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Fight Until Death Decides a Winner Y<m have heard of cock fighting all your life, but you have nevor seen a match, so early In the morning you got up and start out It Is an unheard of hour for you if you work at night (X o'clock In the morning), but you loan down u cup of coffee and got going Several bourn' rldo gets you clone to your destination. You leave the main highway aonio 12 or l"> miles bohind and wind over hill and down dale, traversing roads which meander, through Holds soon t<> ho under cul* tlvatlon, through black Jack thickets' ami groves of towering green ptnos. j Then---suddenly -k-thoro you are. i Somo li<?0 yards from the scene of the | fights u guard bars your path until you are properly Identified, pay your entrance fee ($2) and get your "member-1 ship" card. As you move closer, you feel the tension In the air, a tension which is us high powered as a "hot" electric Wire. You hear a clarion cull and a deflapt reply as a rival game fighter accepts the challenge to do battle to the, ... death. You arrive Jusl In tlmo 'to son a j handler carefully preparing his olid tor the arena. Leather strips, soft as | chamois, are feeing wrapped around ; the sawed off spur stumps. The gaffs, murderous, curved blades over two J inches la length and sharp as noodles, urn tied la place and everything Is In readiness. His fighter tucked gently under an arm, the handler eaters the pit. There the bird Is carefully weighed 'I ho rival handler and his cock come In ami the ceremony Is repeated. The scales show the opponents to bo the same weight, to the fraction of an ounce. The referee utters a sharp eommand and the handlers step to the middle of the pit. .There the birds oyo ouch other and. egged on by their handlers, begin taking vicious pecks at their foe The handlers step back, swing their birds forward as though to toss them at each other, then too a line drawn in the firm cl^iy surface of the pit. Another sharp command from the referee and t.ho birds, nocks outstretched and ready for action, launch at one another in a whirlwind of dying feathors and flashing steel? Around the pit. reaching high to the rafters, uro stands filled with eager watchers, almost every one with a wad of greenbacks In hand. Suddenly there Is a shouted challenge. . .... "Fifty on the roundhead." Immediately, from across the arena conies a reply. "It Is a bet." Frequently the bettors have never ho?mi each other before that moment. More frequently they don't know each other's names. But it Is a bet A bet aw certain of payment us tho guarantee buck of th? greenback Itself. Scblom. If over, is th? money passeel until the IIvhi Is over. Hut then ..Very bet Is paid, and quickly. It Is a cosmopolitan crowd. Men are there in overalls and In awunk sport clothes. The women art* there, too, niow^jof tlo'm drowsed In expensive clorflOH. The crowd Is orderly, < aiKer and intent on the light al hand .... Now the birds are in action, the handlers hovering nearby and tho rofi-ree watching with eagle ?yea. The steel strike* home and both cocks go to tho ground in a heap as the referee shouts "handle". 'I ho handler* quickly untangle the bird*. step back to the lino and begin hurried ministration*, for wdiich they have ten seconds. Again the sharp command from tho referee and again the birds tly at oaeh other. Again a gaff strikes home land again tho birds are handled. | The roundhead appear* to be got[ting the worm of It ami shouts from bis rival's backers offer odd*, quickly I snapped up. Por the Initiate know a > light is never lost until the 'bird is ' dead or so nearly so that he cannot Mutter a wing Again the birds tangle and suddenly the roundhead strikes, his gaff going deep Into the too. The birds are picked up, but blood can bo *een dripping from the Injured bird's mouth. There are more shouted offers of bets and I quick shouts of acceptance. Again the cocks tear at each other I ami In a moment tho lighter who bad I till the better of tho. early going Is j lying dead in the pit, tho weary roundbead standing over him. Blood Is spattered en the ground. t | Two more lighters take their places In tho pit. This time the black cock quickly whips down his blue foe. The odds shift quickly. One man shouts an offer of 2f? to 5. Another, sitting hesido him, quickly takes It. Tho blue cook's handler expertly treats hl? tighter and the light goes on. Both become so weury that they cannot wield their deadly weapons, hut continue to peck at each other. Under the tender nursing of his handler, the blue bird grows stronger. Time stands still as tho battle rages. But the birds have had their full time In the arena. Outside they go to another pit?to light until one or tht> other can no longer defend himself. The blue bird's stamina stands him In good stead and soon tho black cock Ilea In the dust, counted out and almost lifeless. The beta are paid off and hack to tho arena It is, where unotlier battle has already started. This one is quick. One haiidie and | with Ihe speed of lightning?one cock sinks a gaff into his foe and it is all over, the vanquished bird lying lifeless on the clay Moor. Then it 1h time for another. One cock Is red, the other a "Dom." They go Into battle, murder in their hearts and eVes. The red gets In the first lick, but the "Dom" keeps fighting. On they go. the red wearing down his enemy steadily and striking j viciously for tho kill Then It happens There is a Hurry ami the rod bird is down. Blood Mocks Ills beak. | Per ten frantic seconds the handlers work and again comes tho sharp command for tho fight to he resumed. The red 'bird slumps on his line, unable to move. The "Dom" taken Next time tho cocks are placed bill to bill, but nothing happens. Neither ctm movo. And again they are handled and again placed beak to beak. The "Dom" staggers to his foot, falls backward. The red gladiator lies still, apparently dead. The referee examines both birds. The "Dom's" liandlor, thinking liis rock has won. starts for (he door, but is called buck.-.The red is still breathing The crowd shouts, seeking a decision. The referee indicates a draw. Doth valiant fighters are carried out. As the handler cuts off the gaffs, tlio red shudders once and dies. The spotted bird still twitches, but weakly. A sharp knifo, a quick stroke and one last spasmodic Jerk and it is till ovc^r for him. That is all as far as we are concorned, too. We head back for the main highway, passing others headed for the tights, which will last well into tho evening. i But you have a long way to go, so you can't stay, although the thing la beginning to have a gruesome fascination. That long humpy ride back to tho highway. Then a deep breath and you start stepping on it. Dong miles stretch ahead, so you aren't wasting any time. Three hours later you are back homo. How did you like it? If you are asking us, we still aren't sure.?Abe Fennell in The State, unable to rise. Plant protoplasm is destroyed by temperatures of 120 degrees Fahrenheit. and green plants cannot livo long in such heat. IFOR PERSPIRING FEET 4 USE -I STA-DRI lotion I At Your Druggist'? 35c J - " ?, ? N. C, GOVERNOR HALT& CAMP DAVIS STRIKR Raleigh. N C., A^fril*4?Pr dYnl>t"%ft/! ' vigorous action by Governor liroughlou last night apparently brought to a quick end a strike of truck drivers at Camp Davis, the army's new antiaircraft firing base near Wilmington. Governor Broughton aald today lie wan informed iato yesterday that about 3<> truck drivers had gone on strike and had parked their trucks "so that you couldn't got in or out of un important section of the canip." Several members of the statu highway patrol were dispatched to the scene, (lie governor continued, with orders to tell the drivers to movo their trucks and "unless they did move them, derricks or wreck cars wouM be used to move them and anyone who lntorferrod would bo arrested." The trucks were moved promptly, Broughton added, and the strike has been settled. He said ho did not know the grievances of the drivers or whether they had won any concessions. "I was not interested in,the merits of the strike or how it was settled," Broughton sald> "Hut 1 was not going to lei it interfere with our dofense program." Itroughton said he understood the drivers parked their trucks on a.road loading from a sand pit to a slate highway, and that sand from the pit was hehig used In construction work at the camp. Woman Raises ?.. *? Queer, Crops Rldgo Spring. April 4 Want to buy h good homo-grown earth worn? Well, M1?S Virginia It. Brodle will bo giftd to oblige. Miss Brodie, tall, distinguishedlooking white haired lady of the old South, has some 80.000 earthworms which Hhe first began growing in 1938. She Htarted raining her worms In her bed room but after the llrst winter moved them to a small house In the yard. The worm eggs, called capsules, are kept In separate boxes to hatch. Miss Brodle tlnds them by digging down Into the sticky mass of worms and black earth and picking them out with her lingers. Upon entering the room one can hear a noise resembling drops of water splashing on stone. "It's the earthworm's song", Miss Brodle explains. Sho pulls a ploco of burlap from one of the boxes, digs her hand Into the black loam and soon comes out "with a handful of wriggling mass of hundreds of worms. "When 1 first began working with them 1 couldn't hear to touch them" sho explained as she fondled her pets. But now I don't mind at all. "During the day they stay out of sight hut at night they come to the surfaco and deposit their castings." It's the castings that folks like Miss Brodle are most interested In. "The deposited casting's," she oxplains, "when accumulated, become black vogotablo mould or top soil. The burrows make plant i;oot irrigation easier, cut down on the' farmer's water b|ll and generally serve as air lanes for'thcr "fhots of "plants and trees." .Miss Hrodio has 18 young peach trees around half of which she put 1,000 worms and those trees are twice as large as the wormless trees, and they are busier, sturdier, and produce | larger and Juicier fruit. Miss Brodle doesn't claim to be the tlrst to begin earthworm culture but her neighbors believe she Is the only "lady, and certainly only real Southern lady" who has such an unusual occupation. Sho counts her worms?-picking! them out of the dirt one by one?and : right now is constructing additional1 facilities to raise more and mere worms. ! Kar Lb worms like coffee grounds and Miss Brodie adds that "many of my friends save theirs for ine." "They also liko crushed nuts, crumbled suet, sugar, corn meal and any j kitchen wastes except scouring powder and citron rinds. "All my worms are absolutely free from disease," Miss Brodie poudly boasts, "although a fow?those light in color?are anemic." S It is reported that truck drivers who must cross the Sierra Nevada range in California must shift gears 976 times in a stretch of 130 miles of highway. The Davis Cup is the highest topky awarded tennis players and is named !after its donor. Rosicrucians were a group of philosophers, orignating with a German monk named Rosencruez in the fourteenth century. Nobody's Business Written for The Chronicle by Gee McQee, Copyright, 1928. A TRIP TO FLORIDA IN 12 PARTS (Part Three) ?Florida has to Import all her feede and fodder. Cattle And fairly tf<>?d grazing during several months of the year, but no corn or wheat or ryo or barley or lespedeza is grown in twothirds of the state. Nearly evt'^y kind of vegetable known to ma,n can be satisfactorily cultivated in * loi Ida. A farmer told mo yesterday that string beans grew so fast that a fellow planted a bean ho had to jump hack to keep from becoming ontangled in Its vine. ?I interviewed an orange and grapefruit producer yesterday. He reported a fair return for bis 1940-41 crop, but he said the truckers who buy hi" fruit seem to be able to out-trade him Whatever they offer ho accepts. I asked him if there were any Communlsts in his community. He said no, we stick to tangerines, jwj navels. Millions of tons of f?mit-Juices are canned each season ; Mils Lookts like fought io help, but tlioy ?ay It Helps only to get rid of a surplus at and below cost of production but they can t see much dlftercnco before and aTier. Nobody seems to realllze that a war Is going on in Europe. Asia and Africa. You rarely ever hear a pei son say anything about the war or the lease-lend 'bill or Hitler or anythl g else that has to do with the incident. ' They seem to 'bo more interested in living and having a good time and resting. The rolks who never hit a lick's work in their lives do most of the resting. Some of the ?verJ#> bloated-wlth-money-and-bonds insists that Roosevelt is going to take avsay from them everything they have. Several of them are still talking about a 59,cent dollar: they don't seem to know that one of these so-called oJcent dollars will buy more of everything In the world today than evei bofore. . . .except LABOR. ?The yankeos say wo can have Willkie if we want him. Well, it looks like we democrats have him back OK.. They say that the old-line republicans will never vote for him again. I suggested that there might be enough of new-line republicans and old-style democrat^ to elect him president 4 years from now. that is if the democrats seem disposed to nominate him. Roosevelt might not choose to run for a fourth term. Lindbergh and Vandenberg and Hd. Smith and Van Marshall and Wheeler would object to a fourth term, so I'm told. In fact, they didn't want "him" to have the second term, much less the third. A TRIP TO FLORIDA IN 12 PARTS (Part Four) ?The guests of the average Florida resort hotel do many different things for entertainment and amusements. | The lawyers, doctors, bankers, actors, and similar top-notchers play golf nearly every day. One of the fellows asked me to play a round with them. I told him that I was only a working man and had never teed a ball in my life, and that I really and truly don t know one caddy from another. He smiled, and I would like to know what at. I The "apparently- would - be - movie stars" loaf around a little on the mezzanlne floor and in the lobby, smoke cigarettes held by very long holders, dress sort of -slouchy (that is, -"whenI compared with "up home"), "but how they do doll up in the evenings. Nope I I never stay up !ate enough know when they come in in the mornings. The older" ladies knit some, read a lot, and talk very little. Bvery-day men like myself, who are away for a week's rest, play shuffle-board on the free links. and the lazier folks nurse the checker-boards. ?Our hotel serves meals Table d'Hote. Kverybody is always ready and willing to eat, but we kind of put i on and act nice and never rush a dining room. '1 he men slide the chairs hack for ther women-folk to sit | in at the tables. We wonder if they | do that at home? All Florida drinking water tastes like something awlul has been swimming in it. and when you take a hath in it, which some of the folks persist in doing, >ou imagine that it aint the kind of water i that you can scrub yourself In. Soap don't seem to slicken It up any. ?We have run Into several verj j wealthy gentlemen. They don't seem _ to have very much more sense than j we have, but it doesn't always take ^ brains to make the dough. If it dW, this writer would be In the poorhoua-. j which now seems about 3 years off._ It'?~ funny, but true, the -big fortunes afr _ parently have been made from the manufacture and distribution of non-J essentials, such ??, fwi instance: ; chewing gum, soft drinks, patent medicines. breakfast foods, facial creama whiskey, candy, and such like. Folka who run businesses like the one we help to run seem to 'be just as poor ' and miserly as we are. Alpaca comes from the alpaca. domesticated llama. LEMOCO Cfi&l . PAINT HOT PRODUCTS \m&L Camden Hardware & Supply Company *4,800,000 for Telephone Expansion 1 Nearly $4,800,000 will he spent this year in the Carolinas by Southern Hell *Jfor constructing, reconstructing and adapting telephone facilities to meet goveramental and other telephone needs of the state. More than 600,000 men in the nation's armed forces will he trained in the South. Of . these more than 158,000 will he located in the Carolinas. To care for these men there will he 71 military camps and establishments in the South, Necessary switchboards, -I numerous other equipment, and many miles of telephone wire have already been installed. Additional equipment is being provided as required. An adequate communica- 1 tion service is vital to the de- j fense program and telephone forces have been engaged for months in planning and installing the service to meet the maximum needs of gov ernment and industry for both local and long distance telephone service. Telephone men and wornen in the Carolinas are now better equipped and trained than ever before to do the big job ahead of them. They go forward confident of thei? ?^ ability to maintain the service at its present high standard of efficiency and dependability, > Souther n Bell Telephore 1 flnD TELEGRAPH COfllPAIHI j INCORPORATED j There's A D, Mr. Taxpayer ... between an illicit, unregulated traffic contributing nothing in stc te taxes, and South Carolina's legalized beer industry which pays more than $1,000,000 in taxes to the state every year and provides honest employment for 3,000 persons. But occasionally some people, losing sight of this difference, would unwittingly deprive the state of this revenue, thereby increasing their own tax burdens as well as inviting a return of the anti-social conditions resulting from unlicensed, unregulated outlets. If beer were not legal, South Carolina taxpayers would have to pay higher taxes to take the place of J j the great revenue now produced by beer. And South Carolina merchants and home industries would lose the benefits of an annual payroll amounting to $3,000,000. f-'Z. SOlTf^O^LOl iv\ vR&Bt BEER WHOLESALERS ? r r o A % % OCIATI ON BHHK _ A Beverage of ModetalloB ? I Better Crops I fromBetter Fertilizers j Representing eight of the leading fertilizer manu| facturers of the South ?? goods made for Southern j soils. j We are in a position to save you money on your | needs for the coming season ? see us before buying-" n^ b " let's talk it over. ! C. V. MASSEBEAIIII j i NITRATE AGENCY CO. LOGAN-ROBINSON CO. ;j HARTSVILLE FERTILIZER CO SWIFT FERTILIZER ^0. |v | j SOUTHERN FISH 8CRAP FERTILIZER j j | CHARLESTON IMPORT A FERTILIZER CO. ! J- ? ? j *