Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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VOL. V. MANNING, CLARENDON COUNTY, S. C., WEDNESDAY. APRIL 3. 1889. 17. BRIBERY. A Sern pn by Rey.. Pr. T. Dewitt Talmage, D. D., On the "tWgoug Urse of Money "-Cor rujtion in P'olitkct the Crying Evil of the Age - Dishonesty In All Walks of Life. The text chosen for the subject of Dr. Talmage's -recent sermon. was I. Timothy, vi., 9.: "They tnat will be rich fall into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drovwn men in destruction and perdition." a That is the NiagaraFalls over which rush a multitude of souls, namely the determina tion to have money anyhow, right or wrong. Tell me how a. man. geta his money and -what he doeswith it, and I will 'tell you his character, and what will be his destiny in .this world and the ,text. I propose to speak this morning about some of the ruin ous modes of getting money. We recently passed through a national election in which it-has been estimated thirty million dollars were expended. I think about twenty million of it were spent in out-and-out bribery. Both parties raised all they could for this purpose. But that was only on a large scale what has been done on a smaller scale for fifty years and in a!l departments. Politics from being the science of good government has often been bedraggled into the synonym for truculencr and turpitude. A monster sin, plausible, pot ut, pestifer ous, it has gone forth, to do its di eadful work in all ages. its two hands are rotten with leprosy. It keeps its right hand hid den in a deep pocket. The left hand is clenched, and with its ichorous knuckle it taps at the door of the court room, the legis lative hall, tb Congress and the Parliament. The door swings open and the monster enters, and glides thgugh the aisle of the council eta-nber as softly as a slippered page, and then it take: its right hand from its deep pocket and offers it in salutation to judge or legislator. If that hand be taken, and the palm of the intruder cross the palm of the official, the leprosy crosses from palm to palm in a round blotch, round as a gold engle and the virus spreads, and the doom is fixed, and the victim perishes. Lot bribery, accurscd of God and man, stand up for trial. The Bible arraigns it again and again. Samuel says of his two sons who became judges: "They took bribes and perverted judgment." David says of some of his pur suers: "Their right hand is full of bribes." Amos says of some men in his ,lay: "They take a bribe and turn aside the poor in the gate." EliI'haz foretells the crushing blows of God's indignation, declaring: "Fire shall consume the tabernacles of bribery." It is no light temptation. The mightiest have fallen under it. Sir Francis Bacoa, Lord Chancellor. of England, founder of our modern'philosophy, author of "Novum Or ganum," and a whole library of books, the leading thinker of his century, so precocious that when a little child he was asked by Queen Elizabeth, "How old are you?" he re sponded. "I am two-years younger than your Majesty's happy reign;" of whose oratory Ben Jonson wrote, "The fear of every man that heard him was lest he should make an end;" having an income which you would suppose would have put him beyond the temptation of bribery thirty-six thousand dollars a year, and Twickenham court a gift, and princely es tatesin Hertfordshire and Gorhambury-yet under this temptation to bribery falling fiat into ruin, and on his confession of taking bribes, giving as excuse that all his prede cessors took them; he was fined two hun dred thousand dollars, or what corresponds with our two hundred thousand dollars, and imprisoned in London tower. So also Lord Chancellor Macclesfield fell; so also Lord Chancellor Waterbury perished. The black chapter in English, Irish, French and American politics is the chapter of bribery. Some of you remember the Pacific Mail sub sidies. Most of you remember the awful tragedy of the Credit Mobilier. Urider th~e temptation to bribery Benedict Arnold sold the fort in the Highlands for $3I.5%. For this sin Gergey betrayed Hungary, Ahitho phel forsook David and Judas kissed Christ. When I see so many of the illu*:'u#.s going down under this temptation. it makes me think of the red dragon spoken of in Revela tion, with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns, drawing a tnird part of the stars of Heaven down after him. The lob bies of the legidlatures of this country con trol the country. The land is drunk with bribery. "0," says some one, "there's no need of talking against bribery by promise or by dollars, because every man has his price." I do not believe it. Even heathenism and the dark ages have furnished specimens of incorruptibility. A cadi of Smyvrna hada case brought before him on triaL. A man gave him 500 ducats in bribery. The case camne on. - The'biiber had many witnesses. The poor man on the other side had no wit nesses. Ati the close of the case the cadi said: "This~poor man has no witnesses, be' thinks-, I shall produce in his behal!five hundred ignesses against the other side." An'd then pulling'ont the bag of ducats from under theottoman, ho dashed it down at the feet of the briber, saying: "I give my decis Ion against you." Epaminondas, offered a bribe, said: "I will do this thing if it be right, and if it be wrong all your goods can not persuade me." Fabricius of the Reman Senate was offered a bribe by Pyrrhus of Macedon. Fabricius answered, "What an example this would be to the Roman people: you keep your riches and I will keep my poverty and reputation." The President or the A merican- Congress during the American r--volution, General Re, was offered ten thousand guineas by foreign c->mmiss'oners if he would betray this country. Ho replied: "Gentlemen, I am a very poor man, but tell your King he is not rich enough to buy me." But why go so far, when you and I, if we move in hon orable society, know men and women, who by a:1the concmtrated force of earth and h'ell could not be bribed. They would no more be bribed than you would think of tempting an angel of light to exchange heaven for the pit. To offe'r a bribe is vil lainy but it is a very poor compliment to the man to whom it is offered. I have not much faith in those people who go atout braggiog how much they could get if they would only sell out. Those women who complain that they are very often in sulted need to understand that there is somnething in their carriage to invite insult. Thereare.men at Albany and at Harrisburg and at Washington who would no more be approached by a bribe than a-pirate boat with a few cutlasses would dare to attack a British man-of-war with two banks of guns on each side loaded to the touch hole. They are incorruptible men, and they are the few men who are to save the city and save the land. Meanwhile, my advice is to all peo ple to keep out of politics unless you are invulnerable to this style of temptation. Indeed, if you are naturally strong, you need religious buttressing. Noting but the grace of God can sustain our public men and make them what we wish. I wish that there might come an _old fashioned revival of religion, that it might break out in Congress and in the legisla tures and bring many of the leading Repub liansnd Democrats down on the anaxious seat of repentance. That day will come, or something better, for the Bible decar s that kings and queens shall become nursing fathers and mothers to the church, and if the greater is authority, then certainly the less. My charge also to parents is, remember that this evil of bribery often begins in the home circle and in the nursery. Do not bribayour children. Teach them to do that which is right, and not because of the ten cents or the orange you will give them. There is a:rgreat difference between rewas ing virtue-and making the profits thereof the impelling motive. That man who is honest merely because "honesty is the best policy" is already a moral bankrupt. My charge is to you. in all departments of life, steer clear of bribery, all of you. Every man and woman at some time will be tempted to do wrong for compensation. The bribe may not be offered in money. It may be offered in social position. Let us remem ber that there is a day coming when the most secret transaction of private life and of public life will come up for public repre hension. We can not bribe death, we can not bribe sickness, we can not bribe the grave, we can :not bribe the judgments of that God who thunders against this sin. "Fie!" said Cardinal Beaufort. "fie! can't death be hired? is money nothing? must I die, and so rich ! if the owning of the whole realm would save me I could get it by policy or by purchase-by money." No; death would not be hired then; he will not be hired now. Men of the world often regret that they have to leave their money here when they go away from the world. You can tell from what they say in their last hours that one of their chief sorrows is that they have to leave their money. I break that delusion. 1 tell that bribe taker that he will take his money with him. God will wrap it up in your shroud, or put it in the palm of your hand in resurrection, and there it will lie, not the cool, bright, shining gold as it was on the day when you sold your ,vote and your moral principle; but there it will lie, a hot metal, burning and consuming your hand forever. Or, if there be enough of it for a chain, then it will fall from the wrist clanking the fetters of an eternal captivity. The -bribe is an everlast ing possession. You take it for time, you take it for eternity. Some day in the next world, when you are longing for sympathy, you will feel on your cheek a kiss. Looking up you will find it to be Judas. who took thirty pieces of silver as a bribe and finished the bargain by putting an infamous kiss on the pure cheek of his divine Master. Another wrong use of money is seen in the abuse of trust funds. Every man during the course of his life, on a larger or smaller scale. has the property of others committed to his keeping. He is so far a safety deposit, he is an administrator, and holds in his hand the interest of the family of a deceased friend. Or he is an attorney, and through his custody goes the payment from debtor to creditor. or he is the collector for a business house, which com'pensates him for the re sponsibility; or he is a treasurer for a chari table institution, and he holds alms con tributed for the suffering; or heis an official of the city or the State, or the nation, and taxes, and subsidies, and salaries, and sup plies are in his keeping. It is as solemn a trust as God can make it. It is concen trated and multiplied confidences. On that man depends the'support of a bereft house hold, or the' morals of dependents, or the right movement of a thousand wheels of social mechanism. A man may do what he will with his own, but he who abuses trust funds, in that one act commits theft, false. hood, perjury, and becomes. in all the inten sity of the word, a miscreant. How many widows and orphans there are with noth ing between them and starvation but a sewing machine or held up out of the vortex of destruction simply by the thread of a needle, red wth their own heart's blood, who a little while ago had, by father and husband, left them a competency. What is the matter? The administrators or the executors have sactificed it-running risks with it that they would not have dared to encounter in their own private affairs. How often it is that a man will earn a live lihood by the sweat of his brow, and then die, and within a few months all the estate goes into the stock gambling rapids of Wall street. How often it is that you have knowvn the man to whom trust funds were com mitted taking them out of the savings bank and from trust companies and administra tots, turning old homesteads into hard cash, and then putting the entire estate into the vortex of speculation. Embezzlement is an easy word to pronounce, but it has tea thousand ramifications of horror. There is not a city that has not suffered from the abuse of trust funds. Where is the court house, or the city ball, or the jail, or the post-office, or the hospital. that in the building of it has not had a political job? Long bef~re the new court house in New York City was completed, it cost over Sl'l, oo.con. Five mition six hundred and sixt y three thousand dol'ars for furniture. For plastering and repairs, 32,370C0 ). For pumbing and gas works. $1,231,817. For awningsS28,5'iS. The bills for three months oming to the nice little sun of $13,151,198.39. There was not an honest brick, or stone, or lath or nail, or foot of plumbing, or inch of plastering, or ink stand, or door knob in the whole establishiment. That bad example was followed in many of the cities which aid not steal quite so much because there was not so much to steal. There ought to be a coser inspec tion, and there ought to be less opportunity for embezzlement. Lest a man shall take a five-cent piece that does not belong to him the conductor on the city horse car must sound his bell at every payment, and we are very cautious about small offense;, but give plenty of op)rtunity for sinners on a large scale to escape. For a boy who steals a loaf of bread from a cornergrocer to keep his mother from starving to death, a prison; but for defranders who abscond with half a million of dollars a castle on the Rhine, or, waiting until the offense is forgotten, then a castle on the Hudso'n! Another remark needs to be made, and that is that people ought not to go into places, into business or into positions where the temptation is mightier than their chur acter. If there be large sums of money to be handled and the man is not sure of his own integrity; you have no right to run an useaworthy craft into an euroclydon. A man can tell by the sense of weakness or strength in the presence of a bad oppor tunity whether he is in a safe place. How many parents make an awful mistakce when they put their boys in bynking houses, and stores, and shops, and factories and places of solemn trusts, without once discuss.ing whether they can endure the temptation. You give the boy plenty of money and have no account of it, and make the way down become very easy, and you may put upon him a pressure that he can not stand. There are men who go into positions full of tempta tion, considering only the one fact that they are lucrative positions. I say to the young peop.e here this morning, dishonesty will not pay in this world or the world to come. An abbott wanted to buy a piece of ground and the owner would not sell it, but the owne?- finally consented to let it to him un til he could raise one crop, and the abbott sowed acorns, a crop of two hundred years!i And I tell you, young man, that the dishon esties which you plant in your heart and life will seem to be very insignificant, but they will grow up until they will overshadow you mth hmorriblearkneknm oVershadow I alltm and al eternmty. It will not be a crop for two hundred years, but a crop for everlast ing ages. I stand this morning before many Wvho -have trust funds. It is a compliment.to you that yon hate -been so intrusted,' but I charge you, in the presence of God and the wodd, be careful, be as careful of: the property of others as you are careful of your own. Above all, keep your own private account at the bank sepa ratQ from your account as trustee of an estate, or trustee of: an institution. That is the point at which thousaids of people make shipwreck. They get the property of others mixed up with their own property; they nut it into investment, and away it all goes, and they can not return that which they borrowed. Then comes the explosion, and the money market is shaken and the press denounces and the church thunders expulsion. You have no right to use the property of others except for their advant age, nor without consent, unte-s they are minors. If with their consent you invest their property as well as you can, and it is all lost, you are not to blame, you did the best you could; but do not come into the delusiou which has ruined so many men, thinking because a thing is in their possession, therefore it is theirs. You have a solemn trust that God has given you. Ir this vast assemblage their may be some who have misappropriated trust funds. Put them back, or, if you have so. hopelessly in volved them that you can not put them back, confess the whole thing to those whom you have wronged, and you will sleep better at nights, and you will have the better chance for your soul. What a sad thing it would be if, after you are dead, your administrator should find out from the account books, or from the lack of vouchers, that you were not only bankrupt in estate, but that you lost your soul. If all the trust funds that have been misap propriated should fly suddenly to their owners, and all the property that has been purloined should suddenly go back to its owners it would crash into ruin every city in America. A blustering young man arrived at a hotel in the West :.nd he saw a man on the side walk, and in a rough way, as no man has a right to address a laborer, said to him, "Carry this trunk up-stairs." The man car ried the trunk up-stairs and came down, and then the young man gave him a quarter of a dollar which was marked, and instead of being twenty-five cents it was worth only twenty cents. Then the young man gave his card to the laborer and said, "You take this up to Governor Grim's: I want to see him." "Ah," said the laborer, "I am Governor Grimes." "0, said the young man, "you-I-excuse me.', Then the Governor said: "I was much impressed by the letter you wrote me asking for a certain office in my gift and I had made' up my mind you should have it; but a young man who will cheat a laborer out of five cents would swindle the government of the State if be got his hands on it. Idon't want you. Good morning, sir." It never pays. Neither in this world nor in the world to come will it pay. I do not suppose there ever was a better specimen of honesty than was found in the Duke of Wellingten. He marched with his army over the French frontier, and the army was suffering, and he hardly knew how to get along. Plenty of plunder all about, but he commanded none of the plunder to be taken. He writes home these remarkable word;: '-We are overwhelmed with debts, and I can scarcely stir out of my house on account of public creditors, waiting to demand what is due to them." Yet at that very time the French peasantry were bringing their valu ab!es to him to keep. A celebrated writer says of the transaction: "Nothing can he grander or more nobly original than this ad mission.. The old soldier, after thirty years' service, this iron man and victorious general, established in an enemy's country at the head of an immense army, is afraid 'of his creditors! This is a kind of fear that has seldom troubled conquerors and .nvaders, and I doubt if the annals of war present any thing comparable to its sublime simplicity." Oh ! is it not high time that we preached the morals of the gospel, right beside t e faith of the gospels Mr. Froude, the cele brated English historian, has written of his own country these remarkable words: "From the great house in the city of London to the village grocer, the commercial life of En. gland has been satur-ated ivith'fraud. So deep it has gone that a strictly honestly trade-s man can hardly hold his ground against competition. You can no longer trust that any article you buy is the thing which it pretends to be. We have false wveights, false measures, cheating and shoddyeverywhere. And yet the clergy have seen this grow up in absolute indifference. Many hundreds of sermons have I heard in England, many a dissertation on the mysteries of the faith, on the divine mission of the clergy, on bish ops and justification, and theory of good works, and verbal inspiration, and the eft cacy or the sacraments; but. during all these thirty wonder~zl years, never one thiat I can recollect on comnmon honesty.'' Now, that may be an exaggerated state ment of things in England, but 1 am very certain that in all parts of the earth we need to preach the moralities of the gospel right along beside the faith of the gospel. My hearer! What are you doing with that fraudulent document in your pocket? My other hearer! How are you getting along with that wicked scheme you have now ou foot? Is that a "pool ticket" you have in your pocket? Why, 0 young man, were you last night practicing in copying your employer's signature! Where were you last night? Are .your habits as good as when you left your father's housel You had a Christian ancestry, perhaps, and you have have had too many prayers spent on you to go overboard. Dr. Livingstone, the famous explorer, was descended from the Highianders, and he said that one -of his ancestors, gne of the Highanders, one day called his family around him. The Highlander was dying; ie had his children around his death bed. He said: "Now, my lads, I have looked all through our bistory as far back as 1 can find it, and 1 have never' found a dishonest mai in nll the line, and I want you to un derstand you inherit good blood. You have no excuse for doing wrong. My lads, be honest." Ah, my friends, be honest Lefore God, be honest before your fellow men, be honest before your soul. If there be those here who have wandered away, come back, come home, come now, one and all, not one ex ception in all the assemblage, come into the kingdom of God. Come back on tihe right track. The door is open and the in finite heart of God is full ol compassion. Come home! Come~ hiom'! 0, I would lbe well satisfied i c' -d save some young man this morning, some young man that has been going astray and would like to get back. I am glad some ene has set to music that scene in August of 1881l, when a young girl saved from death a whole rail train of pas sengers. Some .of you remember that out West in that year, on a stormy night. a hur ricane blew down part of a railroad hridge. A freight train came along and crashed into the ruin, and the engineer and conductor perished. There was a girl living in her father's cainm near the~ disaster, and she heard the crash of tibe freim t train and sho knew that in a few moments an express train was due. She lighted a lantern and clambered up on the one beam of the wrecked bridge, a toh main bridge which was, orestIe work, and started to cross amid tbs. thunder and lightning of the tempest and; the raging of the torrent beneath. One mis step and it would have beep death. Amid all that horror the lantern went out. Crawl ing sometimes and'sometimes walkidg.over the slippery rails and over the trestle work she came to the other side of the river. She wanted -tq get to the telegraph station, where the express train 'did not -stop, so that the danger might be -telegraphed to the station where the train did stop. The train was due in five minutes. She was one mile off from the telegraph station, but fortunately the train was late. With cut and bruised feet she flew like the wind. Coming' up to the telegraph station, panting with almost deathly exhaustion, she had onl strength enough to shout, "The bridge Is down," when she dropped unconscious. and could hardly be resuscitated. The message was sent from that station to the next station and the train halted, and that night that brave girl saved the lives of hundreds of passengers and saved many homes from desolation. But every street is a track, and every style of business is a track, and every day is a track, and every night is a track. and multi tude: under the power of temptation come sweeping on and sweeping down towards perils raging and terrific. God help us to go out and stop the train. Let us throw some signal. Let us give some warning. By the throne of Ged let us tl;;sh some in fluence to stop the downward progress. Be ware! Beware! The bridge is down, the chasm is deep and the lightnings of God set a'l the niight of sin on fire with this warn iag: "He. that being often reproved, hiardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be de stroycd, and that without remedy." AMERICAN WOMEN. Max O'Rel Notes an Absene.s of Stupid Looking Faces Among Them. That which struck me most in America. from first to last, is the total absence of stupid-looking faces. All are not hand some, but all are intelligent and beaming with activity. In my opinion, it is in this that American beauty mainly consists. In the large cities of the East, the first thing which caught my attention was the thin ness of the men and the plumpness of the women. This seemed to hint that the former lived in a furnace of activity and the latter in cotton wool. This impression soon deepened into a conviction. It seemed to me that her lot was as near to being per fection as an earthly lot could be. A respect amounting to reverence is shown for her, and it appears to be the chief aim of her protectors to surround her with luxury and make her path through life a sunny one. So far as adding to her mental and physical grace goes, this plan of making every woman an uncrowned queen has an swered completely. Seeing her high posi tln, she has set herself to work to fill it be comingly, and it is the cultivation of Amer ica's daighters, it is their charming inde pendence and a consciousness of their power, that made them so attractive and render American society so delightful to the stranger. In their treatment of women, the Americans might give more-than one lesson to the men of the old Old World, even to the Frenchmen, who, in the matter of politeness, lives a good deal, I am afraid, on the reputation of his anc3stors. The respect for women in America seemed to me to be perfectly disinterested, purely platonic. In France this respect almost borders on gallantry. A Frenchman will always stand back to let a woman pass, but he will generally profit by the occasion to take a good look at her. If an outsider be competent to form an opinion, I venture to say that the American woman does not render to man a tithe of the devotion she receives from him. A. French wife repays a husband's devo tion by protecting his interest-an Ameri can too often repays it by breaking into his capital.-Forum. WESTMINSTER ABBEY. Where the Dead of All Sects and All Po litleal OpInions Meet. Here, side by side in their stately tomb, lie the Tudor Queens-of whom the one burned Protestants for their fith and the other sent Romish priests to the block for their treason-of whom one defeated the Armada equipped for the thraldom of En gland by the husband of the other Re'jp~o conorles et urna Mtara et E1;:abeth'z oorores, sharers in one quiet grave and wearers of the same uneasy crown. And oppo~ite them lies the other ill-fated Queen,'Mary Stuart, whom Elizabeth sent to the block, and whose tomb was once supposed to be resplendent with miracles. Here are alike the monuments of Dryden, the Cath olic, and Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, the highly unorthodox, and Watts. the in dependent. The tomb of Pophwm, the Roun thead Colonel, stands close beside that of Cary, the cava:ier, who died heart broken at the ex-ecution of Charles L. And here stands the statue of Milton, the mere mention of whose name in a single line of another's-epitaph was once held to deille the abbey. Many who would have cursed each other when living here lie side by side at peace, judged not by their unessential differences, but by the larer eyes of Divine wisdom and national gratitude. Man's opinionativenless is no measure of God's in finitude, nor ought we to exclude from our sympathy those whom God does not ex lude from His forgiving love. The consers may be different, yet the incense is the same; the form may b3 different, yet the faith one; the theology different, yet tire Irighteousness identical. It is a fact of which we need often to be reminded, and which nowhere finds so emphatic a witness as within these venerable walls-that God is not the leader of a sect.-Congregational Review. Work and Recreation. Rest is as needful as work to a man, and work and rest .ougbt to be secured in due proportions by every man. But that which is rest to one man would be work to another mar, and so vioe versa. Every man has ce. - tai kinds of work which he loves to do for their own sake, and wihich therefore are restful kinds of work,'wlhie other kinds of work must be done for simple duty's sake, and so are exhausting kinds of work. It behooves every man to have a care to give the fitting measure of time to these two sorts of work severally. As Lord Bacon sas: "In studies, wvhatsoever a man com mndethi upon himselfe, let him set houres for it. But whatsoever is agreeable to his nature, let him take no care for any set time, for his thoughts will fle to it them selves, so as the spaces of other business or studies will suffice. A man's nature runs either to herbs or weeds; therefore, let him seasonably water the one and destroy the ither."-S. S. Times. -It is often said that "the best way to be happy is to make others happy-" Kindness has a reflex influence, whose power is hard to measure. Smiles are contagiou~s. "'he singing heart will waken songs in other hearts. He who knows what is in man speaks to human need when he said: "It is more blessed to give tban to receive." United Presbyterian. -The piety that does not give is piety DAMAGES FOR MURDER. A REIARKAiBLE SUIT TRIEI) IN THE (RENVILLE CoURT. A Man in the Penitentiary Sued by the Wife of the Man He Killed-Unusual Incidents of the Trial-An Attack on an Attorney-The Dead Man a Bigamist. (Greenville .News of Sunday.) A case of rare occurrence in this State, if not the first one of its kind ever tried in a South Carolina court, occupied the attention of the Court of Common Pleas yesterday. It was the case of Mrs. Sadly- Hughes, executrix, against Richard H. Jacobs, action for $10,000 damages for the kill ing of her husband, John or "Doe" Hughes by R. 11. Jacobs on Christmas day, 1886. The suit was brought by J. T. Nix, representing Mrs. Hughes, soon after the killing occurred and has been pending since, but had never been brought to trial until yesterday. It will be recalled that "Doe." Hughes, who, with his wife and family of five children was living as an ordinary "renter" in a cabin on the place of R. H. Jacobs. about four miles from this city, was shot and killed by Jacobs in a quar rel over the alleged burning by llughes of rails from the pasture fence. Jacobs was arrested and tried for murder. He was convicted of manslaughter and sen tenced to serve five years in the State penitentiary. After numerous motions for a new trial and appeals. to the Su preme Court and after every legal device had been exhausted by the counsel for the defense, the sentence was put into execution, and Jacobs is now, a man of nearly 60 years, wearing the shaven face, cropped hair and striped clothes of a common felon in the great State prison on the banks of the Congaree. The action for damages brought by the widow of the dead man for the kill ing her husband, though a measure sel dom ever resorted to in this State, is a perfectly legitimate legal action, being based on Section 2183 of the Revised Statutes, which reads as follows: "Whenever the death of a person shall be caused by the wrongful act, neglect or default of another, and the act, neglect or default is such as would, if death had not ensued, have entitled the party injured to maintain an action and recover damages in respect thereof. then, and in every such case, the person or corporation which would have been liable, if death had not ensued, shall be liable to an action for damages, not withstanding the death of the person injured, although the death shall have been caused under such circumstances as make the killing in law a felony." In the trial of the case yesterday. the attorneys for the plaintiff were J. T. Nix, who conducted the examination of the witnesses, Colonel W. H. Perry and B. M. Shuman. The defendant was rep resented by Captain A. Blythe, conduct ing the examination of witnesses on the part of the defense, Hon. W. C. Benet and Irvine & Mooney. Much of the evi dence produced related to the manner and circumstances of the killing of Hughes and developed a story not mater ially different from that brought out on the murder trial, saving that the testi mony of the wife and eldest daughter of the dead man had a much stronger col oring in his favor than on the previous trial. Aside from the testimony relating to the manslaughter, which was admitted, of course, by the defense, the efforts of the counsel for the plaintiff were di reted towards proving that the de ceased, Hughes, was a strong, able bodied man and a good worker; that he followed at various times the trade of a rock-mason and of a carpenter in ad dition to working on the farm; that he was not an old or feeble man,and that he was the sole support -of his wife and children. In testifying as to howv much Hughes made a .year, the witnesses for the plaintiff varied in their estimates from $800 to $500. Through cross-ex amination and otherwise, the further facts were elicited from the plaintiff's witnesses that Hughes was a wandering, thriftless character, moving his family from place to place, and not staying more than a year at any, that he was a a drinking man ana that he had failed to accumulate any property duriug his liftime. The most startling incident of the ex amination was thme, attempt on the part of the defendant's counsel to prove that J. T. Nix had gone to the house of Doe Hughes the day after the killing and had induced Mrs. Hughes, while the body of her husband lay yet unburied, t sign a contract for the bringing of a damage suit against Jacobs, of the pro ceeds of which he (Nix) was to get one half and Mrs. Hughes the other. On this point, the answers of Mrs. Hughes to the questions of the cross examining counsel were slightly evasive. She testitled that Mr. Nix baal come to her house the day after the killing and that she had first approached him about the matter of damages, asking him if there was any law to help her or if there was anything tbat could be done. Mr. Nix had assui-ed her, she said, that if there was any law, she should be pro tected. She admitted that she had signed some kind of paper for Nix that day but could not say what it was. The plaintiff's case having been closed, W. C. Benet interposed a motion for a non-suit on the ground that no proof had been produced to show the damages alleged to have been sustained by the wife and children of the dead man. The motion was refused by Judge Norton, and the ease of the defense was opened. The evidence submitted by the defense was in writing altogether and consisted of the testimony taken before Probate Judge Donthit in the case of Amanda Melvina Hughes in re Sallie Hughes, action to set aside the appointment ot' Mrs. Sallie Hughes as administratrix of the estate of John, "Doe." Hughes, and the testimony of Richard HI. Jacobs in his trial for murder. No witnesses were put on the stand by the defense. The position of the de fense was, first, that Mrs. Sallie Hughes was not the wife of John Hughes, he having a wife living in Georgia at the time he married her, and that she was not, accordingly, entitled to the benefits of the act allowing damages to the widow in the case of the unlawful kill in of the huiband: second, that the kill ing of Hughes was in self-defense, and was not, therefore, such as would en title to damages under the Act. The testimoney submitted went to prove that Hughes, the deceased, hav ing gone to Georgia on account of a trouble he had gotten into in Pickens County; he had there been married in 1868 to one Mrs. Amanda Melvina Stew art of Habersham Couuty, Ga.; 4hat they had had two children, and that af ter'that Hughes had returned to this State and married his cousin, Sallie Hughes, in 1875. The case went to the jury about half past :3 o'clock in the afternoon. Argu ment was made for the plaintiff'by B. M. Shuman, .1-. -T. Nix anid W. H:Peri. and for the defense by Captain A. Blythe andl Hon. W. C. Benet. THE JURY FAIL TO AGREE. GREENyILLE, March 2.-[Special to The Register.]-The jury in the case of irs. Sallie Hughes vs. R. H. Jacobs. ac tion for $10,600 damages for the killing of plaintiff's husband, remained out all Saturday night, and at 7 o'clock Sunday morning came into court and reported that they were unable to agree. A nis trial was thereupon ordered. It is said that the jury stood nine for plaintiff and three for defendant. RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE IN GEQRGI.i. A Seventh Day Adventist Indicted for Cutting Wood on Sunday. CHICAGO, March 28.-The Rev. George B. Starr, superintendent of the Central Bible school for Home and Foreign Missions, complains to the Associated Press that the Seventh clay Adventists are being horribly treated in some parts of the South. He has received from Elder M. Huffman of that sect, for transmission to the general conference of Battle Creek, Mich., the following letter, written at Alpharetta, Milton County, Ga. "Brother D. Conklin of Michigan, who, with his family, has lately moved into this neighborhood, has been re ported to the grand jury and a bill found against him for working on Sunday, and all- lie did was to cut a few sticks of wood to build a fire -just what I have seen many others doing since I came to this State. The penalty for vio lating any portion of the law in this State is very severe. They have what is known in this State as a "chain gang." where those who violate law are taken. A ball and chain is fastened to one leg, and they are made to work on the public roads and railroads, and those who are put there are, many of them, treated worse than brutes. Many have been whipped to death, and doubtless if he should be taken there for working on Sunday he would be compelled to work on the Sabbath, or whipped. What is your advice? Should we be beaten in the Circuit Court, would you take the case to the Supreme Court? And if so, can you help us? We are all poor here." TANNER AND THE PENSIONS. The New Commissioner Has Big Schemes For the Old Soldiers. WASHINGTON, March 27.-Corporal Tanner has been interviewed as to his policy in the Pension Office, and it is evident from his remarks that so far as he can help it the disposition of the sur plus will not be a troublesome question to President Harrison's administration. He quotes the language of the President, used during the campaign, that apothe caries' scales should not be used in measuring the nat'*on's obligations to the old soldiers, and says that he is opposed to the trifling pensions of $1, $2 and *3 a month, believing that if anything should be given enough should be given to amount to something. lHe adds that when applicants are unable to make out their cases he thinks the Pen sion Office ought to help therb find the lacking testimony. By the faithful application of these general maxims Commissioner Tanner can run the annual disbursements for pensions up from eighty millions a year to a good deal over one hundred millions, and, perhaps, to one hundred and twenty-five million dollars a year with out any help from Congress, except the supply of the money. Every Congres passes one or more general pension laws, increasing rates of pensions or enlarging one or more class of pensions. The President cannot very well, and pro bably does not wish to, veto any general service pension bill which would, at the lowest estimate, give five hundred thous and men a hundred dollars a year each, or fifty millions a year, and the Repub licans in Congress have almost pledged themselves to vote for an arrears of pen sions. That would involve an expendi tur, roughly estimated, of three hun dred millions. The Pension Office is the most power ful political machine in the country. A very liberal policy in a close County sometimes has a marked effect, and there are ways of suggesting to apphi-, cants that if they and their friends are supporters of the administratzon their applications will be promptly consid ered that bear fruits on election day. During the late campaign the Republi cau orators caime over a good many Deim ocratic old soldiers by representing that if the Republican party got into power again it. would divide the surplus among the old soldiers. The President's selec tion of a Pension Commissioner indi cates that the party is going to try to keep to it promises. One year from next summer the rnem bers of the Fifty-first Congress will be seeking re-nominations on the records they made in the previous session of Congress for the session that will begin next December, and pension projects of the most gigantic size may be looked for then. Family Prayers in the Whita House. President Harrison holds family prayers in the White House every morn ing. At half past 7 o'clock the family asembles in the library where Gen. Harrison reads a chapter in the Bible, which he explains in a few words. The Lord's Prayer is then repeated by the entire family, and the exercises end. It has always been the custom for the Hlarrisons to have morning family wor ship, and their occupancy of the White* Housem ilo interrant the custom. TROUBLE AHEA. PIWS'ECTS OF A DIFFICULTY WITH (IEAT BRITAIN In Consequence of the President's Procla mation Declaring Behring Sea a Closed Sea-The Talk About Annexing Canada. What We Could Do in the Event of War. - WArSHIGTON. March 24.-The Presi dent's "Biehring Sea" proclamation will probably result in some diplomatic cor respondence with Great Britain and per haps other powers. Advices from Of ta:va.. say that the proclamation .has created a genuine sensation in .Canidian official circles. Great Britain more than a year since indicated a disposition to unite with this government to prevent wholesale seal destruction, but when negotiations are commenced it would not be surprising should that govern ment claim an e:tent of jurisdiction our government would not be prepared to concede. The affair may give Mr. Blaine an opportunity thus early in the administration to lay down his promised vigorous foreign policy. This procla mation does not claim exclusive juris diction over Behring's Sea, as construed in some quarters, but leaves the question of jurisdiction in a condition for future determination. The issue will very soon be raised, it can be depended upon, when an American gunboat punishes maraud ers in waters held to be common gound. The press dispatches from Canada indi cate a somewhat excited public feeling over the proclamation. The Canadians,' have been the principal depredators upon the seals, and it is likely will not be disposed to give up their practices without a struggle. In this connection it is of surpassing interest to note the feeling in various circles here. The debate in the Senate the other day on the subject of our relations.with Canada was of marked significance, and yet it has seemed to excite more notice in Canada than in the United States. When such Senators as Mr. Sherman and Mr. Hoar declare openly that the an nexation of Canada to the United States is not only a possibility but a proba bility there is meaning in what they say:. It is perfectly apparent here, for it is. common talk at the clubs, that powerful - influeLces are at work in favor of the annexation of Canada-peaceably, if it can be effected in that manner, forcibly if not. When Senators of the United States assert positively and publicly, as they have, that the United States must have Canada, by force, if necessary, and the movement in that direction must not be long delayed, it is porten tious. These would be glad if the Behr ing's Sea proclamation should lead up to difficulties with England, for with a Secretary of State so disposed hostilities could easily be brought about. Every statesman and every military commander in Great Britain knows just as well as any one in the United States that in an incredibly short time there after we would pour all over Canada an invading host which would sweep every vestige of British domination from the soil, and Great Britain could get no other satisfaction than the bombard ment of a few of our coast cities. It is held in army and navy circles that even this could be prevented by ob structions and torpedoes in our har bor approaches. When the rumor of the sinking of an American by a Ger man gunboat was in circulation, it was marvelous to note the expres sion of hopes on all hands here that the news would prove true. The de sire here was universal for a first-class brush with- a first-class power, though there was not the slightest indication of any such desire anywhere else in 'the country. The conquest of Canada would offer a prospect so inviting to this spint, if it were to spread over the country, that in certain continger.cies it might almost in a moment obliterate those s.en timents of fellowship and fraternity which have been the theme at all gather ings of the two English-speaking .nationis for generations past. A high military officer said he had-not2 a doubt if the standard of thie Unitell States was raised for volunteers there would be one million men under it in thirty days, and a naval officer of equal rank declared we would be in a condition to cope on the sea with any power before much damage could be intlicted upon us. All this is only the foreshadowing of events which may be a long way off, but there can be no doubt that infiuences, broad and deep, are impressed with the conviction and determination that it is time for this country to show the nations of the earth what it can do. Two Popuar Consuiships. The applications for places in the con sular service reveal the fact that more clergymen apply for the office at Jerusa lem than for all the other consulships combined. The reason is obvious. The location is an interesting one . to every student of Bible history, and as the _du ties of the Consulate are merely 'nomi- ~ nal, there is ample time for the prose cution of such literary or other work as the incumbent may wish to engage in. The office at Glasgow has come to be sought after b~y litterateurs to a greater or less extent since Bret Harte and Fran cis Underwood of Boston were sent there. The compensation is about $6000 a year, and accessibility to Lon don adds greatly to its other advantages. -Sringtield Repulican. A Blundering Centennial Committee. WaSmIsGToN, March 28.-Army of ficers in active service are joining the naval offeers in their criticism upon the New York centennial comnmittee. They hold that it is not courteous to Major General Schotield, who will command the military forces, to place at the head of the naval demonstration, in a position where there must necessarily be concert of action between them, not only an armiy officer, but one who comes from the lowest branch of the military service, and who is upon the retired list. They also complain that on the commit tee of which this officer is chairman t bere are several reputable naval officers and a grand son of Admiral Farragut. It is hinted that little active assistance for emnonstration can be expected from Secretary Tracey under the circuni