Newspapers / The Union Republican (Winston, … / June 17, 1875, edition 1 / Page 1
Part of The Union Republican (Winston, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
'V,'i--V ! i - V - U Si 4. lit . - - i .- . ; - i " 1 - ; - -1 - j ; v ; - i. , - . !l I ( i J V' i wj ...' 52E& ttttott; ggptMitagJ V. -1 cr "H- 0i MPTt ntf.MMtMu - . at mi tli ataMite.. J. . GOSLEH. Editor d Prerrleter. J QB-WRfNvT ilfS hoiu iff h-AJYKUTlMXMk MAXES -X if 1 KW MM bMrttOlMMMMMMMMMKHMl 1- .w 1 - - - - DOXE AT THIS OITIC, I9CH AS Monthly Statements, Posts Programme. Circulars. 31; "4 -zrrr. iiiitw 50.00 i j DEVOTED r,,TO POLITIOAIi, AaBICTJLTURAU WsOELLAJTEOUS AND BELIQIOUS BEADINO. - 4a tin M.a Si vOL. iv.i; , . v. ... e ixsToiii ia; TiirntsriAY, j6ne 17, .1875. NO. 26. 1 -H. i" ' : . Bpaelal MeUeM aa4 Adfartiawwatt la LawJ Col aartartxtaa4Taaaa, J -:- " ' V " ' r The Old Story. . . By th pleasant path we know All familiar flowers woold grow, TUougb re two war goaa ; Moon and atan wouM riaa aad aat. Dawn the bagaxd iagh forget, And the world more on. Lifrt iintJe'weet and goo W..ilof ttm nenuit Hid j , Wntir t'm woaKl prove tlieirmigbt, Winter fnmU make bold to LiU, Cloadn lift overhead ; Hi ill the tuuaiet lights wonld ftlow, Stil the heaven-appointed bow In it piaeQ be boog ; Not one flower the lees wonld bloom, Thongh we two had met our doom, Not one aoug the lem be sang. Other lovers Uirongh the dew Wonld go loitering, two aud two. When the day vu done , Iirie we old pee the kina dirlne, lleart.-i would beat like youra and mine 1 learts that beat m one. 0 THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. II ow ihr rilel' AaMclatiaa waa Ora-aalcea and Grewte be a Mitaty Ptwtr. lark Twain in his magazine sketches, " Old Times on the Mississippi," gives us atj interesting sketch of the organiz ing of the pilots into an association. The pilots L td grown numerous, each oae luiving aa apprentice to do his work for him, itinl waes had run down from very high figures to about $125 per month. A d'W-u of the ofci pilots, who had. been receiving us ranch as a cool thousand dollars a month coukl not stand this. Th. v got a sjjecial charter, with large powers, under the name the Pilots' ,35 mevoleut Association; elected their ollioers, compleh'd their organization, coiitribut-ed capital, put "association" wages np to two hundred and fifty dol lars at onee ar.d then retired to their homes, for they were promptly dis charged from employment. But there were two or three uunoticed trifles in their by-laws which had the seeds of propagation in thm. For instance, all idle members yf tho association, in good HtandHf?,. wore entitled to a pension of twenty-live dollars per month. This legan to bring in one straggler after an other from the ranks of the new-fledged yilots, in tho dull (summer) season. Better liive twenty-five dollars than nturve; the initiation foe was only twelve dollars, and no dues required from the unemployed. Also, the widows of deceased members in good stiiding could draw twenty-five dollars jwr month, and a certain sum for each oi th- ir ehHdren. Alio, tho said deceased wouH !e buried at the associ ation's expense. These things resurrect ed all tha superannuated antT forgotten pilots in the Mississippi valley. They t ii in- from far"iuf:, they came from inte rior villages, they came from every where. They came on crutches, on drayv, in ambulances any way, so they' got there. They paid in their twelve i dollars, and straightway In'gan to draw out twenty-live dollars a month and cal eulate their burial bills. liy-and bye, iUl tho useless, helpless pilots, iuil a dozen first-class ones, were in the association, and niua-tenths of the best pilots out of it and laughing at it. It was a laughing-stock of the whole river. Kverylxuly was derisively grate ful to the association for taking all the worthless pilots onit of th w.iv and Ua. ing the whpk lieM to tb excellent and deserving'; an ! vrtvlwMjy was not onlrt jocularly grateful for that, but for a re Mitt which naturally followed, namely, the gradual advance of wages as the busy ,s.a-oi apjiroacliod. Wages had gone up from the low figure of one hun dred dollars a niouth to oiie hundred nn 1 twolty Eve, and in some cases to one hundred and fifty ; and it was great fun to enlarge upon the fact that this Iiarming tiling had been accomplished by a lody of men not one of whom re ceived a particle of benefit from It. Some of th jokers used to call at the as sociation rooms and liave a good time chafEng'tho members and offering them the charity tf taking them as steersmen for a trip, so that they could see what the forgiilten river looked like. How ever, the association was content ; or at lea-st it gav mo eign to tho contrary. Now and then it captured a pilot who was "out of luck flmd added him to its list ; and these "Liter additions 'were) very valuable, or they were good pilots; the incompetent ones had all been ab sorf -d leforf. As bnsinesH freshened, w;es climbetl gnulually upto two hnn Onnl and jhfj'rfttTii "lUe saocUKoa Agure anal eoame firmly fixed there; and till without benefiting a member of that lxdy, for o. uwrnlei waa hired. ' The hilarity irt th association's expense burst all bounds, now. There was no end to the f un which that poor, jnarlyr had to put ti vjth. )t i Winter ftpproachedr business doubled and trebled, ami an avalanche of Mis souri, Illinois, and Upper Mississippi, river IkkUs came pouring, down to take a chance in the New Orleans trade. All of a suddeij, pilots were in great, de mand, nn l wore crtiresponditijrl scarce. The time for revenge was como. It was a bitter pill to have to accept associa tion pilot- t last yet captains and owners agreed that there was no other way. lint none of these outcasts offer ed ! So there waa a still bitterer pill to be swallowed; they must be sought oat and asked for their services. Captain was the first man who. found it neces-sary to take th dose, and he had been the loudest deride of 'the organi-1 sat ion. He hunted up one of the best of the association pilots and said : " Well,- you boya haye rather got tho best of tin for a little while, so 111 gite in with as good a grace as I can. I've come to hire you; get your trunk aboard riht away. I want to leave, at twelve o'clock." " I don't know about that Who is your other pilot V . ' . I .T . ." "I've got I. a' Why!" "I can't go with him. He don't be long to the association." -' - " What !" "It'ap." : ; - , ,r "Do yoiv mean teHine,thai you won't turn" a Vheel with one of the rery Vest and oldest pilots on the rirer because he don t belong to yotlr tioaf' A K. M 1 weu, u mat um t pquiug oaami.i mxpposed I was doing you ,, benero- leuoe ; bat I begin to think ILat I Vft)ra, tmiU; ane black dajr wbea every cue paxxj1 urns -wants a nrvor uoim, - af you . acting under law of - tbt von ernl" . "8howiito mf i So they stepped. . into the AwoeMtien rooms, and the secretary soon satisfied the eaetain, wka said t m . ' 1 v ' "Weil; what am I to dot I have hired Mr. S.( for the entire season.." "I wffl provide for jrOuv said the secretary. " I will detail a pilot to go with you, and he . shall be eh board at twelve o'clock." "But ifl oharge ttj ho will come on me for the whole seaflon'a wages." " Of course that is a matter .between you and Mr. &., captain. ' We cannot meddle in your private affairs' The captain stormed, but to no pur pose. In the' end he had to discharge S., pay him about a thousand dollars, and take ah association pilot in his place. The laugh wad beginning to turn the other way, now. Every day, thenceforward, a new victim fell ; every day some outraged captain discharged a non-association pet, with, tears and profanity, add Installed a hated associa tion man in his berth. In a very little while, idle non-associationists began to be pretty plenty, brisk as business was, and much as their services were desired. Soon all the laughers that were left were the owners and crews of boats that had two non-association pilots. But their triumph was not very long-lived. For this reason: It was a rigid rule of the association that its members should never, under any circumstances what ever, give information about the channel to aay " outsider." By this time about half the boots had none but association pilots, and the other half had none but outsiders. At the first glanco one would suppose that when it came to forbidding information about the river these two parties could play equally at that game; but this was not so. At every good sized town from one end of the river to the other, there waa a " wharf-boat " to land at, instead of a wharf or a pier. Freight was stored in it for transporta tion, waiting possengers slept in its cab ins. Upon each of these wharf-boats tha association's officers placed a strong box, fastened with a peculiar lock which was used in no other service but or-e the United States mail service. It was the letter-bag i lock, a sacred govern mental thing. ly dint of muclPbeseech ing the government had been persuaded to allow the association to Use this lock. Every association man carried a key which would open these loxt . That key, or rather a peculiar way of holding it in the hand when its owner was asked for river information by a stranger for the success of' the St. Louis and Now Orleans association had now bred tol erably thriving branches in a dozen neighboring steamboat trades-was the association man's sign and diploma of membership; and if the stranger did not respond by producing a similar key and holding it in a certain manner- duly pre scribed, his question was politely ignored. From the association's secretary each member received a package of more or less gorgeous bf&nks, printed like a bill-! head, on handsome paper, properly ruled in columns. , . sw-j?v These blanks were filled np. day Sy day, as the voyage progressed, greased aid de posited m the several wharf -boat, boxes. For instance, as soon as the first jpross, ing, out from St. Louis, was completed. "the, items would be entered noon the blank, under tlw approprkfes ileadiiig, 4 in us : "St Louis. Nine and a half (feet). Stern on court house, head-on dead cottonwood above woodyard. Until you raise the first reef, then pull up square. " Then under head of Remarks : " Go just ontsjrfe the wrecks ; this . is impor tant. New snag just where you straighten down ; go above it. " if The pilot who deposited that blank in the Osuro box (after adding to it the de tails of every crossing all the way ddwx from St. Louis) tookrout and read half a dozBu fresh reports (froaxttpward bortnd steamers) concerning, the nverv between Cairo and Memphis,. posted 4 himself thoroughly, returned them' to fhebox, and went back abpard.hisjboat again so armed against adcklent lhat die oould not possibly get his boat into J trouble without bringing the most Ingenious carelessness to his aid. - ', ? ; f .-' .imagine the'beieflta of aoadjnirable a system in a piecf Tif pr ; tWtlT4 or thirteen hundred, miles long, vWfee channel was shifting every day 1 The pilot who had formerly , been bjiged, V) put np with seeing1 a-shoal pLw onco or possibly twice a month, had a hundred sharp eyes to watch it for him, now, and bushels of intelligent brains to tell biml how to run it. His information about it was seldom twenty-four heurs old.- If the reports in the last box chanced' "to leave any misgivings on his mlna con cerning a treacherous croasing, v - i his remedy ; he blew bis steam whraue ma peculiar way as soon as he saw a boat approaching; the signal was an swered in a peculiar way if that boat's pilots were association men; and then the two steamers ranged alongside and all uncertainties were swept away by fresh information furnished to the in quirer by word of mouth and in minute detail. The first thing a pilot did whan he reached New Orleans or St. Louis4 was to take his final and elaborate report to the association parlors and hang it up there after which he waa free to visit his family. - i i : Bat the outsiders had a hard time of it. No particular place to meet and ex change information, no wharf -boat re porters, none but chance and uiuaaUsf ao tory ways Of 'retting news. The conse- w.geswngnewa. xc wnae-1 quenee was that a man sometime bad.to l run five hundred miles of ruuM mi Im rtM wr. nn in- 1 nver on w- formation, thai waa a wtwlr or ten days. old. At a fair stage of the .river that might have answered ; but when the. dead low water came it waa, destructive. Now came' another perfectly' kgioali result, xne outstaera oegan, ta grouna steamboats, sink them, and gel; into all sorts of trouble, whereas accidents seemed to keep entirely away from" the association men. r , Wherefore even, the owners and captains 6t Hdkti furnished exclusivel with outsidersand previous ly considered to be wholly) independent of the-SMociation and free to comfort themselves with' brag .. J ' , v t. . laTurater ' he- tjran to laei pretty UMomlortftUlew atflL Jixej made s)mw rf kfeepituf . p iba captain of the lot we, ormally ordered Immediately to discharge .'hie outsiders and take association pilots UL t heir stead. kad who was it that ' bad ihfl gaudy frrAanmpfirm An thoij Aloa ff ma from a power behind he throue thtt greater than the tnrojKC Itself; f 11 ttie underwriters! The latter3 h'a "come to comprehend the excellence of the "re port " system of the association and the safety it secured, and so they "had made their decision among themselves and -ppon jlin business principles, , , : x mm was weeping, juiu WAiiiqg. anj gnashing of teeth in the camp of the oatsiders now. Bnt no matter, there ras but one course for them to pursue, and they pursued .it. H Shey came: for ward in couples and groups, and prof fered their twelve dollars and asked for membership. They were surprised to learn that several Uetry -laws had been long ago Aided. - For lnstanoe, the initi ation fee liad been raised to fifty dollars ; that sum mast be tendered, and also ten per cent, of the wages which the appli cant had received each and every mouth since the founding of the association. In many cases this amounted to three or four hundred collars. '-Still, the associa tion weuhl not entertain the application until tho money was present. Even then a single adverse vote killed the ap plication. Every member had to vote yes or no in person, and before wit nesses ; so it took weeks to decide a can didacy, because many pilots were so long absent on voyages. However, the repentant pilots scraped their savings together, and one by one, by our tedious voting process, jhejijwere added to the fold. A time came, at last, when only about ten remained outside. They said they would starve before they would ap ply. They remained idle a long while, because of course nobody could venture to employ them. - By-and-bye the association published the fact that upon a certain date the wages would be raised to five hundred dollars per month. All the branch a" Sociatious had grown strong now, and the Red river one had advanced wages to seven- hundred dollars al month. ; Re luctantly the ten outsiders yielded, in view of these things, and made applica tion. There was another new by-Lw, by this time, which required them to pay dues not only on all the wages they had received sine the association was born, but also on what they would have Received if they had continued at work Up to tho time of their application, in stead of going off to pout in idlen?ss. ft turned out to be a difficult matter to edect them, but' it was accomplished at last. : The association had a good bank ac count now, and was very strong. ' There Was no longer an outsider. A by-law Was added forbidding the reception of any (re cubs or apprentices for five yeajv, after which time a limited num ber would be taken, not by individuals, but by the association, upon these terms: tho applicant must not be less than eighteen years old, of respectable family and good character; he must piss an examination as to education, pay a thousand dollars in advance for the privilege of becoming an apprentice, and must remain under the commands of the .association until a great part of the I Jfcembership (more than half, I think) T would be willing to sign his application fi)r a tilot's license. All previously - articled apprentices were now taken away from their masters and adopted by the association. The president and sectetarv detailed them for service on one boat or another as they chose, and changed them from boat to boat according to certain rules. If a pilot could show that he was in In firm health and needed assistance, one I of the cobs would be ordered to go with "The widow and orphan. list grew, but so did the association's financial re sources. The association attended its own funerals in state-, and paid for them. When occasion demanded, it sent mem bers down the river upon searches for the bodies of brethren' lost by eteamboatf accidents; a search of this kind some times cost a thousand dollars, j Tho association procmed a charter add went mU theosmrines business! also It not only insured' the lives of its ' members, but took risks on steam boats. It continued to grow until the railroads and the war broke up the steam boat business on the river, and -aome gSnius from thetlaotic coast introduced the plan of towimr a doaan steamer cargoea-down td iNew Orleans at the tail a. -v m v mil. a a a . ft7 vulgar little, -tug-l frtrtfv rit t haTwlnt waa at iuue-ug-ixai, wneu. uie an end. '4 I FbeSiark fialerVo fhei northern Ice," 4 se in the bay vjf Cttixlberskja- and the peninsula Kola Itaa recently been re- rived. Two kinds, of shark are found In basking shark. ITiey frequently assem ble in snoalsY S&1 boats engaged in the fis'iery are Soften nrrounded by a hun dred orjnore of these sea hyenas greedy for prey. The Russhuis fish hear the oojast withirnaJJ lxat holding font men. Anchoring; at a ceihiin distanoe from the laid, they sink vessel pierced with holes, containing oiL. tallow, or other fat, which the sea eusents distribute in the neighiierhood. TluV attracts the sharks, and they are oaaght with baited hooks attached- to pa qhaiOT, they could instantly bice-through the strong-"j est rope, u nree oi the menpnu the fish toward the boat, and the fourth stands ready with a wooden hammer weighing twenty pounds to 'strike with all his foco the momeixt the head armesrs. The anarK is then out open, the oil taken and .a . , r - r. . rr "JT iXl TTLX ZZZ 2 V ' . the other sharks would eat it and" not care for other bait. Sometimes the shirk nrrroriad a" boat so thickly that it cannot escape, and the rew aMjdllsd, 4i Jm France cheap, wood, is now made to perfectly imitate mahogany. The suK face is treated withrdtrous aMd.Thn a. mixture of an ounce and aV half of dra gqn's- blood. pint of alcohoL and .aome t carbonate Of Soda is- put on with toft brush. Furniture thus prepared cannot oe aisunguisnea zrom genuine hagany. . - - ; f 1 j. -v i - . r: v km rtr Par .fteU l heilajua-Ke rnwiM run iw ut. 1 A writer in AMAni'i JnnlAW haa been giving some verf interesfing and instructive' artieles on Ilolland.its beo -pie, and their peculiarities. Holland, it in Known, is like the lower AKssiaaippi bottom lands, lower than the level of the sea which Surround it, and nothing but extensive and costly dikes or levees keep the waters from pouring tn upon the land and its people; Breaks in the dikes and inundations! have Occurred with great loss of life and propertv. The inundation of November, 1870, is thus described : A continued and violent gale from the northwest had long been sweeping -the Atlantic waters into the North sea, and had now piled them up on the fragile coasts of the provinces The dikes, tasked beyond their strength, burst in every direction. The cities of Flanders, to a considerable distance inland, were suddenly invaded by the waters of the ocean. The whole narrow peninsula of North Holland was in imminent danger Of being swept away forever. Between Amsterdam and Meydett the great Dio mer dike waa broken through, in twelve places. The Hand-bos, a bulwark form ed of oaken piles, fastened with metal clamps moored with iron anchors, and secured by gravel and granite, was snapped to pieces like packthread. The ' Sleeper," a dike thu called, because it was usually left in repose by the ele ments, except in great emergencies, alone held firm, and" prevented the consummation of the catastrophe. Still the ocean poured in upon the land with terrible fury. Dorp, Rotterdam, and many other cities were, for a time, al most submerged. Along the coast, fish-, ing vessels, and even ' ships of. larger size, were floated np into the country, where they entangled! themselves in Soves and orchards, or beat to pieces e roofs and walls of houses. The de struction of life and property was enor mous throughout the maritime prov inces, but in Friesland the desolation was complete. There' nearly all the dikes and sluices were dashed to frag ments; the country, far and wide, con verted into an angry sea. The steeples and towers of inland cities became islands of the ocean, r Thousands of human beings were swept out of exist ence in a few hours. Whole districts of territory, with their villages, farms and churches, were rent from their places, borne along by the force of the waves, sometimes to be lodged in another part of the country, sometimes to be entirely ingidfod. Multitudes of men, women, children, of horses, oxen, sheep, and every domestic animal, were struggling in the waves. in every direction. . livery boat, and , every article which could serve as a boat, was eagerly seized upon. Every house was inundated; even the graveyards gave up their dead. The living infant in his cradle, and the long buried corpse in his coffin, floated side by side. The ancient flood seemed about to be renewed. : Everywhere upon the tops of trees, upon the steeples of churches human beings were, , clus tered, praying to God for mercy, and to their fellow men for assistance. As the storm at last waa subsiding, boats began to ply in every direction, saving those who were still struggling in the r water, picking fugitive from roofs and tree tops, and collecting the bodies of those already drowneL Colonel Ro bles, Seigneur de Billy, formerly much hated for his Spanish and Portuguese blood, made himself very active in this humane work. By his exertions, and those of the troops belonging to Oronin gen, many lives were rescued, and grati tude replaced the ancient animosity. It was estimated that at least twenty thou sand persons were destroyed in the province of Friesland atone. Through out the Netherlands, one hundred thou sand persons perished.' The damage done to property, the number of animals ingulfed in the sea, were, almost incaluu able. Col. Jim Bowie, A correspondent of th New York 7H Imne relates the following: I remember a story I heard forty or fifty years ago. A stage coach was going along an Arkansas road, on the; back seat were three women; on the middle one, two men, tall and muscular; while the for ward seat held Only a small man, wrap ped np completely in a blanket. After a time one of the powerful men on the middle seat lit a cigar and smoked. The smcke went full in the face of one of the women, who was both young and timid. She sickened, and then requested the man to stop smoking. This aroused the ruffian in him, and he roughly declared: "I have paid my fare; it is customary to smoke,' and I will smekS as much as I have anaind to." Accordingly he took out a fresh cigar, and started the smoke cloud again. The woman could only add that "Smokers ought not to forget to be gentlemen." 'This suggestion excited the man's rage to white heat. At this point the small man on the front seat laid aside his blanket, put his left hand on the knee of the-enraged ruffian, in order to withdraw his attention from the woman and to himself, while with his right hand he drew a bowie-knife from its case between his shoulder-blades. Pointing the weapon at the heart of the "brute, and looking him square in the eyes, the little man quickly said: "I am Col. James Bowie, and unless you -throw Jthat cigar away in one minute, I will put thM.ume into yoor near, as true as there is a God." The ruffian compre hended in aa instant with whom he had to : deal, aad threw his cigar out of the window without adding word. CoL Bowie replaced his weapon, drew his blanket about him, and relapsed into condition of apparent indifference. Some of the restaurants in Carson, Xev furnish to their customers napkins about four inches square, in size. Jie centlv, says th Appeati a gentleman who had ordered a meal was handed one of these diminutives, and upon unfolding it he inquired if he cottli not have . a larffvr one. i4How lares a .one do Ton anrr" Inquired the waiter m attend- anceT Well,- was the reply, J'nvnot rttiXDKK THE SEA. particular4 about m very large one, 'but I would' like oh a little larger than this, if you have it handy; for instance, about the rise of a postage stamp." . f ' . S - H ; i i , ! .' Uvara far Plea. Here is bow geese are cooked at Stras bourg, aa described by a visitor: Their proprietor explains that they are all nine months old, and have cost him, lean as they are, about two franca (fifty cents) apiece; ha then; makes a sign to half a doaea baas-armed gtria, who speak French, and, amid considerable commo-4 nop and protest from the remaining I ninety-four, six geese are -collared and marched away to a cellar half under ground, where wide and sloping atone tables are arranged in tiers ss fa as the a a utit eye can see. m tne murxy ngnt cy some twenty air-holes, one can at first disth guish nothing; but by-ahd-bye it be comes apparent that hundreds of sjeese are already lying strapped oil thetbneks on the upper tiers, and gasping hysteric things probably words of love and en couragement to one another. Our business being for the moment at the lower tables, the six girls take each her goose, lay it gently but firmly on the stone, so that its tail just projects over the ledge, and then tie down its wings, body and legs tight .with plaited whip cord the legs and wings being well spread out, to paralyse anything like vigorous gymnastics. The bird's neck is left free, and it seems that during the first three days it makes a violent use of it; but toward the fourth day it arrives at the consciousness that by the strug gling and croaking it does nothing to amend its lot, and from that time it may be trusted to lie still for the next seven weeks; that is, to the hour . of release and killing. Withont pausing to see all the hundred geese tied down, we may go at once to the upper tiers, where the birds thai have been lying for three, five or six weeks, respectively, are;; taking their ease, and waiting to be fed bv half a dozen other Alsatian girls laden with large wooden. bowls. Each of these is filled with- thick, white paste, mad of parboiled maize, chestnuts and buckwheat, most nourishing, and the mode of administer ing tlie dinner is for the girl to catch the goose by the neck, open its bill with a ttle squeeze, and then ram three or four balls of the paste down its throat with her middle finger. The" goose, having thus refreshed, resumes its slant ing position and digests till the -next time of feeding, which arrives about two hours after, the meals being about six a day. But now we are done with the women; for a pensive man a connoisseur in the obesity of geese breaks upon the scene, climbs upon the topmost tier of all, and proceeds to examine the birds that may be " ripe." He has an eye as judicious as that of a gardener inspecting melons; and bis is tho responsible task of pro nouncing what birds would die a nat ural death vnthifitwettty-f our hours, if not dispatched beforehand. If a goose dies a natural death, it is good for nothing. It must be unstrapped and executed at the precise psychological moment when nature is growing tired of supporting it; and the knack of detect ing that moment can only come of long practice, and fetches the possessor wages as large as those of a diamond valuer. Our pensive functionary has not been a minute on the table before he certifies four geese ready for the slaughter. All four of them have stomachs of the size of pumpkins, and from what one can gather of their broken remarks, it is a sincere relief to these when a couple of male acolytes climb up, loose their bonds, and bear them out of the cellar to a pent house across the yard, full of knives and chopping-blockfl. A click with the chop per in the neck ; of each, a rip with the knife, and in less than five minutes' after their transfer, the carcasses of the four victims are lying in a heap, while their livers are being conveyed with all respect and care to the trufflmg-house. The carcasses, shriveled out of all knowledge, are sold for about eight pence apiece to peasants, who make soup out of them; the livers are first cleaned, then put to scale, and our four geese are declared grand birds, all of them, for their livers weigh from two and a half to three pounds each. The next step is to take each liver and lard it with truffles, in the propor tion of half a pound of truffles to one pound of liver, and then to convey it to an ice-house, where- it remains on a marble . slab for a week, that the truffle perf ume'may thoroughly permeate it. At the end of a week each liver, being removed, is cut into the size required for the pot it is to fill, and introduced into that pot between two thin layers of mince-meat, made of the finest veal and bacon fat,' both truffled like the liver it self , and one inch depth of the whitish lard is then spread over the whole, that none of the savor may escape in the baking. The baking takes about five hours, and absorbs all the energies of four intelligent' Frenchmen in white, who relay each other to see that the fire never blazes too high or sinks too low. When the ceoking is over, nothing re mains but to pack the dainty either in tin, or earth, or wood, according as it may be required for home or foreign consumption, and to ship it to the four points of the compass. On Board the SebJHer. A passenger on the ill-fated Schiller in his statement to a London paper said: All went well until Friday, and we had a pleasant passage. On that day we had cloud v weather which, clearing np before night, was almost immediately followed by a thick fog. We were then near the shore; but we did not know we were. I went to my berth about nine o'clock, and fell asleep. ' I ' was awakened soon by a bumping sound,' which I thought was caused by the anchor going. I was at once apprised that this could net be the cause of the noise by the shouts and creams I heard,, and putting on my clothes, I rushed on deck aad soon found that the ship was ashore. ' I had heard the orders for tho engines to be reversed, but the ship went on bumping several times before sha i finally stopped.! The result of this bumping was to break, in her bottom. . I These were verv few in bed, and those who were to disembark at Plymouth were ready to do so. The captain ordered thepumps to be sounded, and the report which came to him was that water was making zspidly. At this announcement, as may be imagined, there : was great consternation, lien, women sad children rnahed about scraanv ing for help. The captain ordered guns to be fired as signals of distress, and rockets were sent np, the guns con tinn ing to be fired until the powder became damp aad useless Up to this time we did not know Wwrew were, aad it waa not . vU after aidtigbt that ve asngers . seeing ; the . Bwoop s lights. hanging tfae-dawita. aUiqtWU utbers got. is with me got in a large ware , atrsc boat. knocking , her from the davits on to the deck, and ' fill ing. hWwftS'water. So scared were my companions at this occurring that they jumped out, but I stuck to her. Soon after the boat was washed against the aide of the ship and I was thrown out, but 1 got in again. Uirectry alter A was washed against the mast and oxtoo -more knocked out, but I regained the boat once more, and was glad to-see that she was now rid of a quantity of the water which she had been filled with by the waves. Just afterwards, to my horror, I found that the boat with me in her had been washed right oyer into the sea. I row saw that my only chance was to stick to the boat, aad I clung to her for some hours, and was at last rewarded for so doing by being picked up by a fishing boat and carried into Scdlly. THE DARK BITS. MeaaeraMe Days la the Hletary af tha Ceaatrjr What CaaseS Theau May 19, 1780, is known in the history of New England as the dark day. Be tween the hours of ten and eleven in the. morning the sky became obscured with dense clouds of a smoky hue that drifted from the southwest. In most parts of New. England the gloom that en sued was so great that it was impossible to read common print, to determine the time of day by watches and clocks, or to pursue any sort of work indoors without the aid of artificial light. In some places common print could not be read out of doors for several hoofs in succes sion. The fowls went to roost, the birds sang their evening .songs and settled themselves to sleep in their hidden re treats, candles were lighted in all the houses, while a silence and dimness as of night rested upon the face of all nature. For several days preceding this the atmosphere had been unusually thick and hazy, and the sun and moon looked dull and rod as they rode through the heavens. On the morning of the 18th there were slight showers in certain lo calities, accompanied with thunder, while at different intervals through tho day there was rain in various places. The water that fell was thick, dark, and sooty, and a scum as of ashes appeared on the surface of rivers and reservoirs, while, when the tide went out, it left a line of the smut along the shore at the width of four or five inches. On ex amination this surface matter seemed to be nothingmore than the ashes of burnt leaves. This extraordinary darkness lasted for a period of about fourteen hours. In the transactions of the Philosophi cal Society of Philadelphia, printed prior to 1785, there is a comment on a similar darkness that was experienced October 21, 171G, O- S. " The day was so dark that people were forced to light candles to eat their dinners by. Which could not be from any eclipse, the solar eclipse beiag the fourth of that month." Nothing is said in this account of the cause of the darkness, nor are any par ticulars given. On October 19, 1762, a remarkable dark day was observed, at Detroit, and described in the Philadel phia Transactions for 1763. The writer says : "Tuesday last, being the 19th inst. (i. ., of October), we had almost total darkness for the most of the day. I got up at daybreak. About ten min utes after I observed it got no lighter than before. The same darkness con tinued until nine o'clock, when it cleared up a little. We then, for the space of about a quarter of an hour, saw the body of the sun, which appeared as red aa blood, and mora than three times as large aausuaL The air, all this time, which was very dense, was of a dirty yellowish color. I was obliged to light candles to see to dine, at one o'clock, notwithstanding the table was placed close by two large windows. About three tne darkness became more horri ble ; which augmented until half-past three, when the wind breezed up from the southwest and brought on some drops of rain, or rather sulphur and dirt; for it appeared like the hitter than the former, both in smell and quality. I took a leaf of clean paper and held out in the rain, which rendered it black wherever the drops fell upon it ; tbut, when held near the fire, it turned- to a yellowish color, and, when burned, it fizzed on the paper like wet powder. During this shower the air was almost suffocating, with a strong sulphurous smell. It cleared up a little after the - nun. An officer stationed at Detroit describ ed the same day in a letter to a friend. In his words : " The 19th of this month (October, 1762) was the most extraordi nary dark day, perhaps, ever seen in the world." The cause of the unnatural darkness prevailing on three several days was probably the extensive burning of Western prairies and woodlands. The Newspaper. The newspaper is the chronicle of civi lization the common reservoir intoSrhieh every stream pours its living waters, and at which every man may come to drink. It is a newspaper that gives to liberty its unrelaxing activity. The newspaper in forms legislators of public opinion, and informs the people of legislation. And this is not all. The newspaper teems with most practical morality; in its re port of crimes and punishments you find a daily warning against temptation; and not a case in a police, court not a single trial of a wretched outcast or a trembling felon, that doss not preach to us the awful lesson how imprudence leads to error, conducts to guilt; how guilt reaps its bitter fruit of anguish and degradation. The newspaper is the bond that binds together man and man no matter what be tho distance of the cli mate : or .the difference of race, The newspaper is a law book for the indolent, s sermon ; for the thoughtless, a library for the poor. It stimnTates the most in different, , iU instructs . the most pro-fouad,- -'-'I-,-.'-,r' -- ' -.. " Items of Isterest. j A patent medicine agent recently stack handbills on all the gravestones in the cemetery at Melrose, Maes, r N In nofyoke, Mass,, tramps are made; to pay for lodging and breakfast with three hour work on a new fewer. t It is reported that eight hundred per-, eons, chiefly children, have died of xaea-f ales and malignant sore throat at Bogota, New Grenada. A French critic says that 'American ft. belles display many times -a day toileta "sufficient to ruin twenty husbands.'' They get them from France, though. - ,-r A tornado- which swept through Geori gia on May i is shown by full reports from all the countries to have killed -fifty-four, persona mad wounded sixty-' threew- .. ' . -. - i - vr!" .!- '' ' A boy is V blessing until bef pats onr "pants." From the period of the first, rent in his trowsers LrVes a feeling in. the maternal breast that 'Ss not wholly affectionate. ' " ..!..- I don't care much abotffthe bugs," said Wanaley to the head 4l a genteel board-'ng-houae, "but the factii, madam, I haven't the blood to spare ; , you see that yourself. 'V" J . A Cuban woman at linardel TliV who was under the haltaanatkm that 4be spirits ordered her to do so; tbre out the eyes of her son, and then tried to Jter out her own. " . ..'-, r George Cary Eggleston argues that fV does not pay as a business venture toX marry a rich wife. His observation : X leads him to believe that the-expenses of maintaining such a wife is usually., greater than the income which her prop-. erty can be made to yield. So famous is the town of Concord, ' Massachusetts, with its twenty-three hun-' dred people; that Senator Bout welt onco told a friend, who asked him what was the chief mercantile staple of -the town, that the people of Concord supported themselves by writing for the Atlantic Monthly. .' - 1 It is officially announced in Paris that ' the vexed question of : how the restored Yendome column shall be crowned has been settled. The . statne . nf Napoleon, ' as it was before the Commune, will be replaced, and the "complete restoration of tho whole monument will soon be ao- ' compUshed. William E. Kisselburgh describes in the Troy Time the strange sight of an telopes keeping company with a Pacific railroad train. There were a hundred or more of the fleet, graceful animals, and for two miles they ran parallel with the cars, as though interested in the race. Then one of the passengers fired at them with a revolver, scaring them away, Philadelphia is called the " City of Homes." It contains 60,000 more dwell ing houses than New York, and 94,000 more than Boston. Many of these resi dences have been erected by building associations. There are in Philadelphia about 78,000 dwellings owned by men who without the aid of organizations that furnish the means for building, . could never have emerged from the condition of tenancy to that of proprietorship. " Samuel White, a farmer of Ludlow, Mass., went into a large hog pen to feed a number of the beasts confined there. ' A large and very savage boar attacked him withont warninor. and a desnerate encounter ensued, the man striking with a heavy club, with wmon ne naa armea himself before entering,' and ' the boar -' biting with ghastly effect. At- length a, r deep bite in White's thigh Bevered the , u. femoral artery and he bled to death. , , One day last week a smiling; infant ' toddled awav from its home nearViola, Iowa, nn tha Dnbnane Southwestern railroad, and lay down between the rails ' - to sleep. A lew moments later a train came along, and the engineer, seeing he . eonld not Rton in time. Trailed her wide open wide and banged the whole train . a a a a 1 over tne sleeping eneruo- oeiore i voie,', and never touched a hair of it. . Had the little one attempted to nse it . would . have been instantly killed. ' " ' ' The London Jxtnerf, discussing of""1 nnftin Ttrwntotl'n MMnt Tjaddlo A across the British channel, says that ho i v ... . "a a. could have borne easuy a mucn greajej-t,. , fatigue, and that the paddling does not c , weary him half as much as would be"" supposed, the only fafJguetfigtn the wrist.; After ho was asleep lln.' bed aEIT Rnnluma ba wma nnwrvnd tf Tiaddle a little in his dreams, but " there was no, sign of exhaustion, and the next morn ing he was out early smokies trite ngaV-' " T-.x?-? ct at -j; Here are the heads of a sermon once, ; , preached by a quaint old minister on the text, "Adam, where art thou V "1st. All men are some where-' 2dly. Somex -: men are where they ought not to" be. 3dly. If they dont take care, they will ., soon find themselves where they had' rather not be. spv-T 1 - Tom Sheridan once told Ma father that.. . when he got into Parliament ' he would, not pretend to greater virtue than he possessed, bnt wonld at once write upon his forehead "To be let," "That wont do, " replied his father, ''unless you add unfurnished." ' -. '-i Meeting the -author of a celebrated , poem, after he had been seriotisly in jured . -by a railroad accident, a friend remark- . ed: "You did not find 'riding on the rail', aa pleasant as yon pictured it "Oh, that wasnt riding on the rail, but riding off it, : Don't you see? "What kind of a man is Squire Sim mons,: any. way I" "Well, you've seen -them i snow storms along early in the winter, when there's a good deal of .wind but not much sleighing t That's the sort - he is." n;.- i U4 ,;. The ef the Cadiz. Details of the wreck of the steamship Cadis and the loss of sixty five lives are afc ttan1 Onlw r" nf tha war Wn saved, and the only other survivors were: . v. . . . . " J. - xnree i tromuruesn .seamen. ins butto vors say that the vessel struck 6A the wizard rock about three o'clock in the Knt tVio-w awarnvMirl 4r tna KeaW aea. and ttuwa fn tVtcm wm ln& TSd TTlfTf Kaved succeeded in clinging - to the bottom of a V S a al tne espsizea boats ana armea to too shore. The steamer ran between Lon don and Cadis, via lit t "1 -1 '4- - - . 0 ill. 41 rit
The Union Republican (Winston, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
June 17, 1875, edition 1
1
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75