University of South Carolina Libraries
semi-weekl^ I. m. GRIST'S sons, Pnbu.hers. \ % 4amil8 $?nwi: 4" <M #?? ??? ?f M jpolittcat, Social, Agricultural and Commercial interests of th< people. ( RSTABI.INH HI) 18SIS. YOKKV1LLE. S. P., TUESDAY, .TrNM -jO, 1!)11. NO. 40. I THE ROO'i $ === W BY THOM *jfir Copyright, 1911, fc r$j Pub. by Doubloday, BOOK II?THE ROOT. CHAPTER VI. Tho Storm Broaks. The morning: came in a mist of dull grray clouds that clung in rings about the street lamps like a damp fog of a typical February thaw, yet it was the last day of October. Such weather was uncanny. It added to the strange feeling of impending calamity which had been hs.nging over the business world during the summer and had broken at last Into the fierce storms of disaster of the past two weeks. Men who usually rose at 9 o'clock were up at dawn. Some of them hadn't slept at all. The more optimistic traders on the Stock Exchange expected today a chtnge in the market. Stock had declined for two weeks with appalling swiftness and fatality. Every hour had marked the ruin of men hitherto bulwarks of solidity. Experienced men reasoned and reasoned from experience that there must be a turn somewhere. The bottom surely had been reached. The time for a rally had come. Nine men out of every ten In the market at its close the night before expected the rally to begin at the stroke of the gong the next morning. The men who bought stocks In the closing hour were sure of this. They rose to curse the weather. For the weather always affects speculation. Wall street is superstitious. The proud intellect that struts the floor of the Exchange and scorns the powers of his feebler fellow-men carries secretly a horse chestnut in his pocket for luck. Without an exception all these great men believe in signs and wonders, in witches, palmists, spells and hoodoos. Weather always gets on their nerves. Half the fluctuations of stocks under normal conditions of trade are purely the results of the mental states of the men who buy and sell. The doctor rose early with a new hope filling his heart which no cloud could obscure. He watched Harriet pour his coffee at breakfast with his old-time smile of good cheer playing about bis fine mouth. Stuart was sleeping late. He was up until 1 o'clock writing a reply to a peculiarly venomous attack on his integrity which a morning paper had > printed. The writer had boldly accused him of being the hired tool of the group of financial cut-throats who were coining millions out of the ruin of others in the destruction of public faith. ^ His reply was simple and his concluding paragraph was unanswerable, except by an epithet. , "My business is the enforcement of justice. I am the servant cf the people. If Wall street can not stand the enforcement of law, so much the worse for the street. It's no affair of mine. I didn't make the laws of the state any more than I made the law of gravitation Nor did I write the Ten Commandments, but I have an abiding faith that they will stand when the last stone in the Stock Exchange building shall have crumbled into dust. I refuse to believe that the only P way to save Wall street is by a sworn officer _ of the law compounding a felony." The doctor hurried down town to the office of a friend on Pine street, an old-fashioned banker and broker whose name had always stood for honesty and fair dealing and conservative business. It was half an hour before tne stocK Lxcnange openea dui me | dingy little office was packed with an excited crowd of customers. They all , talked in low tones as if fearing the spirits of the air that hovered near. An eager group leaned over the bulletin from the London market. Lon' don was up half a point. The credulous were pleased. ?It was a good omen. The pessimists scoffed. "Rigged from New York!" sneered a fat German the office boy had nicknamed the "Judge." The doctor was struck with the curiously mottled crowd that jostled one another, waiting for the first cry of the opening quotations. Every walk I and profession of life had its representative there?merchants, lawyers, doctors, clerks, clergymen, barbers, bootblacks, retired capitalists and capitalists about to retire permanently. The saddest group of all was In the * adjoining room reserved for ladies. An opening through the partition wall allowed them to see the quotations as they were placed on the board around which the throng of jostling, smoking, perspiring men moved and stood. Most of these pale excited women with their hats awry and their hair disordered were the wives of solid business and professional men who wouldn't allow ^ their husbands to know of their little venture into stocks for the world. They peeped through the opening occasionally and turned their backs quickly to avoid the gaze of the men. But the most ominous figures were k I wo or mrt-f vunurtD who siuuu grim and silent on the outer fringe of the moving crowd. Only one or two of the older ones recognized them. The "Judge" saw them first. "Ach, Gott, look at dem!" he exclaimed. "They never come except for carrion; they've scented the dead. It's all over with us, poye!" One of the most curious things in the history of Wall street is the appearance of these vultures in a panic. They scent the final death-struggle with unerring accuracy. They never buy stocks except in those awful moments of ruin. They hold them grimly until the next tidal-wave of prosperity, sell out at the top, and wait patiently for the next killing. They are the only outsiders who ever make a dollar in Wall street, k The doctor followed old Dugro, the head of the firm, into his private office and asked his advice. He got it?sharp, short and to the point. "Go home, doctor, and stay there. l ' This market is no place for an umaBK teur. It's all I can do to keep the wolf from my door in these days." rWEraj $ AS DIXON iy Thomas Dixon. "But I've received some important information." "Keep it dark," old Dugro scowled. Don't tell it to your worst enemy. If you've got a dollar, nail it up and sleep on the box. "But I've some information I think I'm going to act on and I want to open a small account with you." "All right. I've warned you," was the grim answer. "I wish you good luck." The doctor drew his check for two thousand dollars and smilingly took his place among the crowd before the board. He was never surer of anything in his life than he was of Adam's sincerity. He prided himself on the fact that he was a Judge of character. He was sure the cashier was wrong in his accounts; he was equally sure that the information he had received from Bivens's private secretary was accurate, provided, of c<fcirse, the little weasel carried out the programme he had mapped out. The ticker would tell the story in the first hour. If stocks should sell off three points before noon, he would know. He determined to put this to the test first. He would not sell the market short. He would be content with the big Jump the market would make upward when it started. The ticker began its sharp metallic click. The crowd stirred as if the electric shock had swept every nerve. A moment of breathless silence and the board boy leaning over the ticker shouted: "Atch?92J!" A groan, low, half-stifled, half-articulate ca-me from the room and then a moment of silence followed. "There, Gott," muttered the "Judge." "I knew London was rigged?I told you so!" In quick, sharp, startling tones the man at the ticker called out the quotations as the market rapidly sank. For half an hour the downward movement never paused for a moment. The silence of the crowded room became more and more suffocating. Men stood in their tracks with staring eyes and dry lips as they watched the last hope of a morning rally fade into despair. The doctor's breath came quicker and his eyes began to sparkle intense excitement. Now and then old Dugro's stolid face appeared at tne door ana summoned another man to his inner office?"the chamber of horrors"?where the lambs are sheared. The story was always the same. The customer squirmed and asked for a little more time to watch the market. The old man was adamant. "I've got to have more money to margin your stock or I'll sell it in five minutes. This firm is sound as a dollar and it's going to stay sound as long as I'm at the helm. If I carry weak accounts I imperil the money of every man who has put his faith in my bank." If the squirming victim had more money he always put it up. If he had drawn his last dollar he Just wiped the cold sweat from his brow and gasped: "You'll have to sell out." Quick as a flash the old man's hand was on the telephone and his broker on the floor of the Exchange was executing the order. As the noon hour drew near the doctor's heart was beating like a sledge hammer. Bivens's programme had been carried out to the letter. Stocks had declined for the first hour a point, and in the second hour suddenly smashed down two more points amid the wildest excitement on the Exchange. There was a momentary lull and the market hesitated. For ten minutes the sales dragged with only fractional changes?first up, then down. The moment to buy had come. The doctor was sure of it. Stocks had touched the bottom. The big bear pool would turn bull in a moment and the whole market would rise by leaps and bounds. He called old Dugro. "Buy for me now. Amalgamated pnnner ?he market leader, for all I'm worth!" The broker glared at him. "Buy! Buy in this market? Man, are you mad?" "I said buy!" was the firm answer. "What's the limit?" "Not a share without a stop loss order under it." "Well, with the stop?" "I'll buy you 400 shares on a fourpoint stop." "And when it goes up five points?" the doctor asked eagerly. "I'll double your purchase and raise your stop, and every five points up I'll keep on until you are a millionaire!" The old broker smiled contemptuously, but it was all lost on the doctor. "Do it quick." The order was scarcely given before it was executed. Dugro handed the memorandum to Woodman with a grunt. "It don't take long to get 'em today!" The words had scarcely left his lips when a hoarse cry rose from the crowd hanging over the ticker. / ...... I..?.,1 iinu'sril n whole point between sales. A wild cheer swept the room. For ten minutes every stock oil the list responded and began to climb. The doctor's face was wreathed in smiles. Men began to talk and laugh and feel human for the first moment in two weeks. Dugro grasped the doctor's hand and his deep voice rang above the roar: "You're a mascot! You've broken the spell! For God's sake stay with us!" Suddenly another cry came from the crowd at the ticker. The boy at the board sprang to the instrument with a single bound, his eyes blazing with excitement. His cry pierced every ear in the room with horror. "The hell you say! Down a whole point! No!" There was a moment's hush, every breath was held. Only the sharp click of the ticker broke the stillness. "It was one point," groaned the judge, now, Gott, It's two?now it's three!" The last words ended In a scream. Hell had broken loose at last. The panic had come! In ten minutes stocks tumbled five points and the doctor's last dollar was swept into space while the whole market plunged down, down, down into the abyss of ruin and despair. Men no longer tried to conceal their emotion. Some wept, some cursed, some laughed; but the most pitiful sight of all was the man who could do neither the man with white linn nnrt the strange hunted expression in his eyes who was looking Death in the face f.or the first time. A full quarter of an hour of the panic had spent itself before the dazed crowds in the broker's offices read the startling news that caused the big break. The ticker shrieked its message above the storm's din like a little laughing demon: "The Van Dam Trust Company Has Closed Its Doors and Asked for the Appointment of a Receiver!" "Impossible!" "A fake!" "Hell?it's a Joke!" From all who read it at first came these muttered exclamations. It was beyond belief. "The "Judge" was particularly emphatic. "Dot's a lie, chentlemens! Take my vord for it! Dey haf ninety millions on deposit." It took the second bulletin with particulars to convince them. Bivens had not kept his solemn pledge. The great bank had stood the run for two hours and closed its doors. And the work of destruction had Just begun. At 3 o'clock, the doctor walked out of Dugro's office without a dollar. It was utterly impossible for a man of his temperament to realize it. The crash had come so suddenly, its work was so complete and overwhelming it seemed a sort of foolish prank Fate had played on him. He walked home in a state of strange excitement. He had seen many sights in his eventful life \nong the people of New York; never had he passed through a scene so weird, so horrible, so haunting as the five hours he had Just spent among those men and women whom the struggle for money had transformed into raving, Jibberlng, snivelling maniacs. It was too absurd to be real. His own loss was appalling but at least he thanked God he was not mad. He yet had two good hands and legs. He could see, hear, smell, taste and feel, and he had a soul with five more senses still turned upward toward the infinite and eternal by which he could see the Invisible and hear the inaudible. He felt almost happy by contrast with the fools he had left shuffling over the floor of Dugro's office. His own sense of loss was merely a blur. The revelation he had Just had of the mad lust for money which had begun to possess all classes was yet so fresh and startling he could form no adequate conception of his own position. It was not until he entered his own door, and paused at the sound of Harriet's voice, that he began to realize the enormity of the tragedy that had befallen him. CHAPTER VII. At the King's Command. Bivens's plan would have gone through without a hitch but for one thing. He had overlooked the fact that the Kingdom of Mammon in America has a king and that the present ruler is very much alive. This king has never been officially crowned and his laws are unwritten, but his rule is none the less real, and he is by far the most potent monarch Wall street has ever known. A man of few words, of Iron will, of fiery temper, of keen Intellect, proud, ambitious, resourceful, bold, successful, a giant in physique, and a giant in personality. He moves among men with the conscious tread of royalty, thinks big thoughts and does big deeds as quietly and effectively as small men do small ones, and then IllU^ca UII IU 51 raici mono. It happens that his majesty is an old time Wall street banker with inherited traditions about banks and the way their funds should be handled. He had long held a pet aversion. The Van Dam Trust Company had become an offense to his nostrils. His own bank, hitherto the most powerful in America, is a private concern which bears the royal name. It had long been the acknowledged seat of the Umpire of Mammon and within its unpretentious walls the king has held his court for years, extending his sceptre of ,?old in gracious favor to whom he likes, refusing admission to his presence for those who might offend his fancy. The Van Dam Trust Company had built a huge palace far up town and its president had attempted to set up a court of his own. He had gathered about him a following, among them an ex-president of the United S'ates. Gold had poured into the treasu y of the great marble palace in a constant stream until its deposits had reached the unprecedented sum of $90,000,000, a sum greater than the royal bank itself could boast. When the king heard the first rumor of the fact that the Van Dam Trust was backing the schemes of the Allied Bankers in their sensational raid on the market his big nostrils suddenly dilated. At last he had them just where he wanted them. He signed the death warrant of the bank and handed it to his executioner without a word of comment. And then a most curious thing happened. The king summoned to his presence a little dark swarthy man. When Blvens received this order to appear at court he was dumfounded. He had long worshipped and feared the king with due reverence and always spoke his name with awe. To be actually called into his august presence in such a crisis was an undreamed-of honor. He was sure that his majesty had heard of his generous offer to help the Van Dam Trust in its hour of trouble and meant to reward him with promotion to high rank in the Empire. He hastened into the royal presence with heating heart. A court official conducted him into the king's private room where the ruler sat alone, quietly smoking. The sovereign glanced up with quick energy. "Mr. Bivens, I believe?" The little man bowed low. "I hear that you are about to aid the Van Dam Trust with four millions in cash?" Divfiia Biniiru wiiii |ji iuc. "My secretary will deliver the money to the bank within an hour." The king suddenly wheeled In his big arm chair, raised his eyebrows and fixed the little man with a stare that froze the blood In his veins. When he spoke at length his tones were smooth as velvet. "If I may give you a suggestion, Mr. Bivens, I would venture to say that the Van Dam Trust Company Is beyond aid. The larger interests of the nation require the elimination of this Institution and Its associates. "I have heard good reports of you and I wish to save you from the disaster about to befall the gentlemen who have been conducting the present campaign in Wall street. If your sec-' retary will report to me at once with the four millions you have set aside for the Van Dam Company I shall be pleased to place your name on my executive council In the big movement we begin today. The other gentlemen whom I have thus honored are now waiting for* me in the adjoining room. They represent a banking power that is resistless at the present moment. "When the Van Dam Trust closes Its doors today, a temporary panic will follow. We will give the gentlemen who started this excitement a taste of their own medicine, render a service to the nation, and, incidentally of course, earn an honest dollar or two for ourselves. I trust I have your hearty support In this programme?" Blvens again bowed low. "My hearty support and my profoundest gratitude.' "I'll expect your secretary with your check for four millions within thirty minutes." The king waved a friendly gesture of dismissal and the little dark figure tremblingly withdrew. It was not until he had reached the seclusion of his own office that the magnitude of the crisis through which he had passed fully dawned on Bivens. One of the dreams of his life had been to touch elbows with this mighty ruler at whose name he had often trembled. Today he had joined the magic circle of those about the throne. The place had been bought at a fearful price. But the end would Justify the means. No one knew with clearer perception than he what the king meant by his "suggestions." They were orders. He had been ordered to stab his associates. At first he had raged in silent fury, but as the king continued his wonderful speech and revealed his generous intentions, his anger had melted into glowing gratitude. "After all, business means war!" he exclaimed, "a war in which dog eat dog and devil take the hindmost becomes sooner or later the supreme law." It hurt to break his word?the pledge he had made the president of the Van Dam Company?but it was unavoidable. Their death warrant had already been signed. His money would only be sunk in the bottomless pit the king had dug beneath them. He felt himself for the moment in the grip of forces beyond human control, blind, inevitable, overwhelming. The only thing for a sane man to do was to ride the storm and take care of himself. He had found a place of safety. And such a place?at the right hand of the king himself. He had dreamed of making a paltry five millions when the raid on the market had ended. Now his very soul stood blinded by the splendor of the vision before him. Beyond a doubt in the holocaust which would follow the day's work he would more than treble his entire fortune, perhaps multiply It by four. He could see it all before it happened. His slender hands trembled as he fumbled his beard and his bead eyes became two scintillating paints of light. The thirst for gold was now a raging fever and his blood molten Are. The lust for gain had ceased to be human passion?it was the hunger of a beast. Without a moment's hesitation he gave the cruel orders that sent his associates hurling over the precipice. As the day progressed he stood with one hand on the tape of his private ticker and the other holding the receiver of the telephone which connected him with the floor of the Stock Exchange. He received no word from friend or roe without. Only the king's messenger could reach him. He paused not a moment for food or drink, and at 3 o'clock when the market closed he stood with a hundred yards of tape from the ticker coiled serpent like about his legs, the wreck of empires of wealth beneath his feet, his heart still beating a single wild cry?"more, more, more!" What a day! In all the annals of man's inhumanity to his fellow-man never were there more opportunities for generosity, for kindly deeds and noble acts of kingly heroism. Never were so few recorded. Martial war at least has for its justification the flag and the life of a nation for which it stands the gleam ing symbol 111 the sky, and in real war they do not kill the wounded or fire on women and children. Even the Turk does not fire on a hospital. But In this war which maniacs waged for gold, they fire on women and children without mercy and when night had fallen they searched the field, dragged out and stabbed to death the wounded! When the president of the Van Dam Trust Company failed to receive the promised millions from Bivens he called his telephone and receiving no answer sprang into his automobile and dashed down town to the little main office. When the clerk at the door informed him that Mr. Bivens could not be seen by anyone, he turned quickly on his heel, drove back to the palatial house of his bank, smiled sadly at the mob in front of its huge pillars, ordered Its bronze doors closed, walked around the corner to his home, locked himself in his room and blew his brains out. (To Be Continued.) ti' Suppose the prodigal son had come home to find that his family had turned vegetarians. I ittisccUancous Scatlini). RAILWAY MAIL SERVICE. Short Study of Economic Question of Great Importance. For The Yorkvllle Enquirer: The United States mall service touches more Intimately the affairs of the people than any other single public utility. There is not even a week old baby who may not, In some more or less important way, be directly concerned in the movement of the mails. There is not a single business of any character which does not depend to si|me extent upon the mails. The handling of the mails is of vital concern to all the people of the United States, and therefore, has a peculiar value In any study of railway operation. From the days of a six weeks Journey of your letter to your mother, wife or friend, sent from the wilds of pioneer Kentucky to Virginia one hundred years ago, to a twelve hours transmis sion of your mails from the Mississippi river cities to the Atlantic cities In 1911 is a far cry. In his novel, "The Heart of Midlothian," Scott spoke wonderingly of fast mail and passenger coaches "from Edlnburg to London In five days;" a distance of about 340 miles. What would have been his thought had he foreseen that now one of his books can be mailed in New York on Saturday and delivered In San Francisco the next Friday, making a journey of about 3,200 miles? We have grown quite accustomed to modern rapid tranportation, but It is none the less wonderful when viewed from periods of past time. The evolution of fast trains, at a heavy cost, has given us the fast mail, and of course, the more rapid transaction of business. But notwithstanding the fact that the postofflce department can now deliver the malls in half the time required only a few short years ago, the amount It pays for their transmission is growing less. In 1910 it paid the railroads $252,760 less tha>. was paid In 1907 in spite of the enormous increase of the volume of mail transported. According to reports of the postofflce department, this Increase would have cost it over $10,000,000 to handle had the rate of pay allowed the railroads been the same as that allowed down to 1907 and which was hen found to be fair by a congressional commission of investigation. Your mall In handled by the railroads to the postofflce doors on their lines. Tney carry 3,sou aparimem mall cars a'nd all the railway mail clerks free, both while on their runs and while returning to their homes. This all costs the railroads money, and we have seen, the cost must cbme from a decreasing revenue from the service rendered. It is, therefore, a propel subject for consideration In these studies. Since absolute fairness is, in the last analysis, the only safe basis of government and business, (they ought to be interchangeable terms), it compels us to admit that compensation for any service should be proportioned to its character. By this rule the railroads should be paid on the basis of improved service. If the volume of such business increases and If such Increase operated to reduce the rate of handling cost, It cannot, In equity, be made the ground of lowered compensation. In other words, the postofflce department cannot fairly penalize the carriers of mail because the mails are growing heavier. W. D. Roberts. PERU'S ETHNOLOGY. Would Indicate That America Was Settled From Australia. The survival of the fittest is a phrase that may be used in many other senses than those associated with the name of Darwin, and has taken its place definitely in many a department of thought not touched by him. It applies, for instance, to a great extent to languages, but there are many exceptions, one of which is exemplified in the history of the language of Rome, which although quickly assimilated by most of her assailants was absolutely overthrown in those islands to make room for the conquering Engle tongue. The history of our country proves that while Britons, Romans, Anglo-Saxons and Norman-French have settled her in succession the one language has prevailed, with a small amount of the Latin tongue brought In by the Normans. It Is a most important matter, therefore, before endeavoring to investigate the ethnology of a country to note the fact that similarity of tongue does not necessarily imply a racial connection. As an example of this doctrine may be mentioned the discovery of Sanscrit and Zend, languages allied to those of Europe, and we may recall that half a century after this discovery Prof. Max Muller assumed that this connection of a common speech Involved a race affinity between the four prehistoric races of Europe, asserting also that the same blood runs in the veins of the English soldier, "as in the veins of the dark Bengalese." These views have been greatly crlt IC1SCU iroin i'eriKU UHU ninauci uuward, and it is now generally held that there is really no race connection between those who speak Aryan tongues, a word now generally used for these affiliated languages. The Scandinavians, the Celts, the so-called Celts (Iberians) of parts of Scotland, Wales and the south of Ireland, and the Lithuanians, whose original language is perhaps preserved among the Basques, cannot be regarded as relatives?one of these races has imposed its speech on the others. Still less do we believe nowadays in a kinship between ourselves and the "dark "Bengalese." Questions of ethnology are, as is the case with most fascinating subjects, of a very difficult character and require careful treatment, considering constructive physical geography, geolrt,.ra niw> fit tin nf the COUntrV. and recent oceanography. It is possible to reconstruct the geographical outline of the world or any part of it at any given period. A most intricate problem of a race which presents analogies to the Egyptians, Babylonians (Sumerians), Indian peoples, Polynesian and Malay tribes, and even to the Jews is here attempted. We are cautioned by the writer "to be unfettered by the dogma and authority of past generations," but without desire to dogmatize, we may point out that the bounds of modern criticism which denies the theory ot Prof. Max Muller?"like language, like blood"?are traversed. The writer is entitled to his opinion, but we will be found to agree with his belief in a former family of Jews, pre-Incas, Chinese and others. The writer speaks of the Aymara race of ancient Peru, supposed to be the wonderful people who built the great pre-Inea monuments and whose language is said to resemble that of the Sumerians of Mesopotamia. It is difficult to trace the origin of this connection; there is no doubt, however, that South America was at one time In connection with Australia. St. George Mivart's discovery of a marsupial in Bogota which is mentioned Dy tne writer is a living addition to the evidence of palaeontology, which shows this connection by discoveries of remains of similar marsupials in each continent. It must have been by this route that the Sumerlans came to Peru, if they did come at all. The Interesting question of pre-Inca monuments on Easter Island appears only to be solved by assuming with the writer a former attachment to the mainland, but we are afraid that he claims too much when he concludes that in pre-Inca days there was no land on the eastern side of the Andes. The argument adduced, that If there were any land the pre-Incas would have conquered it, applies equally to the Incas, in whoso time Brazil certainly existed, the people themselves being conquered by the Spanish In historical times. Nor is the geological testimony at all complete. We admit that there once was a time when the eastern side of the Andes marked a coastline for the Atlantic, but that land had appeared in the recent or human period is proved by the abundant mammal remains found In the pampas. The question Is one of great Interest to the ethnologist. The belief that human beings entered North and South America by way of Greenland from Europe can no longer, in view of some of the phenomena mentioned, be a question of dogma, and further researches such as outlined by the writer seem necessary.?London Times. CHARMS AGAINST EVIL. Ornaments That Are Supposed to Ward Off Disease and Bring Luck. Perhaps the Instinct to avert the evil eye is born in our natures. Civilization has lessened It to a great extent, but In every race we find such an instinct exists. The wearing of nearly all personal adornment seems to have originated In an Idea of pacifying evil deities. The savage wears ornaments symbolizing the protective powers supposed to he able to keep away harm or danger. In the West Indies there is a bean or seed which the natives think possesses many valuable properties. If carried In the purse they say the owner will never want for money; If hung on a watch chain good luck will ever be with the wearer. But woe betide the man who loses his precious charm. The East Indian leaves a tiny corner of his embroidery unfinished to propitiate the gods; the dusky mother calls her baby hard names for fear her love should bring 111 fortune upon him. In England superstitious country folk tie amulets around their necks to prevent disease. Some of the earliest of these were skilfully wrought by the people who inhabited this country thousands of years ago and treated flint much the same as a cameo, producing varied effects by cutting through into the different layers of color. Several examples of this practically lost art may be seen in the museum at Ipswich. They are carved to represent the heads of men and women, birds, fishes and reptiles and are for the most part cleverly and prettily done. The fossil belemnites found on many of our coasts embedded in the rocks were once thought to be thunderbolts and were worn as charms by fisher folk. Farmers in ancient times decorotarl their hnraea hv hnruHne' amulets and gypsy fetish charms among their trappings to insure a good harvest. These amulets were frequently associated with the worship of the sun and were of Egyptian, Moorish and Persian origin. Although most people profess to laugh at the idea of wearing them purely for luck or from superstitious motives, yet charms are worn still with good humored toleration and, for reasons none can explain, secretly favored, just in the same way that sober minded men and women cling tenaciously to a crooked sixpence and treasure a threepenny bit with a hole in it as omens of good luck. A pink coral hand In Italy is supposed to ward off the evil eye and plays its part In ornaments. Ruby ornaments are supposed to disperse evil spirits and are considered a protection from poison and other dire evils. Emeralds banish blindness. Oarnet ornaments are supposed to keep one in good health; the sardonyx insures happiness. The sapphire keeps off fever. Amethysts keep off worries. A turquoise means that you will never want a friend. A nlnivr In r orvstal locket is a favorite charm and is said to bring good fortune and long life to its wearer. Jade also has a reputation as a luck brlnger.?Pall Mall Gazette. The Chamois Trail.?An Interesting sight is to be witnessed eaeh day at noon at Orindewald In the Alps, when there is a rush of visitors to the telescopes to observe "chamois trail." Promptly each day at the hour mentioned there may be seen a herd of from twenty to thirty chamois passing in Indian tile up the yawning abysses of the precipitous Mettenberg rocks separating two glaciers, the male animals leading the way, the king of the herd keeping twenty yards in advance and on the watch. At the bottom of the Mettenberg, where the slope is freed from snow, the chamois find a meagre subsistence when their usual feeding grounds are under snow. The chamois descend on their feeding grounds at dawn, when there is little likelihood of avalanches, and return to their haunts at an hour when avalanches have already fallen and the danger is past.?Harper's Weekly. 'li'i A woman could vote better by the ribbons her party wore than most men do by the principles theirs claim. | SIX DAYS IN GOTHAM. South Carolina Editors Enjoy Annual Outing. SOME OF THE THINGS SEEN BY THE WAY Worlds Great Centre of Wealth and Poverty?Banquet at Twenty Dollars of Plate?The Crowds on Broadway?Sights That Instruct, Entertain, Thrill and Chill?Random Im~iLA pi oob ii? vi unc vi inv v isiiurt. BY W. D. GRIST. Five days on the water and six days of sight-seeing In New York, have been Included In the 1911 junket of the South Carolina Press association, and If any one of the editors, or all of them together ever succeed In putting in print the half of what they saw or did, the record will fill many newspapers and wonderfully interesting and Instructive that record will be. I shall only attempt to sketch what impressed me as some of the most striking features of the Jaunt. The Hotel Woodward. Most of the party made its headquarters at the, Hotel Woodward, a splendidly appointed building In what is known as the up-town district. This hotel is under the ownership and management of Mr. T. D. Green, formerly of Columbia. The building is located on the corner of Broadway and 55th street, is twelve stories high and has about 225 rooms. From ground floor to roof, it is divided into single rooms, adjoining apartments, suites, parlors, etc., splendidly fufnished in conformity with the lost word in modern luxury uiiu ruuvciiieiii'e, ruricra, ucnuuyo, doorkeepers and other servants wear handsome uniforms and every want of every guest is satisfied as soon as expressed. This hotel, like all the firstclass hotels of the city, is run on the European plan And the charge for rooms run from $1.50 to $10 a day. For this occasion, however, Mr. Green gave the press party a uniform rate of $1.50 and many of them during their stay occupied $10 rooms. With the usual curiosity characteristic of the profession, the editors investigated other fine hotels in the city and found none of them superior to the Woodward In appointments or service, although there are a number at which the price of entertainment runs many times higher. Taking In the Sights. With the Hotel Woodward as a base, the members of the press party took In the city, up town and down town, east side and west side, covering the theatres, the parks, big manufacturing establishments, museums, aquariums, zoological gardens, general sight-seeing routes, the rathskellers, the roof gardens and other attractions without number. They were going from morning till morning, but few of them taking more than five or six hours sleep out of the twenty-four, and some less than that; but all holding up tirelessly, and none seeming to lose Interest even to the end. It Is a fact, however, that all were satisfled. No one claimed to have seen everything that was to be seen. All appreciated the absurdity of such a claim; but there was a common appreciation of the fact that it is possible to get more sight-seeing than can be intelligently digested and before the end of their stay most of the members of the party realized that they were experiencing Just such a condition. Banqueting the President. The most notable event of the week in New York so far as those who availed themselves of it were concerned, was the banquet given in the bail room of the Hotel Astor on the evening of June 8, by the New York Produce Exchange. President Taft was the guest of honor and principal speaker, and the South Carolina newspaper men were there through the courtesy of the Inter-state Cotton Seed Crushers' association, on whose special account the banquet was given. There were a thousand guests at the banquet seated at 125 tables, eight at a table, and two galleries, running entirely around the great banqueting hall were filled with ladies, wives and daughters of the banqueters. Just what the exact facts are, I would not like to say; but it was commonly stated that the cost of the banquet was $20 a plate, or more than twenty thousand dollars. Others gave more conservative figures, but none stated them lower than $10 a plate, or $10,000. It Is a fact, however, that In addition to a very expensive menu, the favors at each plate cost several dollars and the wine bill was hardly less. The music, the service and other details were on an equally elaborate scale, and there is no question that the aggregate expenditure was something tremend ous. Speeches By Notable Statesmen. Besides President Taft, other speakers were Mayor Gaynor, Governor Dix, Bourke Cockran, and Mr. B. F. Taylor, president of the Interstate Cotton Seed Crushers' association, and Dr. Finley of the New York city schools. Senator Chauncy M. Depew was to have been present but was kept away by a death in his family. Mr. Taylor made a great speech in which he told about the wonderful progress of the south, and especially about the cotton seed oil business; but of course, the speech of the occasion was that of President Taft. The president did not come in until the second to the last course, the ice cream and coffee course. He was in town more especially on account of Mrs. Taft, who was under treatment In one of the New York hospitals; but of course, would have been present on this occasion, anyway. His speech was notable in that it was an ap|>eal to the cotton seed crushers to stand by him in support of the reciprocity bill now pending. The president made it clear from his standpoint that there Is no question of the fact that the pur pose of this bill looks to the general welfare of the entire country. Statistics were quoted to give an idea of the extent to which the cotton seed industry especially, would be benefited. The general argument was to the effect that the business interests of the country are being represented by men who are not so much concerned in business as they are in politics. Although he did not say it in so many words, he made it clear that in his opinion the dominating sentiment was feeling its way for political advantage, rather than business advantage, and ne made a direct appeal to the cotton seed crushers to take a hand?get after their representatives In the senate and impress them with the importance of having this reciprocity bill go through at once without regard to the so-called farmers tariff or any other pretext that is Intended merely as a blind in the avoidance of positive and definite action on reciprocity. The cotton seed crusher audience was generally composed of men who know and think but little of politics, and but few of them seemed at the beginning to realize the tremendous significance of what the president was saying. Before the conclusion of the president's speech, however, there was a widespread conviction over the vast banqueting hall that, perhaps after all, the men who are doing things in the business world in the south should also take a hand and have a say-so in political affairs. Although there was but little demonstration during the earlier portion of the president's remarks, when the audience began to realize just what Mr. Taft was driving at,- it grew more and more enthusiastic, and finally went wild with applause. The president seemed to have captured the crowd completely. Tha Parka anrl tha Miiaanmn Several parties of visitors went to the Bronx Park zoo and on different sight-seeing expeditions, and of course nearly everybody went over to Coney Island. The Bronx zoological gardens now contain the most extensive collection of birds and animals to be found in America, if not in the world. Here are to be seen elephants, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, Hons, tigers, buffaloes, monkeys, birds, and in fact every living creature to be found on the face of the earth, and which is able to live In captivity. The visitor may spend " days here without getting around. The Metropolitan Museum in Central Park contains an almost endless collection of antiquarian specimens of nearly every description, including cuneiform and other inscriptions in clay from ancient Bgypt, Assyria, Japan and other countries. There are specimens of ancient, mediaeval and modern sculpture and paintings, specimens of every kind of weapon and of armor dating back to the days of David and Goliath, and coming through the middle ages down past the time when gunpowder made coats of mail and other such bodily protections useless. But a mere catalogue of the things to be seen in the Metropolitan Museum would fill pages of this paper. The same can be said of the Museum of Natural History, also located In Central Park, and covering floor space that would include many acres. These museums must be seen to be appreciated, and to see them properly ts a matter of weeks if not months. It is the same with any general sight-seeing tour in the city. Not one of them can be adequately described within limits that would not become tiring. ,. Two of the trips that particularly Interested the publishers in the party were those to the American Typefounders company in Jersey City and the Mergenthaler Linotype company in Brooklyn. Mr. Charles Conner, manager of the Baltimore branch of the American Typefounders company, piloted the editors through the big Jersey City plant, the largest typefounding establishment in the world, and Messrs. Cozzens, Savory and others of the central office went with the party through the wonderful Mergenthaler establishment Only a few hours were given to each of these plants. It was not enough and those interested knew it; but at the same time, It was also clear that if the things to be seen here were to be considered in detail, there would be no time for any other sight-seeing in New York The American Typefounders company is the growth of more than a hundred years, and combines about all that is known in connection with typefounding. But the process as it stands, without going Into history at all. Is sufficiently varied and extensive in detail to interest professionals much less mere sight-seers. The Mergenthaler Linotype company, which had its origin only a little more than twenty years ago, now employs eighteen hundred people In its various departments, and the problem of keeping up with Its constantly increasing business | is something that seems to the management as almost hopeless. "Rubber Neck Cere." Visitors who go to New York to see things now invariably take advantage of the sight-seeing automobiles, correct designation. From time to These are comparatively modern Institutions. They carry anywhere from twelve to twenty-five people each, and along with the motorman goes a guide who is thoroughly conversant with the route to be traversed, and who has a carefully rehearsed description of the various points of interest by the way. ixtcally these automobiles are known as "rubber neck cars," and this by the way is a very correct deslguation. From time to time the passengers can hear themselves guyed by newsboys, and also by grown-ups as "rubber necks," but they soon "learn to pay no attention to anything like that. People do as they please and say what they please in New York. Everybody soon understands that they are merely Individuals about whom the millions have not the slightest concern, and who need have no concern about the millions around them. Each individual looks out for himself and his own and that Is all there is to it. The rubber, neck cars make rounds of from six to ten miles, and charge each passenger J 1.50. The trip lasts from two to three hours and affords the stranger an opportunity to see and learn in those two to three hours more than could formerly be seen and learned in from two to three days. There are scores of routes to be traversed and among them almost the entire city is included; but among the most popular perhaps is one through the flnancia., retail and residence districts, up Riverside drive along the Hudson to Grant's tomb. Another goes through the Bowery, the Yiddish section, on the East side, and to the Chinese quarter and Mott street. This one usually commences in the late afternoon and takes in the fore part of the night. It goes through localities into which it would be extremely dangerous for unsophisticated strangers to venture alone, and the sight-seers see many things that are new, strange and unbelievable. The Coney Island trip includes some fifteen or twenty miles in all with a stay at the island and is also worth while, though If it Is the island and its attractions alone In which the visitor is interested, he can go more quickly and cheaply by the elevated trains, the cost for the rail trip being only about twenty cents from the most distant parts of the city. [Continued on Second Page.]