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THE TEXAS Interesting Descripti? at Hi Kock Hi When 1 visited the Humble oil Geld I j remised myself that I would not say much about it (" uiy friends for two reasons. Kirst, because 1 knew it would be iiiij < ssil !o for me to give thtm any adequate idca'tf what I saw, arjd second, I knew if i could it would sadly impair my r< putation for veraci ty?1 have learned long ago that if a man wants l" establish and sustain ;i reputation for truthfulness he must not only tell the train b*;t a reasona ble truth. However, in a mo tuent of enthusiasm and in a burst of confi dence 1 did say something about it to a groupof friends, and the next thing .1 kn< w 1 had promised the editor to write him an arlicdc, hut with the un derstanding that 1 was to assume none of the responsibility if the veracity of the said article is called|inlo ques tion. Humble is seventeen miles north of Houston. Tex., in a part of the State that is perfectly flat and slightly bog gy. On Tuesday morning, April 18ih, at 0 o'clock, Capt. I). 1>. Peden, an old South Carolinian, but now an elder in the First Presbyterian Church of Houston, took charge of me and start ed with me for Humble. At that early hour a train of six coaches was crowd ed and we could scarcely liud a scat. Another train of seven coaches runs, at 10 o'clock, and they tell rnc it is al ways a perfect jam. A little after 7 we stepped off at the Humble railroad station, a mile and a half from the 011 held. A unique sight met my eyes. I saw a town which had sprung up al most in a day. On the lirst of .January there wire only u few farm cottages in all that country. Now there are four thousand people living tit the Htaliou and on the field together. The houses are built of newly sawn rough plank standing endwise. They have their hotels, court house, jail, etc., all built of the same material. Wo had an excellent breakfast iu one of the hotels. Many of the peo ple are living in tent? and cooking und eating iu the open air. It is no un common thing to see a cceik stove right out in the open, with a pipe run ning some ten feet high. The whole place was throbbing with life. Kvcry fellow seemed bent on business. There were the raw-boned Texas ponies, with their huge saddleB aud brawny looking men, in high boots, galloping here and there on them. There were the fine teams of draft horses and mules pulling their heavy loads of pipe through mud and mire two feet deep. The whole scene struck mo as a typo of the wild and wooly West. Mr. J. W. Sullivan, a man with n great big body and a great big heart, and a friend of Capt. Peden's, took charge of us upon our arrival. He knew everything about the place, and it seemed to me that he knew every body. Vie had been there since the first we" rap sunk. We were soou iu a surry with a half-breed Indian for a driver, lie had a splendid team, and it was well that he did, for the roads were terrible. We were soou on the field and it was a wonderful sight. The o51 area is so far confined to a district about two miles long and a mile and a half wide, but the greater majority of the wells are on area of a half mile square. There are several hundred of these wells. For the ben efit of those who never saw an oil well I had better describe it briefly. First of all a derrick is built about seventy feet high. It is about 15 or 'JO feet square at the bottom and 0 or 8 feet square at the top. This is built to hold the boring machinery and also for raising and lowering the pipe that is One M a?a Unoi fiei The season's first cold may be slight?may yield to early treatment, but the next cold will hang on longer; it will be more troublesome, too. Un necessary to take chances on that second one. Scott's Emulsion is a preventive as well as a cure. Take SGOTr?PLSIOU when colds abound and you'll have no cold. Take it when the cold is contracted and it checks inflamma tion, heals the membranes of the throat and lungs and drives the cold out. Send fbr free sample. SCOTT & B0WAIE, Chemists 405*415 Pearl Street, NcW York Ctk-. and $1.00 - - . All druggist* OIL FIELDS. moi' the Great Well? imble. I) Herald. put into the well. You can imagine how several hundred of these derricks, built of new lumber, would look on a flat surface of land a half mile square. The wells are sunk very much after the fashion of our deep wells that are used to supply the city with water. The pipe they put into them, I should say, is from thr<-e to four inches in diameter. They go from 1 ,"."?0 to 1.1 ."?<) feet deeji before they strike oil. It lakes -otne weeks to f-ink a well, and it costs from four to six thousand dol lars per well. Several now wells were being bored while I was there. Of course some of these wells do not strike oil and all the money invested is lost. Some strike i-alt water and nothing else and that money is lost. All of them strike more or less nat ural gas at a depth of 800 feet. This gas is often the sjurce of a great deal of annoyance and danger to those sinking the wells. It has destroyed several that gave great promise. A few days before 1 was there a Mr. Underwood was siuking a w.cll. When he reached about *UO feet the gas began to blow out and sand and mud began to fly as high as the tree top*. The gas became ignited from the fire in the b"iler. What followed resembled a small sized volcano. When it was all over the only thing that w;ts left of the well and machin ery was a hole in the ground about 25 or :M feet in diameter. The derrick, the engine, the pumps and the pipes were all many hundreds of feet under ground ? no mortal man know- how many. There is gas mixed with all the oil that comes up. This is separated from the oil by being passed through a peculiar kind* f tank. They make use of a great deal of this iras, it is piped to the engines and used for fuel. All the machinery on the Odd is driven by engines supplied by this gas. Hut they cannot consume even a .-mall part of it. The rest is piped to a safe distance from the well and set on lire. You will see dozens of these jas pipes three or four inches in diameter, with a llame blazing into the air, that is 25 or HO feet long. G They must make a beautiful sight at night.'*, Hut what a fearful waste! ? However, there is nothing else to do. They cannot pre serve it, and?to let it escape would mean destruction to property and as phyxiation for the workmen. But I have said-nothing about the oil itself. The wells are of two kinds, fhose that flow and those that have to be pumped. The former are called gush ers. The day before I was there.they "truck oil in a well and it spouted out as high as the treo top9. It was fall ing near a gas engino and there was danger of a terrible fire. A man ran to shut off the gns, but he was too lute, the oil had already ignited. The poor fellow was covered with the burn ing oil and burned to d/ath on the spot. Iiis hat was still lying there. However, a great lite was averted. Mr. Sullivan showed ute several of these gushers that wnre spouting 7,000 bar rels of oil a day. A barrel is forty gallons. Of course they do not all yield that much. Some have a capac ity of only a few hundred barrels a day. When I was there the whole field was averaging about 75,000 bar rels a day. The first well was sunk January 7th of this year, and it was estimated that up to the 15th of April the field had yielded three and a half million barrels. They tell me that it is now the greatest oil field in_the world. Perhaps you would like to know what they do with all this oil. Of course they could never get barrels enough to put it in. Indeed I did not see a single barrel, h'irst of all they have a six inch pipe running from Humble to Sabiue City on the Gulf of Mexico. It is a distance of about 12.") miles. . This carries about 12,000 barrels a day. In Sabine it is leaded on board ships. Another six inch pipe line to Sabine is in course of construc tion and will be completed by the mid dle of June. The rest of the oil is pumped into great earthen reservoirs that arc anywhere from a hundred feet to a hundred yards square and ten to twelve feet deep. There are dozens of these reservoirs. A foot or two of water is pumped into them first, so that the oil will not sink into the ground. CThen the oil is pumped in. Of course the oil floats on the water. A great deal of coil is soaked up by the sand on the sides of Jthc reservoir and is lost, but they do not seem to mind that, as it is worth only 25 cents a barrel aboard the cata.JX From the res ervoirs run six inch pipe lines t? the railroad. Then a six inch pipe eleva ted some twelve feet runs along the railroad track for Jh und red s and hun dreds of yards.v. From this pipe tank line cars are loaded by the hundred. Last month the rtilroad carried away /r m the Humble oil fit Id an average "f thirteen thousand barrels a day. I forgot also to mention that they have one pipe line going mto Houston where the oil that it carries is loaded on cars. 1 have forgotten how much that line carries a day. Some of these cars go eight miles below Houston on the Bulfalo Bayou and unload their oil on barges, which carry it to Sabine City on the gulf. It may he asked what is finally done with all of this oil. Some of it is re fined and used for lighting or lubrica ting oil. A great deal of it is used in the crude state for fuel by ocean steamers and by railroad engines. The Southern Pacific road, on which I went from New Orleans to Houston, and which goes on to San Francisco, does not use a pound of coal on its passenger or freight engines. They burn oil which cost- about cents per barrel. There is no dust, no cin ders, and no smoke on this road. They very aptly call it an open window route. The- locomotives look very much like those that burn coal, only where we sec the coal on the tender they have an oil tank that holds about :j,000 gallons. Hut this letter is long enough, per haps too long. I got back 10 Houston at 12 o'clock with the feeling that 1 had never had a six hours crowded so full of interest, pleasure and informa tion before. W. L. Linglc. One Kind of Society. Mrs. George )i. Healton, of East Oakland, who was her husband's co j laborer in the building of the Healton airship, said the other day, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer: "I like to have a multitude of good friends, and I like to see my friends, often. Society, however, as the term is generally understood, I object to. I. objeet strongly to intercourse with people whom 1 don't admire, who only try to outdo each other in extrava gance and display, and who only try to'suub 'each other.Q I would much rather give my time to work." "Society," continued Mrs. Heaton, "is epitomized in an incident that oc curred the other day. " A millionaire's wife Fat in her dressing room with a friend when the cards of two other millionaire's wives were brought to her. She tore the cards in little pieces. " 'Tell these ladies,'she said haught ily, 'that I am not at home.' "The maid withdrew with her mes sage, and a little iater, on some other errand, returned to the room again. " '.lane.' said her mistress, 'did you tell those ladie1 I was not at home? " 'Yes, mum,' Jane answered. " 'What did they say?' " 'They said, How fort-nit.' "' Accepted Pay for Dog. W. K. Yanderbilt was "outing" up a Long Island road recently. Ahead of him walked a man and a dog. The dog was nosing around among the bushes pi j fence posts. Suddenly, as Mr. Vanderbilt's au' ised the man, the dog started act*. c : road. The auto hit him "kerplunk" amidship. A few spasmodic kicks aud he gave up the ghost. Mr. Yanderbilt immedi ately stopped his machine, and, get ting out, approached the man with his wallet iu his hand, saying : "I'm awful sorry, my man. Will $50 fix it right ?" "Oh, yes ; $50 will do." Then, as Mr. Yanderbilt was disap pearinglin a cloud of dust up the road, the man turned, and looking at the dog, said : "I wonder whose beast it was ?" Why Japan Succeeds. Admiral "Bob" Evans in a recent conversation with a group of officers threw a great v Luc upon one ol the methods at least by which the Jap anese having attained that splendic adaptability to European and Ameri can ways, says the New York Times. "When I commanded the New Yorl some years ago," he said, "I had a.Tai servant with whom I was especially well pleased. He was prompt, remark ably quick to learn, and took such t deep interest in everything that some times, just to amuse myself, I devot ed not a little attention to explainiu* things that he appeared net to under stand. A good waiter, too, he was Well, fiually he disappeared. "Sotnctimo liter, when on the Kuro peau station, I made a call on a Jar battleship lying in the harbor of Yei sailos. The captain met us at the gangway and escorted us to hi: cabin. As wc were seated he suddenly turned, threw off his hat, and whippec a napkin overplus arm. 4 "The Captain would drink?' h< said in a tone I remembered. " 'Katoj! I cried, jumping to mj feet. " 'The same,' he said, bowing 'Capt. Kato of'thc Mikado's navy.'' I mm m m ? The office seldom seeks the m m, but tho shuation(frcquently seeks th< ciok. ? It's up to young men with. th< engagement'ring habit to boycott tl.c diamond trust. ? A spen&ter worries because she is single, and a m.irrud wonim. worriei because she isnjt? MYSTERIES OF RANK. I Kn African Tribe That Bases Preccd ence on Avoirdupois. An African explorer tells of a tribe he met whose members deter mined worldly rank according to avoirdupois. The heaviest Ravage was chief of the tribe, the next fat tost was Jir.-t lieutenant and so on. As soon as a meihber gained in weight over the neighbor next above him in rank. he advanced one step in authority. Wealth, looks, person el popularity, capacity, were not tak en into consideration when deter mining the standing of members of tbe tribc. It is a pilv our ICnglish cousins could not adopt some such simple method of determining rank, for ' their present scheme is so compli cated that they themselves have dif ficulty in understanding it, while to the si ranger within the gates its technicalities ;irv absolutely bewil dering. l*'or instance, we are told that at a recent public dinner in Lon don one hour was spent in arrang ing the diners i:i anteprandial pro cession according to rank. The gen eral rule prescribes, that Ihc army and navy shall have lir.-t place, then the law, the church, medicine, "gen tlemen" not engaged in any profes sion and, lastly, those in "trade." In the latter class, however, it ap pears that wholesalers are consider ed more "respectable*' than retail ers, unless a retailer happens to he a knight or a baronet, which some times occurs, when he takes preced ence over his business associates who are mere commoners. But not even all lawyers, it seems, are "gen tlemen." The question arose during a case at law, and it was decided that, while "barristers" are "gentle men," "solicitors" are not entitled to that distinction! According to English custom, a young man who has just been called to the liar is many steps higher in the social scale than his father, who is a millionaire wholesale grocer. In addition to the few instances cited there are a whole host of spe cial exceptions founded on birth, ed ucation and other conditions that make 1he English scheme of social precedence a perplexing study for those who desire to be punctiliously correct.?Housekeeper. W.hcn Mrs. Stowe Awoke. A friend of mine, a northern wo man, long a resident in Florida, once gave me the following account of a visit from .Mrs. Stowe: "I had invit ed her to spend the day, with sev eral other ladies, at my villa. She came with an old white i'ur tippet wrapped about lier neck. She sat all day near the open lire, occupied apparently with lier own thoughts, for she spoke to no one. When the day was well nigh spent one of the guests reluted the remarkable expe rience of a woman who had passed through some danger?I forget of what sort. Mrs. Stowe presently startled us all by inquiring, with some show of interest, 'Did the wo man live ?' "?J ulia Ward Howe on Harriet I^echer Stowe in^ Reader Magazine. Criticism For Tennyson. Alfred Tennyson early made it a rule to read aloud his newly written poetry to private friends in whose judgment and taste he could confide. It ha3 come to light that he once called at Cheyne row and read a new poem to Mrs. Thomas. Carlyle and then asked, "What do you think of it?" With characteristic and al most merciless outspokenness she replied, "I think it is perfect stuff!" Somewhat discouraged, Tennyson a short time afterward read it to her again. "It sounds better this time," was her criticism that day. On his reading the poem a third time Mrs. Carlyle was obliged to confess that she liked it,,very much, and Tenny son immediately communicated with his publishers: Tho Playful Owl. ' Not even^an owl is as much of a hermit as it appears. The little fel low that all summer, long sleeps by day in the hollow apple tree and hoots by night from the adjacent tree tops has a taste for company, and when two meet their hooting gives way to a varied range of lowly murmured chatterings very differ ent from the conventional cries of all owldom. Keep a pet one (and they are easily tamed), and you will find them not only as wise as they lock, hut not averse to rough and tumble fun.?Montreal Star. A Substitute. VA farmer paid a visit to a neigh bor, and as he passed along by thp side of the fields ho made a mental note of the fact that no scarecrows were visible. Meeting his neighbor almost immediately, he opened con versation as follows: "Gi od morning, Mr. Oates. I see you have no scarecrows in your fields. How do you manage to do without them ?" "Oh, well enough," was tho,inno cent reply. "Yon see, I don't need 'cm, for rm in the fields all day my self." ? A bachelor farmer says that the quickest way to remove weeds is to propose to a widow. ?-Prosnerity has ruiocd more men th&a adversity?but that kind of ruin is so much more delightful. ? That man never lied who can. re peat the Ten Commandments while re moving a porous plaster from his ana tomy. ' ? People never- know too muob; they ibiuk they do. . I Great Hi-a? r ur Finance. JSS2B? r.~3 u - - BrtckJ-Musgrt ve's friends are tell ing this story, says the Birmingham Au:e-1 ler.ild. A few dajs ago one of Brock's po litical constituents came to Birming ham and made a hutry[eall on Brcok for t400. Wouldu'fi.Brcck Icod hira that amount of mouey for sixty days? "Why, bless your soul, my,dear fel low," said Breek, "I haven't got 400 cents with met?just now. I tell you what to do.? Yon go up here to the First National Bank, arjd ask'em to let you have it.^They'll be glad to do it for you." Thirty minutes lat?raMr. Constit uent was buttonholing Breek in the lobby of the Hillman. "The First National Bank people," said Mr. Constituent, "told me they'd be glad <to bel) me out, and that if I'd get you to indorse my note they'd let me have the coin." "That's mighty white of 'cm," said Brcok. "Isn't it? Say. though, I'll tell you what I'll do. I ? just switch the thing around. You go back and tell the bank pjople that if they'll in dorse your note I'll let you have the money." Honesty That Irritated. "Once when 1 had occasion to withdraw $'<!5 from my bank," re marked the conscientious man, "something happened which almost tempted me to think that honesty may at times be not bo very com mendable. By a curious mistake, considering ihc Final! nmount of money, the cashier handed out six five-dollar gold pieces. Without thinking what it meant to him I shoved one of the coins back, saying, 'Y>u have given me too much/ The look that man gave me I have never forgotten, although even at this day I cannot describe it. But I can as sure you it was not a grateful glance/'?New York Press. A Retraction. She (fiercely)?Don't you ever dare to say again that I'm driving'you crazy! lie (meekly)?I won t. I must have been that way when we were married. ?New York I^ess. He Hnd to I.anprTi. "I had to laugh the other day'*? "You don't menu you were absolutely compelled to, I hope?" "That's just what I mean. This was my employer's Joke."?New Orleans Times-Democrat. Wouldn't Sell. She?Is he an author? lie?No; he's more of u chemist. Every book ha writes becomes a drug on the market. ?Pittsburg Dispatch. ? o m - ? There is hardly ever any use, in practicing virtues unless you preach them very loudly, because nobody will believe it. ? The girl with a tall neck that isn't thin takes an awful mean ad vantage of other girls to have also dark eyebrows and golden hair. ? No man ever paid rent out of the money he is going to have when his ship comes in. ? Politics conBistB of being a pur suring woif ali the year except election time, and then a hunted fox. ? An awful nice way not to get a woman mad with you because you want to smoke in the room ithat bas lace curtains is not to marry her. ? It is surprising how easily a wo man can fool herself about'how easily shejihinks ehe dB fooling other people as to how happy her married life is.^ ? The time a man finds out how little he knows about arguing is when he begins to find-fault because there is no hot water for shaving, andwinds up with defending^himself for having come home late to dinner six months ago. ? Many aman ban been tnrned downjwhile waiting for something to turn up. B? The money of the self-made per son is*apt to talk regardless of gram mar. -? An ounce of flattery goes further with a woman than a pound of sym pathy. SPRING CATARRH. Chargeable Weather Causes Disease. Breathe Hyoinei and Cure Catarrh. The changeable weather of Spring, with its warm days and. cold nights, is responsible for a great inorsaso in the number of oases of catarrh. It is now tbat Hyoinei, the only guaranteed treatment for catarrh that cures with out stomach dofing, should be usad in every home. "f . Hyoinei is a scientific method by which pure air impregnated with Na tu-Te'b own remedies for the cure of catarrh, Can be inhaled by every suf ferer in his or her home. Breathed through the neat pocket inhaler that comes with every outfit, its healing, volatile, antiseptic fragrance reaches the lungs and air passages as no stom ach dosing possibly can do. It gives immediateorelief and tnakee lasting cuire. . tttoof that tho Ilyomei tteatmett wiflrdoall that is olaimed'for it is found in the guarantee under which Evans Pharmacy sell it, ab agreement to pay back the price, if the purchaser can; say tbat Hyomei has not given satisfaction. Complete juifit ?1.(0; extra Dottles ?Oo. The Kind You Have Always Bought, and which has been, in use for over SO years, has borne the signature of ? and has been made under his per sonal supervision since its infancy* ^ftafy/, /-ft&JUtit Allow no one to deceive you in this. All Counterfeits, Imitations and '* Just-as-good" are but 12xpcrimeuts that trifle with and endanger the health or Infants and Children?Experience against Experiment* What is CASTOR IA Castoria is a harmless substitute for Castor Oil, Pare? goric, Drops and Soothing Syrups. It is Pleasant, id contains neither Opium, Morphine nor other Narcotic substance. Its age is its guarantee. It destroys Worms, and allay- Fcvcrishncss. It cures Diarrhoea and Wind Colic. It relieves Teething Troubles, cures Constipation and Flatulency. It assimilates the Food, regulates the Stomach and Bowels, giving healthy and natural sleep* The Children's Panacea?The Mother's Friend* GENUINE CASTORIA ALWAYS Bears the Signature of The KM You Have Always Bought In Use For Over" 30 Years, THK CENTAUR COMPANY, TT MURRAY STOCKT, NCW VOR? CITY. ARMOUR'S GUANO AND ACID ALSO, COTTON SEED MEAL. If you want'High Grade Goods we will be glad to sell you. Splendid line of? FLOUR, COFFEE, TOBACCO, OATS AND CORN. We want your trade. VANDIVER BROS. We have just received a Fresh lot of Come to us for all of your? ORR, GRAY & CO., Prescription Druggists. ONE CAB OF HOGr FEED. Have juat received one Car Load of HOG FEED (Sboits) at very close prices. Come before they are ; all gone. Now is the time for throwing? LIME Around your premises to prevent a cafce of fever or i some other disease, that will cost you very much more , than the price of a barrel of Lime (91 00.) We have a fresh shipment in stock, and will be glad to send you some. If you contemplate building a barn or any other building^ see us before buying your? CEME$T and LIME. As we sell the very best qualities only. p. MANDERSON A. C. STRICKLAND, _ DENTISI". If Ree Over Farmers and Wer chants "* ?pf CI AlTalteiitf?B glvenTof he higher cls&pea of Dental Work. Crowns, Bridges bed Porcelain ] uloys, Buch aa are done in the larger cities. Y . . Ah klnda of Plates made. Gold Fill ings In artificial teeth any time afte* Plates are made. Oxygen. Gas and Local Anaesthetic*. Riven lor the Painless Extraction of teetf^ Bleedf?g cud d laeaaed gums treated, fi?r* AU calle to the country and near by To wob for the Painless Extraction of Teeth promptly attended^to fcy a compo tent assistant. ALONG LOOK AHEAD a man thinks it is when the matter of life insurance suggests itself?but circumstan* ces of late have shown how life hangs by a thread when war, flood, hurricane and nre . suddenly overtakes you, and the only way to be sure that your family is protected in case of.caJa* >ity Overtaking you ja to in? sure in a solid Company like? ^Ibe Mutual Benefit Lift Iiis. Co* Drop in und see us about if. ?I. ML, MATTISOW, . < t STAfE ACHS8T? Pooplot' Bank BoHdlcg, AKTJJiBfcON, O b.