University of South Carolina Libraries
T1'LI-WEKLY EDION. WiNNSBOR1O, S. C. _$A TUR )AY. FETBR UAR Y 8, 1879 WOL. 3. NO.4 TILE GUANO WAR. -,-0 DIFIRrC.NT VIEWS TAKIN THRO' D1. EJRfN' P1I;CT'ACLES. Cotton vs. Guano- -Another Article from the Guano Side of the Question--The Cost of Manufacturing and the Small Profits of Manufacturers -- Uncertain ties of Cotton Option. .Editors Uhronick awl Constitu tionalist : I can hardly persuade that if the planters thoroughly un derstood the guano question they would speak and feel as they do to ward the manufacturers and general agents. It would occupy too much space to enter fully into the discus sion of this (at present) important subject. The raw material that i: takes to manufacture a ton of guanc --to sack it, and transport it to th( ports in the South, at tho\ preseni price-leaves but a small profit, and were it not for the great quantity of it that is sold, would not be worth the trouble. If any one will put themselves to the trouble of calcu lating the cost they will be satisfied that unless' the manufacturer get: near thirty dollars per ton for it at the coast, he could not mako any thing on it, and to do this, it woulc be necessary that they should carr3 no surplus stock over. This ca: hard:y be expected, however. Thor is always more or loss stock carried carried over from one year to anoth er, which has to be i'caed for at con siderable expense, snd then to b handled and re-sacked the next season, storage to. be paid, larg quantities lost in waste. and man other minor things, which, in aggre gate, foot up heavily. Vhen the-guano comes into the hands of the general agents, there are other and formid.aulo chargo which are necessary before it reach es the farmer. The general ageni himself is entitled to some comnpen sation for the risk of guaranteoing, pro-paying freight, paying travolint; agents, who -establish diterior agen cies--his own time and that of lii office clerks-f.)r there is imnonac labor connected with his business He is also entitled .to the interesi on the money advanced in payinp freights to the farmer's no-trust depot. And after it arrives ho h1a: his interior agents to pay, and hia heretofore . had to pay in n any in stances storage on guano, and also drayage,,and also to 'pay even foi veighing the cotton that was paid in exch inge for. the guano. The general agent or the in.mufacturer has also to pay for mending sacks, and loss in weight from wastoage; they have to pay freight on cotton from place of dlivery to the coast, and they have to receive cotton al interior weights-and in this they lose about five pounds to every bale. About ton dollars per ton is added to manufacturers' pricos to cover all the numerous inc idenital expenses, which includes ancther very impor tant item, that of guaranteeing the sales of their interior agents. It ih .true that the interior agents guar antee their sales to the general agent, b)ut only to tho extent oh their aggregate commissions ; they can only lose their labor, while i general agent in many instanceE may not only lose his commissioni but much more. There is sometimei large quantities carried over at inte, rior points, wvhich entails adiditiona] expense. It also frequently hap. pens that one point is too heavily supplied, and then comes anothe expense of transpot tation of from one to two dollars per ton. 'Al] of these little arpounts in theo end make large smats, which 'go to 'res duce the profits. In: some in stances general agents accept s mere for warding commission rather than'incur the~risk to which they are subject. It is hardly necessary to add, .that we have now and then e 1oss in the way of a bad. deb~t. Th writer lias heard of instances wher there wvere baa debth enough to con sume the entire year's p. ofits. Our farmer friends complain thai while overything else has declined the-prico of guano has advanced Is this in fact true ? Last year the currency price at the coast was $4-i Sper.ton, this year it is $40. Lasi -year the number of pounds of cotte: 'regnired for a ton of guano at the coast was 488 pounds. The 'pric< of cotton at the time this price war fixed, was such that they reasonabl; fcalculated. tos get.. ten cenIts, pci pound; the price therefore in cotte: was $48.80 per ton. That the; did not get ten cents per pound ii well kiiown.. bIYe writer heard o of the largest nanufacturors saly that they (lid not make a cent last year. although they sold thousan ds of tons. Others only saved themt solves by taking the i'isk of solling futures in cotton-they nado some thing by that last season, they might lose the next. There is hardly any one now who think they -will bo able to realize for this year's cotton crop more than 8 cents per pound for middling cottoln. The prico fixed, therefore, for a ton of guano at the coast is 500 pounds of cotton, which, at 8 cents per pound for cotton is $40. Now, has there been any advance ? I assert hero that there is not a general agent or manufacturer doW ing"business in Georgia or South Carolina but who would prefer a currency note to a cotton option note. It is chanco in a cotton option note. If cotton goes up they would make (so would the planter on the balance of his crop) if it goes down lhe would lose. If cotton was now Sc. per lb., the manufacturer could not afford to take 500 lbs. of cotto'a f.r a ton, but ifit was 20c. per lb., he told afford to take 200 lbs. The manu facturer must have a certain amount of money for a ton of for tilizor, and lie can only see that amount by asking 500 lbs. middling ot.ton. There is nt disposition on tho part of the manufacturors to oppross the farmers. On the other hand, they have done and are still doing (by giving them a better and cheaper fertilizer than ever before) all they can to help them along, for upon the farmers' success depends not only their own success, but that of every other business. There has been largo sums made on connercial fortilizers, but like evehy other business, it has come down to hard pan, and they will hereafter have to be satisfied with small profits. If they are making large sums now, I should like to know what b:ieomes of it ; it is certainly not declared in visible dlividends. D. Augusta, Ga., January 28, 1879. Advice from a Farmer. Eiditors Uhronicle and (Jonstitu tionalist : Are the cotton planters of the State of Georgia going to submit to the iniquitous advance of fifty pounds more of lint cotton on the ton, as determined on by the Guano Kings, while everything else is depreciating in valu:tion ? After specie payment has been re suinod and every one else seoin do tornned to have adopted the fact that they must work hard and be willing to take fair remuneration only for their labor, the guno men, feeling their might over the most numerous and powerful class of our people, have concluded to put up their prices, knowing that the giants (our agriculturists) are slow to move and will submit to most any thing. Robbed on all sides, sup porting the vorld, . they, the agriculturists, instead of fighting those who prey upon them, are conltinually skirmishing among themselves, scarcely looking beyond their owvn noses5, but falttoning those who feed upon thlem. WVhy will yon cotton planflors a'.low y >ur selves to be plnndered and show no resentment ? Do you know thlat with an old negro man, to whom you would hlave to pay $30 and feed, a cart andI horso, wvholo affair costing you $200, you canl, inl the course of a year, b)y hauling truck, viz., leaves, pine straw, etc., in your lot, at a lowv calculation, make you over twenty tons of better fertilizer than you hlave to pay a five hundred pounds bale of cotton for, even when you get a genuine articlo ? And that old negro would pay for himself in tending ton acres in corn, besides feeding your stock and looking after your sows and pigs, and going around your fences after every washing rain, to see that no stock could got in, that so often you have to delay your bess hands to look after*, keeping them from a grassy piece of cotton that ought to have been finished while the fence was being examined. Happily, old Columbia is one county that has do-. termined to call a meeting and ascertain whether the citizens* have nerve enough to refuse to purchase any five hundred pounds bale of cot ton (for a ton) guano. We cotton planters know from the style that guano agents go in, the champagne they drink, the carriages they ride in, and palatial manufactories that that odoriferous compound is mahufactured and stored in, that they need be in much -worse p light financially than the one who digs it out of the earth, or spreads it under h is cotton beds. Contrasts are sometimes odious as well as odor. iforouls. Like the coif')hon wm Ie wrll' that nagedl hero some ' imo sinee, perChatneo this 50 pounds'1 incR1?oe is also to cnure to the benefit of "ho good natured, but ignorat1, h,iinodc Co-r-ro\ '1..w'r::. Diatrict No. 3, Columbia County, January 18th. CoULD NOT Orr-IBu run i: 1\. -When the train on the Charlotte, Columbia & Augusta Railroad, which leaves here at 11.30, was near Jolhnston's on the down trip from Charlotte, day before yesterday evening, the engineer saw two mules drawing a wagon, with two men seated in it, approaching the crossing. There was a considerable clear space between the train and the crossing, so that the men in the wagon must have seen if they could not have heard the locomotive, but nevert,hless they endeavored to cross the track before the train could reach it, and failed, as mon generally do fail under these cir cunstances. One of the occupants of tile wagon was a whlito man and the other a negro. The white man, seeing in time what was about to 1mppen, jonped from the wagon and saved himself. The pilot of the engine struck the vehicle about midway. The negro was killed, and the wagon shattered into a thousand fratgmlents. The mules escaped nn injtured.- Charlotte Obscer 5th inst. A VENERABLE MATRON.-Last Sunl' (1ay3, Mrs. Elizablethl Leopard, reliet of Thom1s Leopard, died in Gr;an - i:evilie, S. C., at the vencruie 'c. of one hundred a.id seven years. She was born in Buckingham conn.. tv, Va., on tho 25th of December, 1Til, and emigrated to SouL! Caro hn1uat when she wis seventeen years of age, and lived ne' Ninety-Six. She rained twenty-two orphan grandchildren and great- randchil dren. At t.he funeral was 1er only surviving son, eighty years of age. Around her grave stood this son, a grandchild fifty-six years ol, sev. oral great-grandebidren over forty years of age, great-great,grandehil dren twenty-iive years old,,ind a umuher of great.-great-great-grala - children-five generations in all. There are living at present eighty of her descendants. and two hun lred and ten have died, making altogether nearly three hundred. She read the Bible, withou, spect.a c!es, the Sunday before siho diod, talkedwith friends and relatives al most ipto the very moment of her death, passing away gently and with out pain from old t:ge.-Augusta U/ironicle. A contributor to the British Journal of Photography writes "Are photogr.iphers aware that the electric light canl ho produced with out eithor a ste un or a gas ongina ? Yet such is the ase. It has been found by tho aid of a fly-wheel, which can easily be driven by one man, a degreo of rapidity and power can ho obtained quito snill cient for uitilization inl the pro(duc-. (ion of thle electrie light. A l argo 'machine' ro:luires, of courao, a powerful motor ; but a machine of moderate power wvill suffice for the requiremnnts of thle lpho togr'aphor who diesiroes to make use of it, either ill the p)roduction of portraitsi or enlargements. I am aware of a ma chino of this kind being constructed by an amo.teur mechnician, and it answer*s well. What is now wanted is a machinme of similar power, that can be obtained in the course of business at a moderate price all comupleto." When the train conveying Gen eral Sherman to tile Seuth1 stoppedi at Kettle Hollow, Montgomery county, Virginia, Teecumnseh walkIed out to view the sterile aspect of tihe country. Seeing an old resident standing near, tihe General iufquir. od : "What do they raise iln this country, -anyhow ?"' The aforesaid Kettle Hollow man rep)lied :"They raise h -11i here about as quick as any place you ever saw." The General tucked his feathers and sought refuge in the car instanter. "PeooR HERDEaT I-How I wish you did not have to slave so at that horrible store from morning till nighit I" satid his wife, as, with a fend caifess, she seated herself on her husband's knee, and gently stroked the auburn locks from his sloping browv. And the gruve, stern man of business und6retood her at once, and answered : "WVell, Susie, what is it-a bonnet or what ? Go light on me, for money is scar'cer than ever."- (7hio'sgo Tribune. Pay your subscription to the Naes a Hase. 'A i A 1 ) ('yN(i3S l tJ.S . How Innoecnt PabMe aro Cougod--Tho Pcnalty of 8eitding Compliments Prico Lists Under the Ban--Comnon Sense Needed. [ fr; the Xe'w York Times .3 An author, reu;iding in a Western city, sent by mail to his friend in New York a copy of his book, on the 11v leaf of which was written something like this: "Wolfgang Winkelried Brown, with the con plilcnts of Washington Potts." The New York post office clerks descried this nefarious inscription, and "charged up" t.he book at letter postage rates. Deducting the 28 cents paid by the sender, there re m.,ined S2.25 which was due from Woifg:ng Winheiried Brown. * A persol in Osiris, Ohio, desiring that his favorite weekly paper, pub lished in New York, should print certain familiar verses, wrote on a postal card a requ(st to that eflect, and, to make all sure, pasted the poem on the back of the card. The recipient of this valuable communi.. cation, for reason which will appear further on, vWas compelled to pay live cents postago thereupon. A New Yoik citizen, having noticed in the Tines an editorial article which lie thought would interest his friend in Boston, went to a window in the New Yiol k post-ofTico and asked for "a newspaper wrapper," for which lo paid one cent. Putting this about the copy of the Times, he dropped it into the box. The weight of that copy of the paper happened to be two ounces and on-sixteenth. Being weighed, it wa,s thrown in to Lhe waste basket as insufliciently paid, and before the sender left the building it was on the way to the furnace. Subse quently, the expectant Boston man wrote to' his Now York friend : "Thero is a thief in your post oflice."' In each one of these instances the postal authorities proceeded ac - cording to law as expounded by the rulings of the Post Office Depart miit. The statutes of tho United States provide that the sender of a book way writo on the fly-leaf "Wolfgang Winkolried Brown, from Washington Potts." More than this tends to mischief. Therefore, Mr. Brown paid $2.25 for "the compliments of" Mr. Potts. The gentleman in Osiris might have put his p) inted poem in an unsealed envelope, which. being sent to the New Y c.rk publisher, would have been charged as a printed circular -- one cent. The law says that nothin;g shall be "attached" to a postal card. The poor little verses were puted on with a thick com position, anid thme whole thing then w~eighed1 mnore thani half ounce. ]t was unclassified, theo "attached" newspaper clipping being unlawful. Thieref'ore, aim unclassified matter', it was chlargeable with letter postage. It weighed mtore( thant a half ounce. and it required six cents postaige. Butt one centt having been paid for the postal card, only five cents were duo1(. And this was collected. In the ease of thQ newspaper which. wias confiscated, withI its one cent stamp, tije bender only knew that a newspaiper wrapper (costing one cent) w'as a newspaper wrappeor. He n1ever dreamed(3( that a post -ofice clerk wvas requireq to weigh his palper, and, if' it was not p)repaid at the rate of one cent for every two ounces and fraction thro,to throw it inmto the waste akt Congress, by its burdensome stat utes, seems to be abxions to wvorry the people who have transactions with the post-offices. In this en, deavor Oongress is ably seconded by the rost Office Department with; its capricious rulings. Of these rulings let us give a few examples : Thoere was nmo cl.assifica. tion of mail matter until 1825. On thme statutes of years precoding that date all present classifications are ma~de. The type-writer is a modern invention, .and mat.ter from that machine is unknown to post-offee law. Next came thme. papyrograph, and thou the electric penm These 'machines produce matter whicli is merely writing by machinery, whether in single copies or by duplicate. Confronted' with a new problem, the post,ofUice authorities at Washington flew to the statutes. These wore silent on the subject of machine-wriing, Therefore, malt.. ter produced by the type.writer, p"tpyrograph, or electric pen was "unclassified." As we have seen in the case of the pasted p'stal cud, unciasitiedl mail mat,c is chargea ble with lotter po:tago. The agents of these mnachines moved upon Washington. R einforced by Sena tors and Congressmen, they coerced the department into reversing its decision, and matter produced by the papyrograph and the electric ptn was admitted to the mails as third,-class matter, the type-writer being "loft out in the cold." Then, the pressure being removed, the department again ruled that even this concession would be revoked March 4, 1879- So, unless Con gress comes to the rescue, type writer, papyrograph, and electrio pen will produce matter subject to letter rates after March 4. This seems frivolous. In like manner, a printed prices current, in which "$14.50 per case" was changed to "$14.25 por caso," in pencil, in con sequonce of a change in the tariff, was charged letter rates, under a decibion of the Post Office Depart ment to this effect: "A prices cur rent, partly in writing, is subject to letter rates of postago when sent in the mails." In like manner, also, an architect's plans, drawn with a pen, were charged letter rates, but photographic copies of those plans were charged third-class rates as "photographic proofs, &c." Au thors' corrected proofs are third class matter, but an author having marked on his proof "run up solid," made his entire package liable to lotter postage, under a ruling of the Post Office Department to the effect that "any notations made on corrected proofs by which informa tion is asked or conveyed, or any instructions given in writing, sub. joets the sheets to letter postage." Examples like these might be indefiultly multiplied. We have said eno gh to show the necessity of having the entire postal code modified and simplified by comnpe tent men. When practical comm mon sense is applied to a revision of our postal laws and regulations, the burdens of the people will be light oned and the revenuie1iof the y ernment will not be reduced. Alexandria Gazette: The mem.. bers of the theatrical profession visiting Richmond are generally struck with the habit which young gentlemen here have of go ing out between acts. One of Madame Modjeska's company asked a young gentleman whom she notic od had been out in this way, "Why tlid you go out between every act T" He replied, "I wont out to see my nunt." "What aunt ?" "Stimulant," aid the gay youth, as he went out to get a night cap. A clock made entirely of bread has lately been received in Mil an, Italy, from Peru. It was construct 3d by an Indian, who, having no moans of purchasing material, saved a portion of the soft part of his daily bread for' the purpose. He solidified it with a certain salt which renderod it very hard and insoluble in water. Tihe clock keeps good timo, and the case, also of hardened bread, displays artistic talent. PM ENTENNIKAL HE.ADQUARTERs. -I find Dr. Bull's Cough Syrup excollen t, having a ready sale arid rendering more satisfaction than any cough syrup I have ever sold. -A. B. Malony, M. D., Fifteenth and Carpenter Streets, Philadel phia, Pa.* Skating is a very healthful exer eise. It not only puts in p lay all the muscles of the legs and arms, but it creates lumps for future phronologists to feel of and report ASSIGNEE'"S SALE. O\N Atonday, the 10th day of February, \1870. commencing at 11 o'clock in the forenoon, we will off'er for Rade at public auction, to the highest bid dler, for cash, all that stock of merchandise, Donsisting of groceries, liquors, segars, tobaoco, etc., no w mn the store in Winns bore lately occnpied by R. J. McCarloy. Also all the fixtures and equipments. of mail store, including on iron safe. Assignee of R. J. MoCarley, J.3J. NEIL, - -Agent for Creditors. Jan 28-t8 _______ LIENS AEOFTEN LOST B Y the use of oheap Kerosene. Get one of our safetj Lamps in which mven the most dangerous o$il is safe. *20,000 Saved Yearly, to Fairilold, When on,r farmers., learn to purcohase Phemioals and make their owl fertilistre. Oall and got a book telliag how I6 esar be done, de 2$*MoAT 1 2W~