Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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i ( ISSUED SEMI-WEEKLY. t. m. grist's sons. Pubiuhern. j % Jfamilg Betrspaper: <M promotion of the {political, "Social. Agricultural and Commercial Interests of the {people. {TE1?XfcJ?SA.n?K c*! ?VA'u:,t ' ESTABLISHED 1855. "" YORKVILLE, 8." C? TUESDAY, OCTOBER'2Q, 19Q8. INTO. 84. FOR HE By ACNES LOi PART II. "You are sailing under a false flag," answered Everard steadily, his heart hot with anger that this escaped Jail bird should have dared to be at her side day after day, as a friend and comrade, perhaps a lover, when she would have shrunk from him in horror and loathing had she known who and what he was. Silently they turned their backs on the hospitable cottage which had been their common destination, and made their way back to the camp, iney entered the hotel together, and the men lounging around there looked at them with half averted curiosity. There was always a crowd here in the early evening. good-naturedly or turbulently noisy, but tonight there seemed more than usual, and an odd quietness seemed to have come upon them as the two men approached. The ex-convict went with Everard to the door of his room. "May I come in for a moment?" In response to Everard's preoccupied nod he stepped in, closing the door behind him, and looked about the room with fiercely hungry eyes. In the flood of the rosy after-glow, which still filled the room, it had changed from a barren hole to crawl into for sleep, to the cosiest of primitive dens. There were certain "traps," relics of gayer and idler days, which Everard always carried with him. Boxing gloves, foils, a tennis racquet, a battered football, college banners and innumerable photographs were hung and tacked up all over, to hide the uninviting bareness of board walls, and the afterglow of sunset was over all of them. "I merely wanted to warn you to be on your guard," Hartley said slowly, his gloomy eyes still turned away from his host. "There is trouble brewing among the men?not yours, just the miners?and being right here in the midst of it, you might get dragged in. That is what I was going to talk with Thornton about. I " He stopped suddenly, his eyes fixed on a group of photographs arranged on the wall in front of him. His face twitched convulsively for a moment, then a fierce blaze of anger swept over It, as though he cursed the fate which had made him what he was, and then the anger was gone, and only a bitter acceptance of the present was left. It was the face of a man standing outside the gate of Paradise, watching it inexorably close against him! "I guess that's all. Good-bye," he said, shortly, and was gone, but the sound of his footsteps came stumbingly to Everard's ears, as though he knew not where he went. Everard went closer to the pictures and examined them, wondering which of them could possibly be the cause of this strange agitation. There were fifteen or twenty photographs there? friends, relatives, girls he had known at home, college friends, amateur groups?of his own taking. Which one could it be? Come to think of it, most of these pictures had been sent him from the very city in which Carter had committed his tremendous embezzlement. It might very reasonably be any one of them, but Everard had been at home so little during recent years that this enlightened him but little, and he rubbed his head and favored the innocent photographs with a puzzled frown. Then a new inspiration came to him suddenly, driving the pictures and their strange effect on the ex-convict entirely from his mind. That money! The paper had said that no record or trace of it had ever been found, and it was supposed that the clever defalcator had hidden it away for use on his release. This was the money which had bought his interest in the Croesus mine! These stolen funds had changed the gliding, furtive fugitive in the strip eu suu iu nit; ma.ii ui pu?ei anu sutcess, calmly self-confident and rising in the world each day. What else could have done it? The audacity of the thing took Everard's breath away. His wrath boiled in an instant, but with it all he was conscious of a sharp sting of pain. He had liked Hartley. Even as a rival, he could not find it in him to hate this man with the pleasant voice and magnetic friendliness of manner. Deep Into the night Everard lay awake and threshed it all out again and again, and each time the complications of his own situation with regard to this man seemed worse and more tangled. Plainly, his duty was to tell John Thornton what manner of man had insinuated into his confidence. If Hartley. as Carter, had deliberately stolen until he almost ruined the bank and the group of men who stood back of it, would he hesitate now to ruin the president of Croesus mine at the first chance? It was intolerable to think of permitting this man. with criminal instincts and a criminal record, to enter the presence of a pure and lovely woman as a trusted guest?a possible lover. More than this, would not Everard himself be deserving of her haughtiest scorn and contempt if he allowed this situation to continue? And yet?Hartley was on his mercy, as he had been once before. Should he give him the little push downward. much as ne uouDuess ueserveu u: I'nless Hartley had lied, lie was living: an honest enough life now, barring that unforgettable stolen money invested in the Croesus mine. Everard knew enough of human nature to understand how far all chances of reform would be tlung away, if he delivered this exconvict over to his just deserts. On one side stood a fair woman, the possibility of her love, were this strangely likeable felon removed from her path and the financial security of her unsuspecting father. On the other, the betrayal of a fellow-man to the revenge of outraged justice, a vision ol shaven heads and grotesquely striped suits, seventeen or more years of lockstep and the old monotonous horror of the prison cell. Trouble among the men! It is an ominous phrase, and even Everard, as R SAKE. VISE PROVOST. little as he had seen of the ways of Isolated mining camps, found himself for the first time wishing that the Thornton's were not there. How long the storm had been brewing it was hard to tell, since scarcely a mutter of the distant thunder gave warning of its approach before it had assumed formidable proportions. The next morning the men were quietly at work in the mines as usual, and Everard rode down the valley along the line of the new road, five miles of it now, and Hartley went through his more difficult diplomatic troubles at the mine, as though the discovery and wrathful judgment of the night before had never been. The time was coming when Everard would at least be compelled to move his quarters farther down the line, to follow the steadily creeping road on its way and keep in touch with his own men, but he dreaded leaving without telling John Thornton what he knew, and he dreaded still more the feeling of mental smallness which came to him at the idea of bearing tales, even against a felon. To leave Hartley there alone, dally by her side, with his pleasant voice and steady eyes masking a past of which she had no conception, would be insanity. And then in the gray dawn of the second day. someone came swiftly and quietly into Evorard's room, shook him vigorously, and Hartley's voice was in his ears. "The men have gone up to Thornton's. Hurry, man! They're simply crazy, the whole lot of them!" There was a commanding snap in the ex-convict's voice which brought Everard flying out of bed. His fingers seemed frightfully slow and clumsy as he dove after his clothes. Hartley's swiftly whispered explanation keeping time to his thumping pulse beats. "It all comes from a chap by the name of LafTerty, who came here about six weeks ago. He's a slippery scoundrel with just enough smartness to make trouble, and that's what he's been busy at every since he came. I've felt it in the air, but somehow I couldn't get my finger on it. I've been looking him up on the quiet, and find that he's made a big row everywhere he's been, and barely escaped with his miserable hide from some of them. I found something with enabled me to fix up a little plan to cut his claws once for all, but here the confounded little reptile has gotten in one ahead of me. He has those men worked up to such an Insane pitch that they believe anything, and the Lord only knows what they'll stop at this day." Out of Everard's window the two men dropped with superlative caution, revolvers cocked, and made their swift way toward the Thornton house. The gray of early dawn was deepening into its rose and gold, and already they could hear a sound like the distant roar of an ocean, and the huge, hoarse voice of a mob. With one accord they broke A 1/N^vLt ? ? a.?4 Hilii it run, wuiuiiiui eyra iuumu^ uui that no one should intercept their progress. "Thornton! Thornton! We want Thornton!" The discordant howl resolved itself Into this as they came nearer, skirting a strip of wood to get close to the house unseen. "They knew well enough what they'd get if they ta' kled me, the scoundrels!" the treasurer and superintendent muttered, jerkily, a gleam of stubborn determination changing his pleasant face to flint and stone, but Everard's only answer was a quick exclamation of norror. The Thornton veranda had just come into their view, and on it stood the ruddy, strong old man, his arms folded as he patiently awaited a lull when he could make himself heard. A stone shot past his head, crashing a window behind him, and at the same moment Jessica Thornton, startled but bravely defiant, came swiftly out of the doorway and stood by his side, her slender hand laid protectingly on her father's arm. Awakened by the uproar, she had stopped only to slip into a neglige of heaven's own blue, and had sped out there to be with her father in the time of danger. Startled and anxious, he seemed to beg her to go in, but she only stood closer to him and shook her head. Surely they would not dare to strike him when a woman stood so closely in the line of their aim! Her cheeks were flushed with excitement and indignation, her eyes were starlike, her head royally up-tilted as she stood before them, her father's own daughter, in defiant courage and pride. Near the side of the house a small cyclone suddenly struck the swaying mob, where the line was thinnest, as it stood temporarily silenced and astonished by this unexpected apparition. An arm, which had been raised to fling a handful of loose dirt at Jessica Thornton because she represented wealth and the spending of it, dropped suddenly numb and paralyzed under a crushing blow from the butt of Everard's revolver, two terrible figures threshed their way through the line before the men had realized wno tney were, and in the next instant Hartley and Everard had bounded over the veranda rail and stood beside father and daughter. For the first time since he had known her, Everard stopped neither for Jessica Thornton's approval nor censure. The arm which had proved itself mighty in her defense was swung swiftly around her. and half carried her into the house. She went unresisting. her warm breath on his cheek, her eyes still dark and bright with excitement. "I wanted to help my father." she whispered, looking up at him. a very ' child now in gentleness, as she had been an angry queen before. "You must let us do that." Everard answered, unsteadily. "It is no fit place for you. <>h, my darling, those reckless fools might have killed you." A faint flush crept into the face raised to his. i "Rut you wouldn't have let them." i she whispered back, and then Everard knew that it was not?it never had been Hartley. He gave himself one brief instant of heaven, taking her face in both hands and drawing her to him with a tenderness almost fierce in its haste, since duty urgently called him out there, and his help might at any moment be needed to fight for her ultimate safety. When he was gone, she knelt at a chair where she could peep at him unseen, and note with proud beating pulse how straight and unafraid he stood in the face of danger. Everard heard Hartley's voice before he got out again, stern and wrathful, and then the insistent roar of the crowd. "We' ain't treated right." "We want more money." "Won't stand these slave-driver hours." "You don't want anything of the kind!" Hartley thundered back at them, W ' J^MI ^?B!lL | FOR PRE fearlessly, a blaze of angry scorn in his eyes. The strong nerve which this man had once shown in court under sentence for crime, was there still, defiant and undaunted. "There isn't a mine in this state that gives its men better wages or shorter hours, and you know it! And there isn't one in the Union where the men get more considerate treatment. You know that, too! I could pile up instances on vou until you squirmed with shame. You never thought of making a complaint until six weeks ago, when that sneaking hound over there came and began to make trouble among you. And you've listened to him like brainless lunatics, and you've let him work on the worst there is in you, and lead you about by the nose until a free country ought to be ashamed to call you citizens. If I asked you to explain where the trouble lay this minute, you wouldn't know what to say, until you asked Laflferty. Whatever Lafferty thinks you think, and whatever Lafferty says you tune it and sing it after him. Bah! I'm ashamed of you! I thought we were hiring men, and now I find we have a lot of sheep to look after!" Thornton and Everard stood with cocked revolvers, listening w'th apprehensive amazement to the blazing vials of scorn which Hartley poured out upon his men. Of all the unprecedent-. ed modes of treatment for a maddened mob! It was suicidal. Everard was I orave enougn, even recaiess on occasion, "but this seemed like dropping over the edge of a volcano to see how it felt. But Hartley knew his men. They were angry, stung with sullen resentment. but an uneasy note of shame crept into the surging murmur of voices. And Hartley was not afraid of them; that was the beauty of it. Then the unsilenceable voice of Lafferty arose again from their midst, flinging back his own gibes at the men for seeming to half turn, but another excitement drowned him out. On the edge of the crowd, the man whose arm Everard had struck down looked on with venomous hate in his heart and the fiercest of aches filling his arm and shoulder. Cautiously he raised his left hand, steadying a revolver on it. and aimed full at Everard, who stood well forward, watching only that tumultuous soot from which Laf ferty's voice came, that he might be ready for an attack upon his companions from that quarter. But Hartley's alert glance had caught the deliberately hateful movement, and all that Everard realized in the first moment was the sudden crack of a revolver. Hartley's shoulders swiftly hurling themselves in front of him, and Hartley's body sagging limply for a second, before he straightened up again. Everard would have assisted him in the house, sick and remorseful for he knew not what, but the ex-convict shook his head. "It is all right. I guess?I owe you several good turns anyway." And amid the confusion of the moment, Everard was conscious of just one coherent thought. Whatever else happened, he would not?he could not betray this man now. The men had seen the quick move inent. and were not slow to appreciate courage. A few turned for the man who had fired the shot, but he had fied, and never again appeared in the pathway of any of these people. Someone in the crowd called out half shamefacedly. "Good for Hartley!" and then a silence came on them all. Gut of the woods on their right, unheard in all the confusion, men on horseback appeared like grim statues of retribution. Every man had his Winchester and revolvers, every eye was watchful and ominous; they sat like carved from stone, but the rioters knew well enough that at the first movement the new comers would come to a Hfe that was swift and terrible. The law was upon them. Two of the horsemen dived suddenly into the crowd and brought out a struggling, cursing captive. It was Lafferty. Hartley watched it all with grim interest, as lie leaned on Everard's shoulder and pressed his hand .closely to his chest, apparently undisturbed by the close proximity of the law he himself had once outraged. In the rush and excitement he had come here hatless and coatless, and an ugly red stain was creeping out on his linen, and growing slowly larger. He leaned forward as though to speak, and the same tense silence waited upon his words. "Men, this is the sheriff of the county, and his official escort. They are here to preserve order. I did not expect them so early, but they have an errand of their own, to arrest Mr. Dan I lei Lafferty, alias a dozen other names, I for killing an honest and decent man /'? wmBwMmV.. *% > - ^,aBBIMBBK8MtSMKa&%jMHSS%88 SIDENT. r who caught him cheating at poker." The steady voice wavered and went lower; Hartley pressed his hand more tightly against the red stain on his chest. "As for you?go back to your work, and have the grace to be ashamed that you have let such a man fool you. Whw you have any complaints to make, come hereafter to Mr. Thornton or to me, as man to man, and we will do our best by you." John Thornton's heavy voice took up the thread where Hartley had dropped it. "What Mr. Hartley says to you, now and in the future, is law in this place. The mine will be open today as usual, and you may report for work or not as you wish. Those who are not satisfied to do so may call for whatever Is com ing to them, and consider their services permanently dispensed with. That is all." He turned and bent over Hartley, who was obviously growing weaker, sagging heavily against Everard who almost held him. Jessica Thornton stole cut again with anxious eyes and trembling lips and motioned them to bring the wounded man into the house, but Hartley braced himself up again, holding tightly to the wound from which his life and strength were streaming away, shook his head at her, and looked at Everard with a reckless laugh. The sheriff and his posse were fairly out of earshot, the men filing quietly away with backward glances at their wounded head. "No, I guess you'd rather not," he said, unsteadily, unheeding Everard's deprecating exclamation. "Mr Thornton?I?there's something I am going to tell you. I've spent three years of my life in state prison, and there's seventeen more waiting for me if I show my face in that state again. There was a man in the penitentiary?desperate chap?didn't have long to live?and before he died?told me?of this spot where he'd discovered <1 tremendously rich deposit of silver. His?secret; only told me because?knew he'd never see freedom again. When I escaped, there was one person?my mother?believed pretty much in me yet?got enough money for me to fix up and hustle to capitalize this mine. You? know the rest. I furnished the place? and all the work that my hands and brain?could do?you put up the money. Thought you'd rather not?have a jail bird in your house." Everard cringed under the confession; It seemed almost as though he were making it himself. Father and daughter stood mute and horrified and John Thornton's lips twitched. He had loved this man as a son. Then he spoke slowly, his eyes turned away. "Mr. Everard, will you assist Mr. Hartley into the house, while I send to town for a surgeon? Jessica, have the blue room prepared for Mr. Hartley at once." When the first day of excitement was over, when the sheriff and his posse huil cime with their nrisoner and the men had returned quietly to their work in the mine, as they might not have done had it not been for the memory I of that ghastly swaying figure on the veranda, the Thornton house quieted down to a hush which it had never known before. In the spacious "blue room" the wounded man lay weak and quiet, but with eyes which glittered with fever, and a ceaselessly working brain. He would live, unless unforeseen complications set in. but after all, what for? I'ntil deep in the night he heard John Thornton pacing up and down in his library, and knew that his reckless confession of the morning had smitten this big-hearted old man like a terrible blow. Both father and daughter had avoided the vicinity of the blue room since Hartley had been carried up to it. although they had sent their wound ed guest all the care and attention that well-trained servants could bestow. Hartley turned his face to the wall and set his teeth. How much hunger must this sort of thing last? Jessica Thornton would marry Everard; he was glad of that, both for her and for Everard. Her father had more than once hinted that no brilliant alliance for his daughter would cause him half the Joy of being able to call Hartley his son. Poor old chap, he would drop that Idea quickly now, as though it were a loathsome thing. "It's Just as well, I suppose. He doesn't know, dear old man, that the one I loved I had to put behind me, and that even If my position would permit me to court another woman, no uue eise wuuiu ever ue qune me same. I wonder what they'll do to me, now that they know? Poor Everard, he took it hard, as much as he despises me. He's a good fellow. He hasn't been near me, either. I thought possibly he would; I wish he would." Where was Everard, that nothing had been seen or heard of him? Hartley was not the only one that wondered, but Everard had that day received a letter from his mother which had called him away in the utmost haste. It was brief and incoherent. His stepfather was dead, had been dead three weeks, and they had not sent him word for reasons which would be explained later. She had left her affairs in the hands of her brother, and was coming to him, with Bettine. If it would not be convenient for him to have them, they would go to the nearest town and stay there. The letter had been delayed, and they were due at the county seat that afternoon. Everard swung himself on his horso and rode mile after mile as rapIdly as the willing animal could go. The minutes crawled for him; the bustling county seat had never seemed such an endless distance away. But when the train drew Into the station he was waiting there, and the two black-robed women had scarcely reached the steps before he was there also. "Oh, my boy! my boy!" Margaret Wendel clung to her firstborn as to her last hope In life; Bettire, his step-sister fragile, delicate as an Aioine flower, laid her cheek against his arm and looked up at him with the eyes ?f a hurt animal. A sudden chill of apprehension struck through him. How frightfully Bettlne had changed! Bettlne, whose cheeks had once been June roses, and her every movement the lightness of pure Joy. Not until he had settled them at the most presentable hotel the county seat afforded, and Bettlne had left the room, was any reference made to his mother's strange letter. Then Margaret Wendel stood before her son with every nerve quivering, and told him of the shame that had come upon him. "My husband Is dead. He shot himself because he dared not live and face what was before him, and he left a ?pnfes8!on, which the terrible newspac. pers flaunted far and wide. I think they were all eastern papers, though, and I prayed that they might not come here where you could see it. He stole, Dick?my husband and Bettine's father?because the passion of speculation was on him, and he lost, until other men's money, coming too easily into his hands, followed where his own had gone?so much of it that there was no nope or restoration, wnen tne crasn came too near, th?re was no escape but death. Everard dropped his eyes and stared at the floor, the dull red of shame creeping over his face. And he had dared to stand up In righteous wrath and Judge another man for such a crime as this! His mother's broken voice was in his ears. "This is not one-half of it, Dick. Once before the same thing occurred? five years ago. To think that such a thing could happen twice! At that time suspicion, fell upon a young clerk in the bank, and my husband let It rest there. He knew he was a coward and despicable, but he dared not speak. The memory tortured him for five years, and he went back to speculation again to drown it. They convicted Ralph Carter of another man's crime, and gave him twenty years in prison. The confession said he thought Mr. Carter knew who had done it; but he took the guilt when he saw how it was thrust upon him, because?he was engaged to Bettine, and he would not show her father up to the world as a thief and coward. We did not tell you of the engagement, Dick; you were away from home, and it had come to so terrible an end anyway. Bettine never spoke of Ralph Carter again; but since that day she has been dying before our eyes. Oh. Dick, where is that wronged boy? He escaped from prison. but to what end may not undeserved disgrace have driven him? Bettine will die if Ralph Carter is not found! Everard arose like a man walking in his sleep. His hands opened and closed nervously: black shame was upon him, and, when he spoke, his voice sounded hoarse in his own ears. "Mother, you must be ready to continue your journey at the first ray of dawn tomorrow. I must get you to camp?immediately. On the second morning after he had been shot, as Hartley lay quiet and dispirited in the blue room, wondering what blow Fate meant to launch at him next, his quick ear caught the sound of a soft commotion down stairs. It was quite natural that people should be down there, but it made him restless and excited. After that there was five, ten minutes of comparative silence, then a hasty step at his door, and Everard was beside him, his boyish face gray and miserable, his speech halting. "Hartley?I mean Carter, I ask your forgiveness. If you can't give it, after nrnoumpfl to ?lt in iuder lilt" \>U,> I ?c )/ vnu>..??. ^. . ? w ment >n you. it is no more than I deserve." "Oh. old man. never mind what you said. How did you know? Has he cleared me? Oh. Everard, I've lived on the rack five years, waiting for a miserably weak man to work up his courage." "He is dead." Everard answered slowly, staring beyond Hartley out of the window, and tingling with shame, "but lie left the world a confession. He was my step-father." An involuntary start was the wounded man's only answer, but when he spoke a few moments later, his voice was struggling with a gladness which even his respect for Everard's misery could not wholly conceal. "Now I know why It was that I saw her picture In your room. How that memory has tormented me! Tell me, Everard, Is she " But Everard merely raised his voice and called: "Betty!" ( She came In like a spirit of Joy, swift and eager, dropping her head with little sobbing breaths in the hoi- , low of the arm outstretched to receive , her, and Everard stepped out softly and left them alone. It was his turn to stand outside the gate of Paradise. , These two were happy, but he must set , down his own cup of Joy untasted. Jessica was a proud woman; he might not ( ask her to share an heritage of cowardly dishonor. He would let her go, ( and go away himself as soon as his work here would permit. What beautiful intuition told her , what was In his mind, and saved weeks of miserable misunderstandings? She ( met him at the foot of the stairs, and showed that she knew what for the sick ; man's sake he had already briefly told her father. The light touch of her fingers on his arm was eloquent. "Dick, dear, you must let Mrs. Wendel stay here with us, and the little sister also. The hotel is no place for them, and besides I wish to get acquainted with?our mother." What Everard said to her then no , man heard, nor could have heard, since It was not altogether coherent or consecutive, but the language he spoke was as old as the mighty hills which raised their heads around them, as new as the fairest half opened flower that bathed in the sunshine of the lower slopes, and both of them understood and were satisfied. THE END. ANDREW JOHNSON'S END. To the Last He Was Bitter Against General Grant. William H. Crook's reminiscences of ( "Andrew Johnson in the White House" in the Century deal with that president's impeachment, trial and acquittal and his last days. Mr. Crook says: There was one man of those whom he . considered his enemies whom Mr. Johnson had not forgiven. It was only a day or two after he took his seat in the senate that he sent for me to come i to his hotel?the old Wlllard on Pennsylvania avenue. I found him, on a nearer view, looking very little changed. He was older, of course; there was i more gray in his hair; his whole face < looked bleached. He seemed finer to i me; not less strong, but more delicate. 1 There were no more lines in his face; 1 those that had been there were deeper graven; that was all. i asked for all the family, and he told me what there was to tell. Mrs. < Johnson, I knew, was still living, but i poor Robert Johnson, had died soon j after his father returned, to Tennessee. I He spoke to me of them both. The 1 .grandchildren were growing up. He I told me of his fight for election. 1 "And now," he said, "I want you to i tell me where I can find notices about Grant In my scrapbook. You remem- 1 ber where you pasted them In. I I don't." He got the scrapbooks and I i put slips of paper in to mark the refer- I ences he wanted. As I rose to go he 1 said: : "Crook, I have come back to the 1 senate with two purposes. One Is to j do what I can to punish the southern brieradlers. They led the south into l secession and they have never had i their deserts. The other?" He paus- i ed, and his face darkened. i "What is the other, Mr. Johnson?" i I asked. "The other is to make a speech i against Grant. And I am going to 1 make It this session." I He made the speech in less than two 1 weeks from that evening. It was a ] clever one, too, and bitter. Every < point of Gen. Grant's career which might be considered vulnerable was very skillfully attacked. The fact that he had tuken gifts and that it was suspected he desired a third term were played upon. Yes; Mr. Johnson did what he had intended to do, had been Intending to do ever since he left the White House. He was the best hater I ever knew. He went back home at the end of the session, and then to visit his daughter, Mrs. Stover, in eastern Tennessee. There, given up to the family associations he clung to, and with the grandchildren he loved, he was stricken suddenly with paralysis, and on July 31. 1875, he died. It seemed as if, with his speech against President Grant, some spring of action which had kept him fighting broke. The rest was peace. dMisccUancmis heading. THE COURSE OF CHOLERA. Always First Appears In Russia and Travels Across Europe. Russia has the melancholy celebrity of being the first European country in which cholera has made its appearance In all the visitations of this scourge, says the Boston Transcript. The first great epidemic, that of 1830, passed into Russia apparently from Siberia, thence spread westward Into Germany and France, leaped the channel barriers and afflicted Great Britain, thence It was carried by immigrant ships to Quebec. So rapid was its advance on this continent that though the first death from cholera of which we have any i record in North America, occurred lii Quebec on June 8, 1832, It was followed by another at New York exactly a fortnight later. The disease spread over the greater part of the United States, and was said to have been carried Into the straggling hamlets of the then "far west" by the troops destined for the Black Hawk war. That visitation of the cholera was the most terrible the western world has known. It is estimated that on the continent of Europe there were at least 900,000 victims. For a time the medical profession, confronted by a malady which few of Its members had ever seen, was overwhelmed. Men died in obscure villages in rural regions, as well as in crowded cities, though where population was most congested the rate of mortality proved the highest. Since then the course of every cholera epidemic has been practically the same, first making itself known in Russia and then traveling rapidly across Europe. When the world recovered from its first horror it set to work to study the cholera, and now it is known that pure drinking water is the first requisite for the defense. The cholera germ must be taken into the system, for the disease is not contagious. An abundant supply of good water, rigidly protected from pollution, is a much more common possession of large communities now than it was seventyfive years ago, and public sanitation has made giant strides. It is in backward countries, those which lag in the rear of sanitary development, that cholera gains volume. Hence it is that Russia is the point of departure of the disease for Europe. In Russia there are vast regions which modern sanitation has not touched, where the disease rapidly becomes epidemic even before its presence is known or heeded in the great cities. The Reformed Broncho. To the general public the word broncho suggests everything wild and vicious in horseflesh. One associates the usefulness of the broncho almost entirely with the rugged west. That this wiry little aniraal could ever develop me points or a good pars norse woui^u. be received with much reservation by most persons. Yet some ten years or more of crossbreeding, says Country Life In America, has accomplished this somewhat imazing result. Today one can see on the bridle paths of Central Park the ivell-groomed broncho fraternizing as in equal with the Blue Grass thoroughDred, and his number Is constantly growing. To be sure, he is no longer the hammerhead with a pronounced ewe neck, ilmost as devoid of flesh as a skeleton, fie has developed a fine crest in this jpbreeding and can show as fine a neck is any Kentucky-bred horse. His middle piece is no longer distended from much eating of grass food, lor Is he so loosely Joined to his quar era as his prototype. Higner living jiuh ounded him into a strikingly well)roportioned saddle horse. In his new estate he subsists less on the fresh, RESIDENT. uicy grasses, and the new order grows lulte a different animal. ; But through all this transformation ) te still retains the leg characteristics >f his bronco ancestry, perfect in symnetry, rather light In muscle and slen- < ier in bone, but the muscles of strong 1 luality and the sinews very firm. His power of endurance has diminshed somewhat, but even so he has 1 ew equals and no superiors. His ' oughness and grit have changed little ' n the cross-breeding, and doubtless if | urned out to the freedom of the range < ie would give as good an account of J ilmself as did his ancestors in the ear- } y days of the west. \ m i 1 W Taxicabs in London, as in New 1 fork, are a marked success, and the lansom is being crowded out, reports J say. Although scarcely a year has ( passed since these swift moving: carriages appeared, the capital already Invested in London taxicabs is $10,000,000. There are 758 taxicabs on the streets, 2,600 taxicabs on order and 1,700 licensed drivers. There are eight London taxlcab companies, the average day's earnings of a cab being $11.20. The average cost is $1,703. THE LAW AND THE MOB. Interesting Inciderrts of the Spartanburg Episode. Assistant Adjutant General Brock, who is back in his office after an exciting experience with the mob at Spartanburg, says the Columbia cor respondent of the Charlotte Observer, Is bubbling over with enthusiastic praise of the mllltla that was on duty at the jail, and relates some interesting sidelight incidents of the two strenuous days, which have not been published. "My experience at Spartanburg," said General Brock, "demonstrates strikingly that all that is needed in this part of the country to check mob violence Is a Arm, determined stand by the authorities, with a sheriff of grit and manhood like Sheriff Nichols to hold the fort till the militia can be brought into play. There is good stuff In the enlisted men of the militia throughout the state, and they can be. depended upon to act like soldiers every time they have leaders who set the example. The men we had about that Jail in Spartanburg meant business and they would have shot to kill at the command. That was because the sheriff had grit and nerve and was determined to do his duty at any cost. And one company particularly, Captain Nichols' company, deserves special credit for its soldierly bearing and conduct. These men were recruited from the very mill where the lady was assaulted and the men in the mob were of their own fleeh and blood, their very kinsmen. "A striking: illustration of this conduct came under my own observation. A private, who came to Columbia with us, was one of those on duty. I saw him have a very interesting: interview with his own father, whom he caught sight of in the crowd. He went to his father and warned him that the militia meant business and would shoot to kill, that the elder man had better go home as it might possibly be his fate to be shot dead by his own son. The father at first tried to shame the young man, but he failed and went away. I saw him afterward and he said he was glad he took his son's advice. "But this speech-making to mobs gives me a tired foeling, and I think it should not be Indulged in, at least so far as making the mob promises and concessions. The mob needs to learn, possibly by bitter experience, that it is outside of law, is a violator of the law and will be given no consideration. An effort was made to have Sheriff Nichols make a speech to the m^^j^^lined^as did Governor AnIt is reported here that both Judge lYiugu uiiu ovut'uur octtac 111 tauii uuno to members of the mob promised them that the negro Irby would be speedily hanged, although there Is no charge that Irby committed the actual crime for which the mob wanted to lynch him, but made only an attempt, being frustrated. Year after year the legislature has refused to make attempted criminal assault a capital offense. "Little BUI" Howard, the moonshiner in prison at the time, who was pressed into duty when the sheriff had only himself, two constables, Mr. Brock and another Howard to defend the Jail against the mob, did splendid service. It was he who broke, with a well directed bullet, the arm of the man who was hammering against the Jail gate with a sledge hammer. Little Bill used a shotgun, but he had neglected to put a shell in when he "pulled down" on a fellow who had Jumped upon the Jail wall with a weapon, otherwise the man would undoubtly have been killed, said Colonel Brock. "While hurrying through the streets to the Jail on the first warning of immediate danger," said Colonel Brock, "Sheriff Nichols had to push his way through crowds. Members of the mob shouted at him demanding the keys. " 'Here are my keys,' called back the sheriff, holding his keys up. 'If you >?* * L tf/mi nflll V*o iro f a to Irn thom V>ttlll 11ICU1 *uu n III I1UT VJ w Iiuiv I want you to understand I will never give them up.'" Rev. Mr. Harley came into the Jail, said Colonel Brock, at a critical time. "But" he continued, "I couldn't repress a smile in spite of the seriousness of the situation at the good-bye words between the preacher and the sheriff. " "Good bye, sheriff,' the preacher 9aid, grasping the sheriff's hand warmly as the. tears gathered in the ecclesiastic's eye. 'I shall certainly remember you in my prayers.' " 'Now look here,' replied the sheriff, that's very kind of you to remember me in your prayers, but I would advise you to do most of your praying for those men out there in the mob. It looks to me as if they are going to need i lot of sympathy before this is over.'" CATCHING DEVIL FISH. Thrilling Sport In Spearing These Queer Denizens of the Deep. There Is no more thrilling sport than harpooning the devil fish, the ?lant ray or manta. which has its home in the Gulf of Mexico, says the illustrated London News. Some of these fish, which are very grewsome to behold, measure from twelve to jighteen feet and weigh more than fifteen hundred pounds. It requires tremendous skill to harpoon them, and infinite tact to land them once they ire struck. It is not unusual for the fish to run for three hours or more, ind thev can tow a ten-ton sloop. The fish is wily and will often go :o the bottom to rest, to prevent which he has to be kept in a constant itate of panic by hauling the tow in ?lose to him. At a moment of weakening another harpoon and a rifle shot ivill dispatch him. During a recent run, it was three hours before the cable could be fastened to the boat's windlass in order :o pull the devil fish under the bow, where another lily Iron was secured n him. and then followed a rush of extraordinary impetuosity. Following :his method and only after there were :hree harpoons in his back and a <hark hook attached to one flipper, ,vas it felt that he was secure. Half in hour later his struggles were finaly stilled by a lucky rifle shot in the lead. As night came on the sharks began :o come in, and long after dark could ie heard fighting over the stranded carcass.