publish the list. That is Mr. RiddeFs job in this campaign, and certainly he has had preparation enough for it. Mr. Ridder can lay claim to the distinction of being one of the few native New Yorkers who are prominent. He is a New Yorker in everything except accent. He talks a little better English than the average born New Yorker, but otherwise he Is as thoroughly New Yorkish as any one could wish. "I love this city," he said yesterday. "I love the dirt on the streets." Now that is saying a good deal. When Colonel Clowry first went to New York to take charge of the Western Telegraph company. Mr. Ridder entertained him at a little dinner. There were twenty-five prominent men at the dinner?trust company presidents, public officials and that sort. They took a poll about the time the dessert was served, Just for the fun of the thing. Mr. Ridder was the only New Yorker at the table. Started Career Early. The precocity of Mr. Ridder has been displayed in other ways than in his political activities. He was eleven years old when he started out to make his own living. He began at the top, taking a Job in a hat store. Then he became a messenger for a Wall street Arm, and in that position he obtained a knowledge of that essentially New Yorklsh institution "Wall street," that has stood him in very good stead. It may be that even then Fate had chosen him for his present position, although there must be something wrong about that, for everybody says that Wall street is supporting Mr. Taft in this campaign. After he had found out a lot about Wall street he went into the insurance business. He worked fourteen years for the Tradesmen's Fire Insurance company and knew all about risks and that sort of thing at the end of the term, so he felt fully qualified for the newspaper business. What attracted him to the newspaper business he doesn't quite know. He didn't want to work for anybody, but Herman Ridder, however. He didn't want to be a reporter, or Just an editor. He Just wanted to run the whole paper. At that time he couldn't find anybody with a newspaper who was particularly anxious to have him run his property, so he started a new paper. It was called the Katholisches Volksblatt, but even the name didn't scare the new editor, because his parents were German, and he was used to such things. When he had worked the circulation of his panni* nn f a fha fnn r> Atnh onH rno 11 fcv mv ivjy nvvviif aitu A vauuvu that he had gone as far as he could, he started another paper, and began all over again. His first newspaper venture had been the first German Catholic newspaper In the city. His second was the Catholic News, which he soon made the foremost English Catholic paper In the country. Succeeded Ottendorfer. Somehow or other Mr. Rldder just couldn't satisfy himself. He encountered a lot of obstacles and overcame them and then forgot about them, and went around looking for new hurdles to jump over. He heard that Mr. Ottendorfer was ill and it struck him that perhaps he would be doing Mr. Ottendorfer a favor by running his paper for him. It took him about a month to convince Mr. Ottendorfer that his plan was just about the best thing that was ever thought of. But Mr. Rldder wouldn't work on a simple salary. He wanted part of the paper he worked for for his very own, and he got it. It was in 1890 that he became a stockholder in the Staats. Now he owns 496 of the 500 shares in the property. But to get back to the simile of the lightning rod. It would seem that Mr. Rldder is the sort of a human lightning rod that heat lightning, if there is such a thing in politics, affects, but which real lightning passes through into the "earth or water below." The heat lightning of honorary membership, trusteeship, chairmanship and treasurershlp has hit Mr. Rldder very hard, but he has always successfully dodged the real lightning of political office with a stipend attached. "I don't believe that a man can hold public office and be an unprejudiced journalist," says Mr. Rldder. "If a man takes office he is bound to have a feeling of gratitude toward those who put him in the position he occupies. That Is human nature. I wanted to stay in the newspaper business. I like it. So I didn't take office. But if the occasion had arisen where I was the one man that could beat the other fellow I might have acted otherwise. But I would have given up the newspaper business." Everybody's Friend. Out in Denver this summer they surprised all the delegates to the Democratic national convention by stopping the trolley cars whenever the lightning played. They didn't stop the cars, however, when ihe vice presidential lightning came so near hitting Mr. Ridder. Brilliant flashes played about that straw-colored hair of his only a few weeks since, when there was a lot of) speculation as to who the Democrats were going to name for governor. La-I ter the electric storm must have returned, for he was talked of for the lieutenant governorship. Storm warnings are already on display for next fall, when the Democrats will have to name a candidate for mayor of New York city. Will Mr. Ridder be mentioned? Yes, "prominently mentioned." And if, after being mentioned, he suddenly gives up the newspaper business, look out for a GermanAmerican administration in the city hall. There isn't a more popular man in the Democratic national headquarters than Herman Ridder. He is everybody's friend and, what counts for a great deal more in politics, everybody is his friend. Quiet and uneffuslve; riicmifioH vot UriHiv tr? the extreme: patient and always anxious to do his very best for every one, no matter whether it's a stenographer or a state committeeman; ever ready to listen and to give advice of the highest possible value; smiling, even when very weary with a day's work as newspaper proprietor, publicist and national committee treasurer; never angry and always optimistic?that's Herman Ridder. He says he is fighting for an idea, and the idea is tariff reform. There are a lot of people who might not agree with him on that point, but there are few who know him, who would not agree that it is a great pity the lightning never really hit him. OUR COMMON SCHOOLS. Some of the Disadvantages With Which They Contend. Following is No. 6 of a series of papers in which Prof. Wm. H. Hand, of the South Carolina university is discussing the difficulties under which the common schools of South Carolina are laboring, the subject of the present paper being "Change of Teachers": The frequent change of teachers is a constant brake and clog on the progress of the schools. It robs them of anything like an unbroken course of work and fixedness of policy. Ev| ery new teacher Introduces some new feature into the work of the school? perhaps a good feature In Itself, yet, no better than what It displaces. It requires readjustment to install anything new and the time and friction are a loss, unless the change Is decidedly for better. Generally speaking, our best schools are those which have the fewest changes in the teaching force. It requires at least one full session for a teacher to become acquainted with his patrons. By becoming acquainted with patrons I mean much more than mere social knowledge of them. I mean an appreciation of their tastes and their ideals and their ambitions and a knowledge of their peculiarities, If you please. Until he understands these he is not in a position to serve them and to lead them and a teacher who cannot lead is of but little force. Not until after a teacher has taught from four to six years In a community is he prepared to give it his best services. Yet how few teachers remain in one school three years. Some places change teachers every year simply because they have acquired the habit of doing so. Like any other bad habit, this one grows upon people. The trustees and the patrons frequently realize thai: their school is far inferior to some other school, and rush to the conclusion that they need a change of teachers, when the truth is that they ha.ve already injured their school by too many changes. Have any of my readers ever seen a pupil, or an entire class, set to work in the same place, in arithmetic for instance, at the beginning of each of three successive sessions?each time by a new teacher? Is it probable that this would have been done by any one reasonable teacher teaching the school the three sessions? This evil of change reigns in the town and country schools again. I have in mind one town in the state which had six principals in eight years. Change was the only remedy it knew, and it believed in heroic doses. A great many rural schools rarely have the same teacher two years in succession. Many of these changes, in both town and country schools, are due to the neighborhood Jealousies and quarrels already discussed. Many a community has its chronic critics of the schools, who are dyspeptic by nature and sour by habit. A teacher never satisfies them longer than one year. They know all about schools and their own children are paragons of perfection. If any teacher finds one of these children anything but a paragon, straightway there is trouble. To listen to these disgruntled fathers and mothers with their tales of woe requires patience and grace. In their eyes there is but one remedy?change teachers. Not two months ago I heard a man not far from sixty years of age declare that he intended to "break up" the only school in his district unlesj the trustees dismissed the present teacher. It had never occurred to him that perhaps the trustees were in the right. Such a man is in a small way an anarchist. In some instances faultfinding and and dissatisfaction are unwittingly encouraged by the board of trustees. The board, either ignorant of its functions or disposed to dodge an unpleasant duty, asks the patrons to elect the tocher. Such a course is an invitation to livision and the disappointment. cons- y>'nt to defeat, and will inevitably bring about discord. What is the board appointed for if not to manage the school by lessening the occasions for discord? A good many towns make a rule to employ young, inexperienced teachers and at the end of each year drop those who have failed, keeping the more successful ones until they have become really serviceable, then let them go because the trustees and the patrons are unwilling to pay for good teaching at par value. Some places boast that their schools are the gateway to the promotion of their teachers. This may be a credit to the school and discredit to the people. It is not creditable if the people are simply letting efficient teachers pass out from their schools in exchange crude inexperience, because the latter is cheap. A few town school boards are given to the indefensible habit of advertising every year for applications for every position in the school, when the board does not intend to elect a single new teacher. The king who marched his army up the hill, then marched it down again, did no more childish thing than these boards do. This thing is not only indefensible, but it is nuriful to the school, unjust to the teachers and dishonest to possible applicants. What meaning does such advertisement convey to every teacher in that school, no matter how efficient or faithful she may be? When the teachers ask for its meaning they are told that it is only a matter of form and that they need not be concerned. Great big grown business men playing like children! Then what about the innocent strangers who make bona fide applications in answer to what they suppose is a bona fide advertisement, only to be informed that it is a mere form? What teacher with any regard for ethics would apply for one of these places, if he knew that no vacancy existed and that the incumbent expected re-election? Is the board playing a game in diplomacy? Does it ?ntend to see if it can secure better te'achers, but if not, to re-elect the incumbent? Such game would be dishonorable. If a school board wishes to change teachers for any legitimate reason it has a perfect legal and moral right to do so. But the change should be made in a manly, straightforward manner. Let the board frankly tell the teacher not to ask for reelection. declare a vacancy, then advertise for applications?if that is the best way to secure teachers. Teachers themselves must bear their part of the responsibility for so many changes. There are some teachers who ought not to expect any school to keep them longer than one year. The captious (sometimes called spirited), the eccentric, the frivolous, the giddy and the ignorant ones may expect to float about like driftwood. Then there are some teachers who have an incurable mania for becoming birds of passage. 1 uncc n.ucv? a. teacher to resign her work to go elsewhere on the ground that she had been in her present position three years. Then there is that class of restless mortals who have more ambition than ability. They apply every time they hear of a vacancy and if they hear of no vacancy they ask when the next one is to be. They tell you very frankly that they are worth a great deal more than they are getting and that they are prostituting the profession when they work for so little. Finally there is that foxy diplomat of a teacher who seeks a place in March, accepts it in June and holds it until about two weeks before the school Is to open, then telegraphs the board that she has accepted elsewhere (at $2 a month more salary). She calls this resigning: in law and common sense it is a violation of contract. Such conduct under ordinary circumstances Is reprehensible and wholly unworthy of an honest man or woman.