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?????? ???? ?????? L. x. grists sons, Publisher..] #"jfawHj 4*r th? fromotion o| th? golitical, Jtyial SjriMltuijai and ffiommtrciat Jntmsts i| th? gtoslt. {1<aSSiS^jA.1X&emiS!A,m * E3TABLi?HEU i85r. ^ YORKVILLE, S. C., TUESDAY,?EPfEMBER 14,1909. JSTO. 747 THE SIR' iBy ETTA \ * 1 ~ CHAPTER VII.?Continued. - I W' He dropped her into a fauteull. Thel whole company surrounded her, pale and aghast In blackened shreds, her I burned draperies fell away. The man who owned the cloak loosened it, and I showed her to them all, scorched, col-1 orless, pale with pain, but making not I a sound. "Good heaven! what an escape!"! they cried. She looked only at the tall, grayhaired figure who stood regarding herl compassionately. "My poor child, you are suffering!"! he said. "Let me ke you home atl once and call a physician." "You, too, are burned," she answer- I ed. "Look at your hands." "Don't mention it I am a strong! man?you a child. Will you come atl once? Shall I take you in my arms?"! r In rushed the manager. * "Bandage her hurts for a moment?I can you not?" he cried. "They in-1 sist upon seeing her?they are quite! wild, in fact" Paulette started up, clinching her! ^ little scorched hands. "I will not go on!" she cried. "l| have looked my last upon them. Did I you hear them hiss me tonight? They! shall never see me again?never!" The manager stared. "You can't mean that! You are ex-l cited, Miss Rale. Hear them! They'll! pull the house down!" "Let them!" she answered. "I ami going home?do you hear??going! home! Good-night!" "But the piece can't go on till you're! _ shown," cried the distracted manager.! "I will not! I will not! Tell them! ^ I am sick?dead! Tell them I will never play before them again?never! 1 will starve in the street first!" With dark, dilated eyes, with yellow hair flying, she rushed to the man who had brought her ofT the stage. "Take me away!" she cried, wildly. "I cannot breathe this air a moment longer. Oh, brave, good hands that fought death for me tonight, take m^> away! Save me! I will not go on there, I tell you! I shall fall dead before them all!" P* "By the thunder of heaven! No, you shall not!" he answered, and wrapped her quickly In the cloak which had already done such fcood service, and without another word, hurried her out ? of the green-room and down the stairs ^ to the street below. "Tour home?where is it?" he demanded. She gave him the street and number, holding helplessly to him as they stood in the cold winter night on the ^ icy pavement. Curiously the street l?mn diDDed and danced before her sight. Far off, as from a star, she heard the man with the eagle beak and gray mustaches say: ^ "Bless my soul, girl, you are ill!" r After that a frightful thunder, which must have been the carriage wheels, pounded her ear-drums like a Vulcan's hammer. Then Paulette was no longer Paulette at all, but a bit of thistle-down fanned by hot winds through infinite space?desert winds, scorching simoons that burned and blistered her with their breath. A little while and she was a leaf struggling in a whirlpool, and then a buoy, beaten and lost on an ink-black sea. Ages rolled over her, and again she was human, with veins full of fire instead of 9 blood; she was falling down abysses without end, and Megrim's wrinkles looked up at her from infinite depths below, and then the face of the man who had saved her at the play, and then Varneck's, pale and bloody, and, * last of all, the dark, dreadful one of St. John. These also passed, and she was dead?an atom floating to meet the sun leagues up in heaven and a great peace came over her, and then * she heard a voice?the same tnat she had heard before, as from a star, and It said: Will she live?" Another voice answered, "We will hope so. She has youth and a good ^ constitution." Terrible days. Out of a face thin and white as a snow flake. Paulette's eyes opened on? fine morning on actual life once more. Two persons stood whispering by her bed. One was Megrim; the other a tall, iron-gray man, with a front like Jupiter. In a thin rasping voice she called out to him, querulously: "Oh, you are here, are you? I left you down there in the pit. Very persistent of you! Besides, you haven't yet told me your name." He leaned over and looked down on ^ the sick little creature. "Ah, monsieur general, she is bet ter!" said Alegrim. "Dose her off to sleep," he answered. gruffly, which Megrim immediately did, and a great slumber settled down, 4 soothing and sweet, upon Paulette. From that hour he was continually coming and going before her?this great, strange man, whom Megrim called "monsieur general." "Is that your name?" Paulette quivered one day as he stood at the foot of her bed, looking down on her. A "You may call me what you like," he answered, indulgently. "My name Is Guilte." "Do you live here?" like a curious child. "No," he replied, in the same tone: ^ "many miles away, in Maryland." "So far!" she sighed. "What, then are you doing in this place?" "Taking care of you," he said, smi!?? "I have been sick, I suppose?" "Very sick." "You don't see a hand mirror anywhere about, do you?" He tossed over some articles on a table, found one and brought it to her. ^ She took It with a trembling hand. looked and saw a little white face, with enormous eyes staring out from its hollow oval and short, yellow hair curling round It In babyish rings. ^ "I wasn't scarred, then?" she shlvered. "Not at all," said he. She dropped the glass and relapsed V. PIERCE. ^Ttnriiiirrwitiifv annaniimMii) into silence. Presently monsieur the general vanished, and Megrim entered. "Sit down, said Paulette; "I want ... ?-?. -IO, .mn 1 hovo hpftn sick IU uuiv mtii ?vw. * ??-w ^? ? for weeks, I suppose?" "Oul." "And sickness is expensive, as I learned in poor papa's time. Is there any money in the purse?" "Not a sou." The little sick mouth dropped dubiously. "But I seem to fare sumptuously, Megrim, and the roof still covers us. How is that?" "Monsieur the general," said Megrim, laconically. "What! He does it?" "Oul." She was silent a space, staring up at the blank wall. "What news have you heard, Megrim, since I have lain here?" "I have heard, mademoiselle, that monsieur who was shot has recovered enough to leave the city. I have heard his rich mother came in haste to take him far hence from you. Nothing more, mademoiselle." A spasm contracted the thin face of the little convalescent "Think! there was another person." "I have seen no other?heard of no other, mademoiselle. Monsieur the manager came?I told him you were ill. Monsieur the general came also. Ah, mon Dieu! What should I have J V.,4 uuutr uuc ivi mm . "He Is rich, I suppose?" said Paulette. "Sans doute. He has blue blood also, and he Is a hero?he has been In the war." "I will try," faltered the little sick creature, with her thin hands pressed to her head?"I will try and think what is to be done, Megrim." The next day she begged to be taken up and placed In a chair by the fire. She was moping forlorn over the coals, her wasted little figure half lost In the wrapper flung around it, her smooth brows knit, her dubious mouth drawn down, when the door opened and General Gullte appeared, swart on/1 tall nn the threshold. "What! up and dressed?" he began, entering briskly. "Good! And what are we doing, pray? Not crying?" "No," she echoed, "not crying." He paused by the fire, and looked down on net like a cedar of Lebanon on some lily of the field. "But we are, though!" he cried. "Don't contradict. We are out of spirits?we are crying!" She shook her head. He regarded her with something very like grim humor. "I have been prying into your history," he said, in a dry voice, "and I find you are what people call alone in the world, my dear." "True," she answered. "And tired of the stage? I think I heard you say as much the night I first saw you." "All the old spirit has gone out of me!" she cried, striking her thin hands together. "I could not act now to save myself from starving." "Then let me put the case," said he, surveying her from under his bleached brows. "By the thunder of heaven, you cannot be left to your own resources since you have none?am I not right when I say you have none?" She nodded again, and mournfully. "I am a desolate old man." he went on, slowly; "the last of a bad stock; there's but one person living In whose veins my blood flows. . Life at Hazel Hall, especially with Hilda, is gloomy as death. 1 would be glad to see there once more something bright and cheery and young?something like you, my dear." He stretched out to her suddenly his two strong old hands. "A look in your face, so like another face I once knew, has touched me to the heart. Come girl! from this hour, if you will, enter on a new life?become the child of my adoption?the child of my old age." Weak as she was, she sprang up in her chair, staring at him blankly. "Do you mean It? Can you mean it?" she cried. "Surely. Do you not owe your life to me? A man always feels kindly to j ward the thing he has befriended. I came to the north on business. It is I now accomplished, and I return to Maryland. But I shall place you for a time in the convent school of St. Catherine?you see that I have thought the matter over before today, and already planned your future. Forget your past life. To Hilda and all others you will be n.y ward, left in trust by a dead friend?this will save us both from curious questions. Will you humor an old man's whim, Paulette? Will you come?' ' Will I come?" she echoed. "Oh, you mock me! Will one who is drowning accept a hand thrust out to save him? Oh. gladly, joyfully! and I bless you for it?I bless you for it!" She ran to him like a child and kissed his hand and fell at his knee and told over the story of her life?how Jean Rale had found her years before on the Beverly rocks; how he had trained her for the stage and died One thing only she omitted?St. John's name and her fatal marriage. This she could not bring her pale lips to tell. He listened kindly. "My poor child." he said, "forget il all, as I told you. and begin anothei and happier life. Of the scandal which filled the city weeks ago I neither ask nor care. This child-face of yours gives it the lie direct?let us never, on any pretense, mention it. We must leave the city as soon as you can travel. Rest easy, and grow strong with all speed?your future is now settled." She paled a trifle under his earnest eyes. *JOUIO sue open uei ueai i i?? iiiii further?lay bare t<> him Its one great secret. She thought of the vow she had made St. John. Her cold lips remained dumb. "I will love you always?I will bless aar. ~wamwm , , >||i- [ -. M? -fr/34y?r OF P?A' IHi li-'lMisiSiI JK & .is jflSBI :!EiHE8R ?u PEARY'S EXPLORATION PARTY j In tbe science of warfare there is ? retreat than an advance. Robert B. Pe an advance on the pole; hence the fooc Tiro a loaf In tho DIV>Hp? nrlrtP tn h<R (HsPf starvation, for along the course he tot in the snow and one of the dog trains party doubtless would have perished bt vanced toward the pole and retreated c he ran out of food before he reached t! three days and for weeks bad only the you with my latest breath," was all she said. _, When he had left her Paulette hurried to her little escritoire, took from It St. John's portrait and her certlfl- i cate of marriage, and white and shaking, carried them to the hearth. Her black eyes flashed, her little figure i seemed to grow tall as she stood. "I will begin a new life," she murmured. "I will forget everything; why should I not? He has forgotten and forsaken me." She tore the certificates in shreds and tossed it in the grate. She cast the portrait after, without so much as a glance at the face it held. She drew a deep breath, as If throwing off a heavy burden. "Perish," she muttered, "the only proof of a great folly! Yes, I am free, fnr nnw no soul will ever know It?no living soul beneath the sun!" CHAPTER VIII. Dr. Philip Gower walked up the village street, opened the gate of his trim garden, and between rows of sprouting box advanced along the path to his white cottage. It was in the twilight of a spring day. A window of the modest dwelling stood open, and beside It sat a woman in a mourning dress, with some light sewing lying in her lap, gazing anxiously out on him. It was Dimple. As his hand touched the door she started up, thrust her book aside and Hew to meet him. She put her two hands on his arm and stared up in his face with dilating eyes. "Has it come? she asked, breathlessly. "Yes," he answered. "Yes, yes, thank God!" And he drew her gently back into the room and closed the door. They sat down side by side in the window. Her breath caipe in gasps. She was trembling from head to foot. The doctor's face, too, was like ashes. "Here," he said, quickly, and drew from the pocket of his coat a letter; "it is your turn to open it this year, Dimple." Making no sound, but with a strained, white face she snatched it from hi3 hand, tore off the corner of the en velope, drew out a slip of paper and read as follows: "How long will you keep silent? i Where is the child? Answer, and then, and not till then, shall you hear tid ings of that which you have lost." The paper fluttered from Dimple's hand. She flung her arms around the doctor's neck. ! "She Is alive, then!" she cried, wildi ly. "She Is still alive, my poor darling!" His worn face worked. He picked I up the scrawl?read It through himself eagerly, hungrily. Then sat sli lent, held it In his hand, Dimple's arms I tightening about him, Dimple's face , hidden on his breast, i "Yes," he answered, heaving a great i sigh. "Thank heaven; yes. Is not this t the same as all others?" "Word for word." "Our enemy does not design to waste consolation on us. Let us add i it to its fellows?come." They rose together and went to an i old desk in a corner of the room. The i doctor opened a drawer in which lay a package of letters, the exact couni temart of the one he held In his hand. ; Dimple loosened, with a tremulous touch, the ribbon which bound them. She counted them over one by one. "Fourteen!" she said, piteously, "and i every one received on Moppet's birth : day! Oh, Philip! do you think our . enemy knows it is her birthday?" "Not likely," he answered, "because It Is also the anniversary of her loss." i "True," sighed Dimple. "We have HlT " wkn? '' ^ mifi W fCTl vr<fj>oomA//r}l l:Xj] f f ' ^1 1ND CREW?SCENES ON ONE 01 in old truism to the effect that it takes Mry, the arctic explorer, always has ke I depots and caches be has established < >very of the pole these caches of food >k there was little game to be found, i that tne explorer used in bis bike to tl it for the supply of food which the Du ?ver another route. Dr. Cook was so 11 le game country on his return. He and ; scantiest rations. lived without her fourteen years. She Is sixteen today, Philip." He did not answer. They stood, aide by side, leaning over the old desk, the strange letters spread before them. Fourteen years have not changed them mu. l? .-.fill ^VioKKtr ? It; till y. X lie UUUlUi 10 OUII ouaui/j and poor and hard-worked. He Id somewhat gray, and there are deep linea in his patient face, although he is still what one would call a young man. As for Dimple, as long as she lives, suffering or otherwise, she can never be anything but a fair, sweet woman. Her wonderful hair, in which Moppet used to play, Is still bright and abundant. No dimples show In her face now, because she never smiles; but In her sober, black dress, which she has always worn since her child's loss, with her fair hair and her melancholy blue eyes, she looks unutterably sad and unutterably lovely. To this pair the fourteen years mean one long, ceaseless search, hope cununuauy uauieu, puiu auu y cm urns and bitterness without end. The fourteen letters in the old desk bear the post-mark of as many different places. Wily Is the foe with whom they have to deal. Every year a new address is appended to the cruel, monotonous scrawl which comes to prick at their sore wound. The doctor has wasted his strength and living in the search, offered rewards, sought again and again to entrap his baffling enemy through the medium of these same letters; but all in vain. Fourteen years; and he is still childless, and Moppet is still, as it seems, forever lost. "And to think," says Dimple, touching the letters with her trembling hand?"to think, Philip, that we look forward so anxiously to these?that the great hope and fear of our lives are the few words that terrible woman sends from year to year." Dimple has long and long ago heard the whole story. "Terrible!" echoed the doctor, sadly. "Yes; for she Is assuredly mad. The way in which she clings to her belief in my guilt, without proof and without reason, convinces me of this." "Mad!" the unhappy mother shuddered, "and she has been the keeper of Moppet all these years! Moppet Is in her hands today, suffering who knows what! Oh, the frightful visions, sleeping and waking, that I have of my poor darling!?the dangers I see threatening her! How I have prayed to know that she was safe and happy! How many times I have promised heaven to be content with only that! But I have had to do without It." "DlmnlA!" Hp pnlhprort Vior hrlcht head tenderly up to his breast. Sorrow is a mightier bond than happiness ?it had welded these two hearts indissolubly into one. "Wherever she is," he said, "she is in God's hands. There is no other consolation for us beneath the heavens. Truly, it is a heavy cross for such shoulders as yours." "Do I bear it alone?" she answered, bravely. "My dear boy's hair is white at the temples before its time?there are crow's feet under his eyes. Sixteen today, Philip?our baby, Moppet! vvnat nas she been doing all these years? How?where has she lived without us? She must be nearly grown to womanhood. Shut your eyes, dear, and fancy for a moment what she is like." Her face was uplifted to his. What a picture It made In its tenderness and yearning and patience! The sunset light poured in through the open window and fell upon both like a halo. "I fancy her," said the doctor, "small and fair like you?the image, in brief, , 1 jfj 1 f HIS PEEVIOUS POLAE TEIPS. a more skillful general to conduct a pt bis retreat In mind when making on each of bis up journeys. When be undoubtedly saved his party from These pictures show a food cache be "farthest north." Anthony Flalu's ke of the Abruzzl left when he adghtly equipped on bis polar dash that his Eskimos were without food for of the village girl I wooed and won seventeen years ago." "Dear boy, no," said the doctor's wife. "Moppet was like you, even as a baby. She had your dark eyes. She must be tall and a brunette. Do you think it possible, Philip, that she can have any recollection?the faintest?the very faintest, but still a recollection, of us, dear?" "It Is not probable," he replied, painfully. "I find it very hard?do not you?? to imagine her a grown-up woman? to think of her as anything but a baby nestling in my arms or sitting on your study floor at play with these." She touched reverently a heap of playthings lying beneath the letters In the drawer?a child's playthings, carefully gathered together?a doll without a head, rattles and rings, a wooden soldier, a half-worn slipper, with the mark of milky teeth upon the toe. "Come," said the doctor, drawing her back from the sad mementoes as if he could bear no more, "let us add this last letter to the others, Dimple, and close the drawer for another year." She sighed deeply, but did not resist. They went to the window and stood there together and looked out on the sunset lying low and far beyond the trim, pleasant scentea garaen. "Do you remember, dear boy," said Dimple, "how loth I was that you should go to Hannah Duff's that night? Do you believe the child was ever really left with her, and if so, what did she do with it?" "It was left, without doubt," answered the doctor. "The woman was thoroughly in earnest. What she did with it is another matter. Mayhap the father returned and claimed it? though, from the scene I witnessed on the night of its birth I am led to think tnis rather doubtful. It Is plain there were parties whom the mother feared ?from whom she devoutly wished to withhold the child. They got possession of it, probably?Hannah Duff delivered it up to them." "What parties, Philip?" "Sure enough. I have no clue. Strange I did not rcognize the mother when she came here so cleverls' disguised to bribe me the night before Moppet's loss?" "Was it herself, Philip, or some messenger?" "It was herself; but I did not suspect the truth till afterward." "I wonder," mused Dimple, "if she was tv.e wife of that man?that Captain Forrest, as he called himself." "Wife or mistress. There seemed to | be sore trouble between them, Forrest was but an assumed name?the detectives could make nothing of it. The secret of that child's loss, and of our loss also, lies I fear, with Hannah Duff In her grave," said the doctor, thus summing up the whole matter. Presently the room grew dark, and they turned from the window and Dimple rang for tea. Very sad and) subdued, the two sat down to It on this sad anniversary night?the doctor's dark, thin, careworn face at one end of the table, Dimple at the other, with her pallor and her black dress and her yellow hair. "Wherever she may be tonight, God bless and keep her!" said the little mother, solemnly. "Wherever she may be tonight, God * 1 1 ? " nnotuopod Hr Diess arm m-i. v.. ^ ? Philip. (To be Continued.) tv~ The average woman is not satisfied to do as she pleases unless she fled to do as she pleases, unless sne pleases. pisrftUntous Xradinfl. DAMAGE BY IN8ECT3. Interesting Figures Furnished by Commissioner Watson. Few people of the state realize the great damage that is done to all crops of the state annually by the Insects. Within the past several years the peach orchards have been practically wiped out by the San Jose scale and the ravages of the wire worm down In Colleton county is a very striking example of insect damage to crops. Whole peach orchards have been destroyed and abandoned by the owners. However, within the past year several orchards have been planted and are doing remarkably well by the use of various kinds of sprays, espe clally so In the Ridge section of the state. The birds are most effective in fighting the Insect plague. By statistics It Is shown that the birds In South Carolina destroy over 100,000 bushels of insects every year and save the state millions of dollars. According to statistics It Is shown that the insects destroyed over $18,000,000 worth of the crops of the state during the past year. The Audubon society Is doing very effective work In protecting the birds and the people are beginning to learn their value to mankind and join In the work of protecting them. Commissioner Watson has prepared some very interesting data concerning the amount destroyed last year by the insects in the state. Insect damage to crops in South Carolina: A ? o J # E 3 ? u ? cd 3 5 9 . go ? es ? n fed > fc ? Cotton $50,000,000 10 $ 5,000,000 Cereals, wheat, barley 8,000,000 10 800,000 Tobacco ... 2,500,000 10 250,000 Truck 10,000,000 20 2,000,000 Corn 26,500.000 10 2,560,000 Hay 1,100,000 10 110,000 Rice 500,000 20 100,000 Total damage $11,270,000 Poultry, etc 200,000 Damage to forests 6,000,000 Products In storage 2,000,000 Grand total $18,470,000 There Is no estimate made for fruits, as there are no figures as to totals, but close observation has shown damage to be at least 50 per cent, the largest fruit growing areas having been destroyed entirely. Cotton Estimate. The estimate In the case of cotton and corn is at least 5 per cent below osttiiol An ma zra thft imnern 1 q yprqgo avbuarf uuiiiuqv| v??v QV..v.w ??0 ? for the country being taken, nor la damage to gardens taken into account, which would swell the total enormously. Damage to farm forests, pecan groves and similar orchards, 1s likewise omitted for want of aggregate figures. The total loss can not fall far below $20,000,000. Nearly all of this is preventable in time by wise protection of birds, the only efficient check on the depredations of insects. The loss to the entire country last year through insect ravages has been set down at something over 11,000,AAA AAA AfrlafO nf thn VWfVW \jy lllO V* ?MV biographical survey of the department of agriculture. According to the careful survey of Dr. William T. Hornaday, director of the New York Zoological park, South Carolina had a net loss of 32 per cent of its birds during the period from 1883 to 1898 (16 years). From 1898 to 1902 when the Audubon society of South Carolina began to be effective the slaughter of the birds went on at a constantly increasing rate, so that by 1908 60 per cent of the birds had been lost. This taken in connection with crop damages is exceedingly ominous. The Audubon Society. Commissioner Watson in his *Adt annual report has the following to say concerning the Audubon society: "The United States department of agriculture advises farmers throughout the country to Join the Audubon society and back its work. As the Audubon society is the foremost agency in the world for protecting insect-eating and song birds it is well to give its plan and purpose, "Tho Motlnnol AnanHntlnn nf Allritl bon societies in New York city is the ' parent of all of the various state Audubon societies and it was organized by a few patriotic men for the purpose , of saving the birds of America. In the year 1896 there was a rapid spread of the society into various states until each state in the Union has an Audu- ( bon society and is giving more or less attention to the protection of the birds. In 1907 the legislature of South Caro- J Una chartered the Audubon society of ^ South Carolina, whose declared pur- ^ pose was to educate the people up to the value of birds, game and non-migratory fish to the state. Since its or ganization tne society nas Deen active in this work of educating the people along the lines indicated. The secretary has published a great many articles in the daily and weekly press on the value of birds and on the best way of protecting them. The society has published and circulated the laws and has Issued two annual reports. The secretary has also made a canvass of the sto'e, securing members and organizing branch societies for the further prosecution of the work and to get the principles of bird protection understood by the people. Addresses have been delivered at many places for the purpose of enlisting people of the state in the cause." The report further says: "Farmers must realize that the time has come to demand more protection from the laws than they have received in the past. The rapid multiplication of hunters, white and black, has led to the destruction of thousands of insect-eating and song birds, as well as to a de crease of game that Is alarming. The burden of all of this falls directly on the farmer; he has to pay the freight. Most farmers agree that something should be done to protect the birds and to save great losses entailed on the crops by the slaughter of the birds. Briefly, the situation of South Carolina to the west, girdled by the mountains, on the east washed by the Atlantic and pierced and watered by nu meruus nvcre, tiiiu wim tui immense i ^ | domain not under cultivation, la one I s most peculiarly favored by the Almighty. While other states less favored have been swept by pestilence and devoured by plagues, our own has escaped. "Now the time has come when the great protecting agency of the Lord, the birds, Is being swept away with a besom of destruction and If this Is permitted South Carolina will no longer enjoy the immunity from Insect pests that has marked her for nearly two centuries. It takes a very short time to destroy the birds of a state, but a loner time Is required to get them back, and some go never to return." WATER POWER TRU8T. Gifford Pinchot Tells of Its Peril at Irrigation Congress. At one of the sessions of the recent Irrigation congress, held in Spokane, Wash., Gifford Pinchot, the chief of the forestry bureau, directly charged that there was a water power trust in process of formation. "Not only this," he said, "but this water power trust does not have any hesitancy about appearing before this congress, In the persons of Its attorneys, to seek to break down the last remaining ODposltlon to ownership of all the power in the country. "In fact, I know one genial and urbane gentleman who Is now here helping the trusts cause. The time for roteBt Is very short, and the w power trust will show but little con sideration to the common people If once the power of the country Is centralized. In power there is life, and the water power trust will eventually control all other trusts." Equality of Opportunity For All. Mr. Plnchot named one power corporation which, he charged, was after the control of water power. His speech was in part as follows: "The first thing we need in this country, as President Roosevelt so well set forth In that great message which told what he had been trying to do for the American people, Is equality of opportunity for every citizen. No man should have lees and no man ought to ask for any more. Equality of opportunity is the real object of our laws and institutions. "It goes without saying' that the law is supreme and must be obeyed Our civilization rests on obedience to law. But the law is not absolute. It requires to be construed. Right construction of the law works and must work in the vast majority of cases for the benefit of the men who can hire the best lawyers and who have the sources of influence in lawmaking at their command. Strict construction necessarily favors the great interests as against the people and in the long run cannot do otherwise. Wise executors of the law must consider what the law ought to accomplish for the general good The great oppressive trusts exist because of subservient lawmakers and adroit legal constructions. Here is the central stronghold of the money power in the everlasting conmci 01 me iew 10 grao ana me many to keep or win the rights they were born with. Legal technicalities seldom help the people. The people, not the law, should have the beneflt of every doubt. Water Power Trust Now Forming. "There could be no better illustration of the eager, rapid, unwearied absorption by capital of the rights which belong to all the people than the water power trust, not yet formed, but in rapid process of formation. This statement is true, but not unchallenged. We are met at every turn by the Indignant denial of the water power interests. They tell us that there is no community of interest among them, and yet they appear year after year at these congresses by their paid attorneys asking for your influence to help them remove the few remaining obstacles to their perpetual and complete absorption of the remaining water powers. "They tell us it has no significance that the General Electric Interests are acquiring great groups of water powers In various parts of the United States and dominating the power market in the region of each group. And whoever dominates power dominates all Industry. Have you ever seen a few drops of oil scattered on the water spreading until they formed a continuous film, which put an end at once to all agitation of the surface? The time for us to agitate this question is now, before the separate circles of centralized control spread Into the uniform, unbroken, nation wide covering of a single gigantic trust. There will be little chance for mere agitation after that. No man at all familiar with the situation can doubt that the time for effective protes*. is very short. If we do not use It to protect ourselves now, we may be k-erv sure that the trust will give hereafter small consideration to the welfare of the average citizen when In jonfllct with Its own. "The man who really counts Is the :>laln American citizen. This is thj nan for whom the Roosevelt policies vere created, and his welfare is the ;nd to which the Roosevelt policies ead. As a nation we are fortunate at his time In this fact above all others hat the great man who gave his name o these policies has for his successor mother great president whose admlnstratlon Is most solemnly pledged to he support of them." It is on account of this speech that he belief Is expressed In Washington hat Mr. Plnchot has Imperiled his :hances of long remaining In the gov i iimtrui aci v iuc. Fertilizers.?Fertilizers may be divided into two general classes?direct md indirect, or nutritive and stimuant. A direct or nutritive fertilizer s one which furnishes nourishment o the growing crop. Nourishment neons simply nitrogen, phosphoric icld and potash. These are the three ngredients which must he renewed hrough the medium of manures and ertillzers. A stimulant or indirect ertilizer is one which does not furnish in actual plant food to the soil, but >y its stimulating action renders ivallable some plant food which previously existed in the soil in an lnsolu>le or unavailable condition. Don't give all your sympathy to he poor. The rich need some of It. cti' A man doesn't have to celebrate lis golden wedding to discover that ill is not gold that glitters. ABOUT KING'8 MOUNTAIN. Col. Robt. A. Thompson Was at ths Celebration of 1866. Editor of The Yorkvllle Enquirer. I had the good fortune to see your splendid paper of August 27, instant. The article on the first page In relation to the "King's Mountain Monument" interested me very much. I remember the celebration of the battle of King's Mountain in 1855. I think Col. John S. Preston of Columbia, and Samuel W. Melton made speeches on that occasion. I knew both of these gentlemen. Melton was either editor of your paper, or one in Chester. Melton's speech was printed in pamphlet form. I think one or more days were spent at the battleground. Col. BenJ. Cleveland, on of the heroes of King's Mountain, removed to Pendleton district, now Oconee county, very soon after the termination of the Revolutionary war, and settled at "Fort Madison," on the east bank of Tugaloo river, near where the southern railway crosses that stream and enters Georgia. His descendants built a monument to his memory, lmmedi ately on the line of the railway in the little town of Madison. One of his neighbors was "Horse Shoe Robinson," of Revolutionary fame, and was the hero of the story, entitled "Horse Shoe Robinson." Obadlah Trimmier of Spartanburg, another Revolutionary soldier, was also a neighbor of Col. Cleveland. ExGov. Perry gives a very interesting sketch of CoL Cleveland, in his history of that section, where he (Perry) was born. See sketch of Col. BenJ. Cleveland by Dr. Landrum of Spartanburg, 8. C., pages 222 and mors. Very truly yours, Robt . Thompson. Walhalia, 8. C., Aug. SO, 1909. CURTI88, THE AVIATOR. American Flier Who Has Broken Speed Record at Rheima Aviation Meet. Glenn H. Curtiss has again. made the world sit up and take notice of American ingenuity, daring and progressiveness. His record breaking exploits at the great aviation meet at Rheims, France, will live long in the fast increasing history of the air. His victory in the contest for the Prix de la Vitesse, value 10.000 francs ($2,000, was a splendid climax to his week of endeavor. He covered the course In this thirty kilometer race in twenty-five minutes forty-nine seconds, corrected time. Curtisa, now the lion of Europe, is really a gasolene engineer. Aviation is merely a side line with him; in which he differs from the Wrights, who have given their lives to It Curtlss eats lubricating oil and drinks gasoline. Her began life In Hammondsport N. Y? about thirty years ago and became a newsboy because he needed the money. One day he traded a lot of old junk for an old bicycle. Oddly enough, that trade made his fortune and determined his vocation. It has never been stated that Glenn Curtlss is lazy, but the fact remains that Hammondsport is mostly on edge and that he got a cramp in the calf from pedaling his rusty old machine up and down hills. Then he caught sight of one of the early editions of the gasoline engine. "Why not tie that engine on my bicycle and save me all this trouble?" he reasoned. He collected more old junk. When he had enough, he traded it for the parts of an antiquated gasoline engine. A few weeks of seclusion in the paternal barn followed, until one day Hammondsport was almost interested in seeing young Curtiss fly up and down its angular street on his old bicycle, propelled by a gasoline engine he had In some occult manner attached to the frame. He kept on at that enterprise until by and by he began to build motorcycles. Eventually he had a factory that employed several hundred men, which made him a rich man. When our best aerlallsts began wearing dirigible balloons some of them went to Curtlss for a motor that would push their gas bags. It naturally followed that the trying out pro cess took place at Hammondsport, and Curtlss In time became identified with the manufacture of flying machines of one sort and another. Then he tried his hand at it for himself and produced the June Bug, that famous pony built little 'contraption that won the first prize offered in America for a flying machine that would really fly. Mr. Curtiss is a gasoline engineer first and an aviator second. He is chiefly interested in the performance of the motor. As the motor is the very heart of the aeroplane, his American friends and French rivals may be pardoned for tho interest with which they watched his performances at the international flying races at Rhelms. And the joke of it all is that it started when he traded for that old two dollar bicycle twenty years ago. ?New York Globe. African Fire Season. unlike a good deai or soutn Arrica, Rhodesia Is largely wooded. In some places the forests are of value, but a large proportion Is not valued for its timber. The grass In this part of Africa grows to phenomenal heights in the valleys, and especially In the valleys of the Sabl and Zambesi rivers It reaches its greatest height To Say that the grass is often twelve feet high is no exaggeration. Naturally It Is very easy to lose one s way In this grass If one Is unfortunate enough to stray from the beaten track. It Is the custom there to burn this grass off each year when It gets dry. This Is usually in August and September, or even In October. The fires burn for miles, and as the country Is largely a wilderness little damage Is done by this method of destroying the grass. It is a beautiful sight at night In the fire season to see the hills for miles around encircled with flames. After the grass has been burned the rainy season usually begins, and It Is then that the country is at its prettiest. The grass is then green and the foliage on the trees is beautiful. The old leaves drop off gradually and the new ones take their place before the trees are bare. The new leaves ore of all shades of the rainbow, and It is much like the fall scenery in this country when the dead leaves are falling from the trees. Waterfalls are numerous in the mountains and there are many of great height, although the rivers are usually small in volume.? Springfield, (Mass.), Republican.