The Union times. [volume] (Union, S.C.) 1894-1918, July 14, 1905, Image 1
/ ir-tr-rr iT r)
* >. <>-0" > - ^Slr
P ;< - 7: %
it l tr " ''4
| " , \i
^ r - *; ?i ,. . . - . 3E=
City of Union and Suburbs Has l"fc" T"1 TT "KT T /~k.^fc.7 fTl T "M JT "1?\ f i City of Union and Suburbs Has
E^HFEH"\5 I H Hi I \ I Irl I I VI ri, S
Lumber Yards, Female Seminary. J.. JLJLJLj vJ ll l V/ ? 1 X XifXJLjk^# Ele'clTluV^
1 ' = &,. ^ .. ,
i (Nerk of Uourt '* jPV"J 1 '
VOL. LV. NO. 28. ONION, SOOTH CAROLINA, FRIfttYf JOtT 14, 1905. #1.00 A YEAR i
^?? ? ?? ??a?
i/*; .
Wm. A. Nicholson
i,'
t
Union, Soul
PAY INTE
0
Time Certificat
1 NEW ORLEANS MINT.
A Curious Incident?God's
i esTimony.
BY PAUL LINCOLN IN SUNNY SOUTH
%-V .
United States government
buildings are the scenes of many
events, the most tragic known
to the weakness and mistakes of
man. Each one, it might be j
said, could its tales unfold, of
.?? erring or unfortunate, or in
* Somewise remarkable experience.
Two incidents, remarkable, the
one for pathos and the other for
the extraordinary intervention
of the elements in causing a miscarriage
of justice, were enacted
at the United States mint in New
Orleans, notable above others.
The one written hiotory?*m
state chronicle would be complete i
without the story of William
Mumford?the other something
more than tradition, for it, too,
is true, though the names of the
principal actors were not necessary
to the relation of the incident.
April 25, 1862, saw seventeen
United States gunboats and a
flotilla of smaller vessels riding
at anchor in the river before
New Orleans; the levee smoking
with burning cotton, sugar,
spirits and every article common i
to the trade of a southern port;
and in the city men (such as
? there were), women, children
and negroes, in a state of the
wildest alarm and confusion.
Early the following morning i
officers from the flagship presented
to the mayor a summons
to surrender. He refused. The
conference took place in the
mayor's office, in the city hall,
the crowd surging and hooting
in the streets. As the bluecoated
officers sat within, suddenly
through a window was
hurled into their midst a ragged
looking bundle, thrown by some
reckless boys in the street. It
proved to be the United States
flag, which a barge crew had but
just hoisted over the mint?one
of the young fellows in a mad
moment had climed the staff,
torn down the flag and dragging
it through the street now threw
it, in a moment of inspiration, at
the officer's feet. This was
Mumford, a youth about eighteen
years of age. >
MAYOR STOOD FIRM.
The mayor had sought in receiving
the summons to yield
over the city, to place the responsibility
on the military authority
in command; but the confederate
general with his force
evacuating the town, it devolved
back on the mayor, who refused
wK% either to surrender or to lower
the state flag over the city hall.
The consequence was inevitable.
Sailors and marines, in
United States uniforms, with
bayonets fixed and preceded by
two howitzers, were marched to
St. Charles street, opposite the
city hall, and an officer informed
the mayor that he would haul
down the flag. The latter, having
mad') all the resistance possible,
placed himself in front of
the crowd, close to the cannon's
mouth, and with folded arms
stood immovable, while the state
flag was pulled down and that of
the United States hoisted in its
place.
General Benjamin F. -Butler,
whose reign in New Orleans has
made him such a notorious-figure
in history, now received the city
from the naval authorities, and
with his 15,000 men took possession.
It is told in New Orleans that
when Farragut reported to Butler
the pulling down of _ the
iMMftiiaaitt
& Son, Bankers,
h Carolina,
REST ON
es of Deposit.
?i
United States flag from the mint,
the general's reply was: "1 will
make an example of that fellow
by hanging him."
He was but a mere boy; carried
away by the wild excitement
of the time, the act was the I
height of all that was foolhardy,
in its madness it could only be
ascribed to the irresponsibility
and ignorance of youth. Yet he
was arrpstpH trip/1 Kir
.. .vvi kij V.VU1 until tial
and duly sentenced to be
hanged. He had insulted the
flag, and must be made an example
of. The people were horrified,
and every intervention
possible was attempted. The
fact that the city had not surrendered
at the time the flag was
hoisted by the federals, or when
torn down by Mumford, should
have had its weight, but no plea
would be heard in extenuation?
the boy must oe put to a earn.
He was hanged, some say on
a gallows just in front of the
mint. Though, if you go there,
to the mint itself, you will be
pointed to the space nigh up and
between the two center pillars
which support the front. Perhaps
the gallows was constructed
there. It would seem there can
be no doubt "Therq," they
will tell you, "between those two
pillars, is where Mumford was
hung!" It is the more commonly
accepted belief, and when
nnna vnn Vi urn Irnmim if fV.*?
W44VV J VU A AC* V V rv 1IV/ TV 11 It) tllC
very mint itself seems to bear
the shadow of the gallows?like
the mark of Cain on its frontal.
He was so young, so ignorant,
so pitifully the victim of the
monster who sacrificed him under
the merciless wheels of war. Yet
sadder, even, was the fate of th.e
boy's mother. Her poor brain
tottered and yielded before the
cruel shock, and for twenty
years?longer than the span of
her son's life?she wandered
aimlessly, harmlessly through
the streets, her gray hair and
bent form, her innocent, simple
look exciting only pity?the pity
that goes out to those who in a
dark past have suffered great
and cruel wrong.
As if her dimmed mind lingered
the thought of her own lost child,
she seemed to haunt the thoroughfares
most frequented by
the school children, who would
whisper among themselves:
"That is Mumford's mother."
And if one would maybe say:
"She only thinks she is," some
one older would say pityingly:
"Yes, children, she is Mumford's
mother." They tell it so?and
some of them remember. It is
one of the stones every visitor
to the mint is told.
The other is a striking evienced
of how curiously men's
minds will be wrought upon by
superstition, and how slight a
thing can turn the carriage of
justice even in the face of uncontrovertible
facts.
A CURIOUS INCIDENT.
When a vault in one of the
government offices was opened
one morning it was discovered
that a box which had held $26,000
in bills now contained only
ashes- the money had been
burned to a crisp. The bulb of
an incandescent electric lamp
just two feet above was broken,
and the cashier claimed that he
must have unwittingly left this
light burning the night before,
that it exploded and a spark
dropping upon the paper money,
it ignited and was burned up.
The government sent down
from Washington a lady expert,
who examined the ashes under ?
microscope and testified that
there were only $1,200 burned t<
; make those ashes. The federa
. grand jury then indicted th<
> cashier for embezzlement, an<
he was put on trial in the Unite<
States circuit court. The govern
ment made out a powerful cas?
against him, beside the experl
from Washington, they nac
several electrical experts, all oi
whose testimony was of incalculable
weight, while the only
testimony the defense could offer
was the oath of the accused that
he had left the $26,000 in the
vault when he locked up the
night before it was burned. The
electrical experts testified in
effect that it was absolutely imEossible
for the money to have
een burned in the way claimed,
for the reason that a spark from
an exploded electric bulb would
go out before it could fall the
distance of two feet between the
lamp and the box of money.
As the last expert for the
government was concluding his
testimony, and ha4_i?"* *?Worp
finally that such -thing could not
under any circumstances occur,
the electric bulb three feet above
tVlP illflnro'a /Innl' " * 1 '
| ?>av J O UtOIV CApIUUtJU Wltn Si
I loud report, and a tiny spark
floated slowly down. The eyes
of all present were riveted upon
it, and it is safe to say not a
breath was drawn, as it settled
upon the green baize covering of
the desk. Slowly it caught and
a tiny bit of smoke arose, but
not the judge nor any of the
court officials made any move to
extinguish it, and as the expert
whose testimony had been interrupted
remained silent, and saw
the baize cover begin to smolder
and smoke, he nuietly picked up
nis hat, although the examination
was not concluded, and,
without a word, left the witness
stand. No one attempted tocall
him back?the government
had no more witnesses and was
compelled to close the case with
this extraordinary occurrence.
TESTIMONY OF GOD.
The lawyers for the aerense
called upon to offer the testimony
for their side were shrewd
enough to respond: "Almighty
God has testified in this case,
and the defendant has nothing
to offer in addition." And the
jury promptly brought in a verdict
of acquittal.
This occurred some years ago,
and about six months ago the
ashes of the burnt bills were
carried to Washington; up to
this time they had been kept in
the mint as assets. The cashier
went free. It was proven there
was but $1,200 in the ashes in
the box?where were the $24,800?
It had not been burned. For
once, the keen, unblinking eye
of the law had been dashed, and
by no more than a tiny spark
from an incandescent electric
lamp.
A BRITISH VIEW
On the Future of the
Russian Navy.
Writing in the latter . half of
March, before the Russian Baltic
fleet had entered Chinese waters,
Mr. Archibald S. Hurd, an English
naval expert, contributes to
the United Service Magazine
(London) a study of the problem
before Russia in hen task of
building a great navy. The Muscovite
Empire, Mr. Hurd believes,
can never become a great naval
power. Her people are a land
people, and they have never acquired
the "sea habit." Mere
ships do not make a powerful
navy. Russia, says this writer,
never is, but always to be, blessed.
She is always big with schemes:
her friends and sycophants are
continually talking of hei
"might" and conjuring up phantom
pictures of what she could
do if she would. Just now little
i is heard of the millions of mer
f under arms of whom it was the
> custom to boast a year or so ago
but the world is asked to marve
> at what the navy of Russia wil
i be when it has been built up once
. more. It is an idle task to an
- ticipate the events of the inscrut
. able future, but this form o
prophecy is one of Russia's mos
i valuable national assets. She is
. and always has been, feared, no
for what she has shown that sh
can do, but on account of wha
her apologists claim she could do
She was thus exaggerated into i
great naval and military powe
at whose threats chancellerie
y
i trembled. It remained for the
- smallest, poorest, and least "civ}
ilized" of the powers to prick the
t bubble which Russian agents had
I industriously blown, with the ref
suit that Russia's military pres
tige for months past has been
r sinking in the eyes of the world,
and she has ceased, for the time,
; to be a naval power of any coni
sequence.
! Russia, Mr. Hurd continues,
i has been forced to abdicate her
i naval position in the West in order
to deal with the situation in
i the far East. But she has never
really been a maritime nation.
Since the time of Peter the Great
she has had a navy, "an exotic
and purely political instrument."
She won her naval prestige
wholly by her Wars with Turkey
and Sweden in the last centr \
It was a had day for Russia, ,/e
are told, further; when mechanical
propulsion for vessels was
introduced. She has never had
many born mechanics.
She had a fair supply of sailors
of splendid courage and magnificent
hardihood, but she pos
seaseu no system of education
and no trades to provide the seamen
of the new type, instinct
with mechanical aptitude. As
the years passed and the domination
of physical science on board
of men-of-war became more and
more pronounced, the Russian
deficiency became increasingly
apparent. No nation without
high technique can maintain a
great fleet in efficiency in these
days. Russia refused to face
*he situation. The admiralty at
St. Petersburg still looked upon
the mere ships as synonymous
and_a^4e?T6-'
orno^ ^e most import- (
ant faotors?properly educated
and v^ll-trained crews. As the
demand for more seamen m
men wore . called irom
the fields in districts far removed
from the sea. They had
no love of the life, the sea was
to them a force which thev did
not understand and did not wish
to understand, and at the same
time they were lacking in intelligence
and in all mechanical
knowledge. They were agricultural
laborers, that and nothing
more. The greater the fleet became?the
more rapidly ships
were built in French, German,
American and Russian shipyards
?the more apparent became the
difficulty to obtain crews, and
year by year the quality of the
personnel fell. It is not suggested
that the Russian sailor
as been or is devoid of courage.
On the contrary, he has always
been brave and daring, and in
the present war he has shown
his metal on many occasions.
But the day has passed when
brute courage, unallied with an
active, trained mind and mechanical
skill, counted for much in
naval warfare. While Russia
should have been concentrating
attention on the means of training
men for her fleet, she was
satisfied with building ships, or
nrrl nr-i n nr fViom oVirnQfl ? cViirvo
VI UVilllg VUU 0111)70)
still more ships?under the delusion
that these vessels, however
inadequately manned, meant
power.
When we remember, also,
Russia's geographical position,
we can well understand her difficulties
in creating a powerful
navy.
She had to organize four navies?one
for the East, one for
the Caspian Sea, one for the Bal
tic, and another immured in the
Black Sea by the treaty of Paris.
: She had to utilize the Baltic for
i the training of her main sea
' forces, and here each year the
winter closed up the waters early
I and failed to release them until
i late in the Spring. All the
1 months which Great Britain and
i the United States employ in
. training were useless to the Rus1
sian admiralty.
1 The dispatch of these ships to
* the East, the United Service
" writer admits, was an unparal"
leled event. 4 'It is the most imj;
posing force which has ever
passed in full fighting trim from
' West to East?indeed, the bigt
gest squadron of modern ships
J ; which nas sailed any ocean on a
* j war-like mission." Yet Rus'
! sians will probabty never make
a good sea fighters, in Mr. Hurd's
r opinion.
3, The men who are available for
F. M. FARR, President,
T
Merchants and Pit
Successfully Doing Bus
MM is the OLDEST Dunk i
S hns a capital anil Rurp
fl is the only NATION A
lias paid dividends si
9 PRJ'R FOlTIt per cent
B is the only Hank in lit
H 9 hits IiurKlnr-Proof vat
m W pays more taxes than .
WE EARNESTLY SOL
the Russian fleet have no technique,
nor have they the mechanical
aptitude, nor,again,love
of the sea. They are dumb driven
cattle, whose hearts are not
in their work. Russia may go
on building ships of war^ but
these vessels are not sea power.
Sea power is a weapon far less
easily obtained. Russia must go I
back over her whole administra-1
t.:? ? J '
nun ana remodel it; she must
recognize that mechanical skill is
even more essential in the personnel
than brute courage, and
that before her ships can be rendered
fit to meet an efficient and
adequately trained fleet at sea
the whole character of the personnel
must be raised,
^
A Woman Among Women
The well-worn talk about
"woman's sphere" sounds poor
and empty as one recalls che,
tasks to which the
enaeero ntf which she made room
in her heart. Editor, reformer,
organizer, nurse, orator, patriot,
?and above and beyond all a
matchless friend, mother and
wife, ?she was a living demonatrafion
of the fact that to-day
in our great country a woman's
field is bounded only by her powers?not
by the straight fences
of convention or by the high
walls of prejudice. Mrs. Livermore
did great deeds because she
was a great woman, and fit for
them.
With all her multifarious occupations
and her devotion to pub
lie duty as it came to her, she
remained woman to the core of
her heart. There was no unsexing
here. Toiling through a
winter lecturing tour, she was
capable of talking all night long
with a young woman friend,
teaching in a remote country
village?talking as only Mrs.
Livermore could talk of work
and love and country and the unconquerable
hope of human betterment
which was her lifelong
stimulus. When dawn broke in
the east, she could say, smilingly.
"We've had a good night!"
and set forth "with cheerful
semblance" for her day's work.
Friendship had its just dues at
her hands, and no pressure of
public activity made her disloyal
to its high joys. The full secret
of her eloquence has never been
fathomed. It was surely in part
this very art of irradiating the
great truths she uttered by the
A'T f Ua r\A?*fiAv* r* 1 urAtvtnnlir
v/A. LIIC pciovnai, wimiaiiijr
imagination which was her birthright.
In her speech there was no
such thing as abstract truth.
Freedom, temperance, purity
were all alive under her touch.
Vice and greed shrunk before
the fire of her words.
Sincerity was not merely a
quality of her oratory?it was the
oratory itself. What she spoke
she was. She will be remembered
long for what she said and
what she did, but longer yet for
what she was.?Youth's Companion.
TKo R/\n ni\ni*I/>c
iic uunu|iui ie^.
Interest is one of the great romances
of history?1the romance
of the Bonaparte family-has
been revived by the appointmenl
of Charles Joseph Bonaparte oi
Baltimore, as Secretary of th<
Navy.
t Secretary Bonaparte is a granc
nephew of the great Napoleon
i His grandfather was J^rorm
i Bonaparte, and his grandmothei
was Miss Elizabeth Patterson, o1
i Baltimore, whom Jerome marriee
i during a visit to America in 1801
when his brother was First Con
sul of France.
_ .* _ ,v-v-i
J. D. ARTHUR, Cashier.
EC E " '?
inters National Bank,
iiness at the "Old Stand."
in Union,
his of $101,000,
L Itnnk in Union.
mountinir to JUUM00,
, interest on deposits.
lion inspected hy an otlleer,
lit, and Safe with Timc-I<OPk.
A LI, the hanks in Union combined.
.ICIT YOUR BUSINESS.
Napoleon was not pleased with
the marriage, and to secure its
dissolution he vainly sought the
assistance of the Roman Catholic
Church, one of whose priests had
performed the ceremony. The
French council of state finally
decreed a divorce.
Under Napoleon III. the council
of state, upon an appeal by
the rejected wife, recognized the
validity of the marriage and the
legitimacy of her sons. But when
Napoleon III. died Mrs. Bonaparte
sought vainly to have her
grandson, Jerome Napoleon,
brother of the Secretary of the
Navy, recognized by the family
as n mamkn. lL- "
ui. tne imperial dynasty.
The present heirs to the
Napoleon dynasty are grandsons
of the Secretary's grandfather,
and his second half-cousins.
Secretary Bonaparte's grandmother
lived until 1879. and
fought, to iVv-J?V
nvHiabroad most of the time,
was never an American citizen.
His brother was an officer in the
French army. One of his second
cousins, Louis, is a majorgeneral
in the Russian army, and
two others are living on the reputation
of their ancestors.
The Secretary of the Navy is
the first of his immediate family
to identify himself closely with
American life, instead of clinging
to a hope some day of ruling
over France. It is not too much
to say that he is the worthiest
surviving descendant of the Corsican
family. But is it not curious
that Napoleon's grandnephew
should be at the head of the
American Navy Department??
Youth's Companion.
CHILDREN'S TASTE
rOR READING.
There is a revival of interest
in the question of reading for
children, as the new reading list
for them, published by the Boston
Public Library, shows. There
was a time, some years ago,
when the one requirement for
children's books seemed to be
abundant pictures. The text
might be foolish or false; if the
illustrations were taking, the
book prospered with young readers.
That unhappy state of
, things has fortunately passed.
A list of questions has recently
been sent out to boys and girls
in Chicago, calling for their
opinions in regard to books.
About three thousand replies
have been received and tabulated.
They show conclusively one encouraging
fact. The books best
liked by children are books which
l "errown-uns" also roarl witV?
satisfaction.
"Little Women" heads the
list, and "Uncle Tom's Cabin,"
"Robinson Crusoe" and "The
Count of Monte Cristo" are high
in favor. "Alice in Wonderland,"
"The Arabian Nights," "Grimm's
Fairy-Tales," and Hawthorne's
"Wonder Book" testify
to the perennial reign of the
imagination. "Black Beauty"
and "David Copperfield," "The
Boys of '76," "Huckleberry
Finn" and "Ivanhoe" show that
there is variety of taste, and
i that human interest is potent
t with the child as with the parent.
E It is curious to see "The Lamp5
lighter," that romantic tale of
forty years ago, holding its own
1 in face of the arc-light. But a
. good story defies the assaults of
3 science as of time,
r In the hundred books selected
E by three thousand children, it is
I surely hopeful to find only a
J dozen without enough literary
- merit to commend them to all
'readers.?Youths Companion.