Newspapers / The Chatham Record (Pittsboro, … / May 5, 1881, edition 1 / Page 1
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m ft dfftaffcam Jurori -3 H. A. LONDON, Jr., EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR. MIL BATES Of ADVERTISING." '6 m m i fji i TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION: One square, one Insertion, One square, two insertions, -One square, one month, 1.8 7.30 - fZ.00 1.00 Omcopjr.tiK moatbs Oae etpy, tlirM months, .20 VOL. IIL PITTSBORO', CHATHAM CO., N. C, MAY 5, 1881. NO. 34. For larger dYertiMmeati liberal contra-: wilt The Sinking Bird. Vh, sweet, sweet, sweet," the swallow sung, From the nest he builded high; And the robin's raptured echo rung From his leafy perch close by. " Oh, sweet, sweet, sweet," rang the joyful tun "Oh, sweet, sweet, sweet is the world in Jun e. Oh, sweet, sweet, sweet," the maiden said, As she twined her Iiir with flowers; '"rom bird and blossom the echo sped Through the long and blissful hours. "Oh,sweet, sweet, sweet," rang the joyful tune, Oh, sweet, sweet, sweet is the world in Juno." 'Oh,swect, sweet;, sweet," the swallow sung Ou the summer's dying night; And "sweet, sweet, sweet," the echo rung, As the robin plumed for flight; "Oli, sweet is the summer when just begun, And swtet, sweet, sweet, when her life is done.', But the maiden, never a word she said, As the donned her weeds of woe; Hie bird that sung in her heart was dead, With the summer of long ago; The sweet, sweet, sweet, of the bloom and bird Kit idle mocking her dull car heard. Oh, sweet, 6weet, sweet is the whole glad earth When the summer days are here; And sweet, sweet, sweet is the time of dearth, Though the autumn days are drear; If only deep in the heart is heard The gladsome song of tho " singing bird. An Episode of Bidwell's Bar. I think it is Emerson who says; "When you pay for your ticket, and get into the car, you havo fo guess what good company you shall find there. You buy much that is not rendered in the bill. I have found this remark emi nently true on several occasions, particu larly when my life-long friend Ruth bears me company. Ruth is the most unconventional oi women. She travels, as she does every thing else, with whole-souled earnest ness, and finds bread where most people could gather only stones. Thns, re cently being in the rear car of the Ions train, she preferred standing upon the platform and drinking in at one draught that magnificent valley through which we seemed flying, than by tantalizing sips, as one has to do from behind a narrow car window. I followed her. I always do. And, holding on to the narrow railing, we felt somewhat like two lost comets whirling through space. Soon the door behind us banged, and a gentleman in the midsummer of life, with a face as classically beautiful as Edwin Booth's, and a waist of Falstaffian dimensions, joined us. He beamed on us almost literally. From the dimple in his fair, soft chin to the ring of brown, silky hair which lay upon his broad, smooth forehead, the expression scintillated with intelligent good nature. Withal, there was such a retrospective back ground to the sunny brightness, that, after a few commonplaces, Ruth, tin daring, honest, impudent creature, said, looking up meanwhile into his face with a smile so honest and kindly that he would have been a Berserker not to have reflected it: Sir, permit me to remark that you are a physical incongruity." " Not so bad as that, madam, I hope. I am merely a conductor, as by this time you have discovered, and a pretty well-balanced one, independent of my avoirdupois." But your thoughtful face, sir, that is what perplexes me. It should belong to a body but one-third the weight ot yours," suggested Ruth, the wise disci ple of Lavater. "My face is all right," he replied, stroking his cheeks and chin with an air of marvelous self-complacency. "It stopped growing ten years ago, but it is here, here," touching the region of hi3 diaphragm with the tip of his front fore finger, "that contentment and my rare good luck shows itself. Once I was as thin as Peter Schemmel's shadow, and " he paused, looking into Ruth's clear gray eyes as if ho would sound her soul's depths "I am strongly tempted to tell you my bit of romance, for there is a long stretch ahead, and you look like one of tho kind to enjoy a touch of nature. Isn't it so?" Tho conductor had struck the very key-note of our needs. We were pining for a veritable Californian story, told in an unconventional way, outside the well read romances of Bret Harte and the Argonwit; to bo told, too, under such peculiar circumstances would be an added spice, and thus we besought him Im immediately jield to temptation. "I am an old stager," he said, "at ' aj-t as far back as the spring of '50. With a blanket strapped upon my back, 'it'ty cents in my pants-pocket and the 'gest stock of hope and untried energy hat ever made a lad's heart as light as a balloon, I tramped along here in my search for the gold diggings. My am bition was higher than those buttes yonder by thousands of feet, and the top was to be capped with solid gold," pointing as he spoke to the ihree sin gular and isolated peaks we were just then passing, known as the Marysville Unites, whose volcanic heights looked m inaccessible to us as their peaks kerned brown and barren. "It appears to me," said Ruth, meas uring the almost precipitous sides of hose lofty and mysterious hills, "that H'hen a man aspires to touch the sky he onid want a higher guerdon than mere gold, not, however, that I hold the metal in contempt." " I had, madam, and that was the whole matter. I was desperately in love that was a solemn fact expressed in as few words as possible and I be lieved that she loved me, but the top of Mount Shasta was not more unattain able to me than Jennie. Her father, an old Philadelphia druggist, had money,' and I had none. He was proud as Luci fer, and as ambitious for his daughter as he was proud. I f sit that I could 'move a mountain,' if I could find a mountain to move, so Jennie and I said good-bye one afternoon under an old oak in Fairmount park, and in the very depths of my heart I believed she would be true to me. It was not a seven days' ride in a palace-car from New York to San Francisco those days, and the tall, blender, hungry, penniless lad who tramped along here twenty-nine years ago, seeking his fortune like another Dick Whittington, was a weary and home-sick one, as well." "By 'here,' which you have twice used, do you mean this veritable valley of the Sacramento?" said Ruth. " The very same. My objective point was a place now famous in the annals of that period, called ' Bidwell's Bar,' on account of a rich bar in the Feather river, full of golden sand, which was discovered by General Bidwell. The place was many miles from me; the country was' sparsely settled; I did not know a soul (for even tramps were scarce in those early days), and so my courage and my legs gave out together. Pulling off my boots about 5 o'clock one sultry day, I bared my blistered feet to the cool evening breeze, and creeping into a clump of young manzanitzas, fell asleep, hoping that I would never again wake this side of the stars. I did, however, conscious that my toes were being licked in a gentle fashion, and discovered that it was being done by a young brown setter dog, about as hungry-looking and generally dilapi dated as I was myself. " Where he came from I never knew, but looking into his half human eyes, wo speedily entered into a sort of dumb compact to trudge on together. I found that the poor fellow (I never could call him a brute) had a sore knee, inflamed and bleeding. I tore a strip off from my last handkerchief to bind it up, and in place of the Good Samaritan's oil and wine, gave him my last scrap of cold bacon. It is strange, but forlorn as I was in those days, I recall them with a tender pleasure almost unaccountable. If I had been raised a Brahmin, I would have believed that some immortal spirit of unfailing cheerfulness and unending resources was imprisoned in that dog's body. Did you ever read the fairy le gend of The WThite Cat,' who, after she had persuaded the young prince, her lover, to cut off her head and tail and throw them in the fire, suddenly stood before him a woman, as fair as Aur era Fritz, for that was the name by which 1 called the dog, looked at me with Jen nie's brown eyes, half roguish, half thoughtful, and together we resumed our journey. Nor would I have follow ed in the wako of tho young prince, even had I known the result would be similar, for Fritz, the dog, was in vein able just as he was. All lonesomeness was gone now that he rarely left my side, and although our shadows had grown less by the time we reached the ' Bar,' our immaterial entities were in prime order for anything in the shape of adventure. 'Have never seen any gold dug ?' Then Fll not at this late day spoil your first impressions of a miner's camp by describing mine, as I approach ed Bidwell's Bar. I may say though that one might have supposed an earthquake or tornado had just been at work there, tearing up the hundreds of thousands of cubic feet that had been moved and removed by mortal hands in their fran tic and persistent search for gold. "The 'bar' was a world in miniature. Almost every nationality was there rcp resented, and almost every feature of human kind but humanity. Armed with a pick, pan and shovel, I, like hundreds of others, began to dig and burrow and wash dirt. But my labor and its results would not balance, for somehow my little leather bag of gold dust grew no heavier, toil as I would, Wages Demg good I stopped digging, and hired myself as a camp scullion. I did every kind of jobbing within the range of a miner's wants. Washing dirty flannel shirts and cotton overalls, patching leather trousers and cooking flapjacks is not the most dignified and flower-strewn path to fortune, you must know; and to a boy, whose ideas of chivalry, independence and deeds of knightly valor were purely and intensely Byronic, such a fate you must acknowl edge, was a sort of poetic justice. My aim, though, was to earn enough money with which to buy a certain claim of which I knew, and that I had, in ad vance, labeled 'bonanza.' "I might have succeeded, but I was prostrated by a malarial fever, and for days and weeks lay unconscious at the tender mercy of a few rough Welsh miners with human hearts. My little hoard of money and my energy melted away together like spring snow But (or Fritz, I'd have died of disappoint ment alone. He had adopted tho 'never say die' motto, and I as often read in his glorious eyes the sentence: 'You great old coward I At him again ! as a tender and appreciative sympathy which the gift of speech could not have made more assuring. My nurses had pitched me a tent on the south side of a low hill, and left me to get well at my leis ure. My bottom dollar had dwindled into the value of a dime, my legs into the thickness of a pair of tongs (for all appetite was gone), and one evening hope failed me. Believing I was going to die, I resolved to do the fair thing by Jennie, apprise her of the event, and adviso her to forget me. By the flicker ing light of a bit of tallow candle, I commenced the letter the first I had written for months. I thought aloud as I wrote. Fritz lay beside me, his nose wedged between his fore-paws, but I knew by the twitching of his ears that he understood every word I was writing. "I had reached the climax of renuncia tion and wretchedness or rather my expression of it when he suddenly rose and went out. I soon heard him pawing and scratching and tearing the earth about six feet from me, as though he was under contract to dig a tunnel to China before daylight. Thinking he had found the burrow of a wolf or a fox, I called him off, but he was as deaf as a rock to my voice. Seizing the cand le I hurried to the spot, around which lay a half-bushel of gravel, which he had loosened, when my eye caught the gleam of a dull red streak that stained a piece of quartz about the size of an egg, lying among the fresh earth. Would you be lieve it ? That streak was worth fifty dollars, for it was virgin gold. Nor was it the only one upon that hillside. Fritz had found a lode (thanks to a gopher), and I, thereby, had found a fortune. As soon as possible I had the gold of that first precious stone wrought into a ring of my own designing; all of it, at least, but the contents of one blunt corner, which, in its native roughness, I had mounted as a simple brooch. Sending these to Jennie, I ' "An act of great generosity, sir, I think," interrupted Ruth, with a laugh ing glint in her eye. " One would have thought you'd have preserved such a piece of rare good fortune as a memo rial stone." " You anticipate me, madam. It was as a memorial that I sent my first bit of treasure, but I expected to get it back again within two years, and the girl with it." "And did you?" "No; nor even received a line of ac knowledgment that my offer had been accepted. Nothing finds gold quicker than gold, when a man has once got a fair share - of it, and in two years I had, in various ways, secured 20,000. Investing it, as I thought, safely, I re turned to Philadelphia in all the pride of a conquering hero. My story ought to end here; to wind up with the chime of wedding bells and a beautiful Ra chel' as my reward for faithful serving, but I had scarcely arrived when I heard incidentally that Jennie had gone w ith her father to Europe, nor left one sign that she ever remembered me." " You certainly did not let that fact dampen the ardor of your pursuit?" queried Ruth; "you followed her, of course ?" "Of course I did no such thing, madam. I returned to San Francisco and plunged into the excitement of gold-hunting with a recklessness that a woman cannot understand. Six months after and I lost every dollar, but, by that time, I had learned that experience is worth nothing as solid capital until it has been dearly bought. I whistled my rhyme: Loss and gain, pleasure and pain, Balance the see-saw of life, In the sensitive ears of my faithful Fritz, hugged his brown head close to my shoulder don't laugh, that dog was my friend rolled up my sleeves and again went to work with a vigor that I knew meant success if the vein held out. It did, and five years after ward I had a bank account which ran largely into the thousands. I invested it in land. By that time I was a bach elor of thirty. Hard knocks and my one big disappointment had shaken all the romance out of me, and when I again went East it was on business connected with the construction of this railroad." "And you had quite out-lived youi boyish fancy, as your heart began to lose its youth?" said Ruth, with the least bit of cynicism in her tone. " I think Fritz knew," said the con ductor, quietly, " I had become almost a misanthrope for his sake. If I left him to go into society such as we had for a few hours he either whined like a sick child or kept up suJi an increasing barking and baying that, to save him from being shot as a nuisance, I went to no place where it was impossible for him to accompany me. The old fellow went with me even to New'York, and on the journey I often caught myself cogi tating how he born in a wilderness of wild mustard, and as fond of camp-life as an Indian would take to the con straints of an old city. Well, I had not been in New York a week before there was a strong tugging at my heart to run down to Philadelphia. Not that it was home for me. for my parents had died before I first left it. I called the desire the charm of association and it led me to decide at once to run over to the Quaker city. ' There, as I first went down Arch street, my poor dog lost his wits and the sober dignity of his maturity. Ho had a remarkably fine scent, I always knew that; but no sooner had we turned into that particular street than, with nose close to the ground and rigid tail, he ran zig-zag to and fro as though he was on the trail of an erratic fox. I called to him, but he gave no heed. People got out of his way. The gamins shout ed, and with a wild, shrill bark, he sud denly bounded into the doorway of a large dry goods store. I bounded after him in time to see him rush up to a lady in black who was examining some gloves and dance around her with signs of the most extravagant joy. There are tones that live without the aid of pho nographs. Roy ! Roy ! Dear old Roy ! was all she said, but I'd have sworn the voice was Jennie's if I heard it on the summit of Mount Blanc. A white hand was laid upon his head, and my ring was on the hand." He paused. "Yours? . Sir, I hope you did not claim it," said his practical collocutor. " I did, and the hand which wore it just as I originally intended." Nor did Alexander, in his hour of greatest con quest, ever smile a more serene approval of himself than our conductor at this stage of his story. "But the conduct of Fritz, and the lady's silence, and all the queer con comitants which exist only in fiction how do you reconcile them with an ow'r true tale !' " said Ruth, the truth loving. "Fritz was Roy, the Roy. who had often been caressed by Jennie before his young master, Jennie's cousin, got the gold fever, when I did, and came to California never to return. Jennie had written, but her letter never reached me. She thought me dead. Why the dog came to me, when his master died, is one among the riddles of my life which I will disentangle in the here- i after." " And to-day where is she ?" He stood waiting for the question. " On our ranch near Sacramento, and I believe one of the happiest women in the State.- We-have a boy ten "years old whose name is Fritz, and all the dearer for the sake of the old friend who has long since gone where I hope one day to meet the human of him. I wish you could stop off a while and see my wife. Queer, isn't it, that I should have intruded this bit of private history upon you, but the truth is . Yes, coming. I'll be with you again, ladies " A brakeman beckoned him inside, and we had seen the last of our handsome conductor. The evening shadows had begun to lengthen. The setting sun had turned the vast plain of the Sacramento valley into a " field of the cloth of gold," and the distant peaks of the Sierra, clad in their eternal snows, but now rose-tinted and glowing, seemed to cleave the azurt above them as with a wedge of burnish ed silver. It was starlight when we reached the end of our car ride and were registered for the night. " The conductor's story was a pleas ant little episode, Ruth, wasn't it ? Dc you believe it all happened?" I asked, as I leaned from my pillow to hers tc eave a good-night kiss on her round cheek. "I like Fritz," was her sleepy an swer. " There's an instinct about some dogs that the half of mankind can neither appreciate nor attain. I trust a man whom a good dog loves." San Francisco Argonaut. II Certainly Tans. If what Edison says is true the electric arc light is doomed, for it will find every lady in the land its im placable foe. "Will the electric light tan the face ?" Edison,was asked. "Tan ? Tho arc light V" said Mr. Edison. "Tan a man?" (With alacrity.) "Well, I should say so. Why, I was working for a couple of hours trying to fuse some metal in an arc of 20,000 candle-power. When I got through my skin was copper-colored as an Indian's, and that night my face burned as if I had been roasting it, and my eyes I thought would jump right out of their sockets. I tore the bed clothes all to pieees and got up and tore the carpet to shreds. It laid me up for three days, and the skin all peeled off my face. One of my assistants worked less than an hour with the same light and it tanned his hide as brown as a butternut. It made him blind, too, and it was three days before the scales came off his eyes, and his skin came off in great patches. When we did not work so near the light, or had a light that was not so strong, it did not use us up so badly, but the arc light will tan, and no ne who has had any experience with it will deny it." He also said ground glass globes would somewhat modify the effect of the light in this respect, while the incandescent light, except when very intense, would not tan the skin. A number of othei electricians agreed with the Menlo Park wizard, while some were doubtful. TVoy Times. BUILDING AX IGLOO. The Kind of Houmch Pen pic Live in Near tbe North Pole. The builder selects snow cf thepropei consistency by sounding a drift with s cane made for the purpose of reindeei horn, straightened by steaming, and worked down to about half an inch in diameter, with a ferule of walrus tusk oi the tooth of a bear on the bottom. Bj thrusting this into the snow he can tell whether t o layers deposited by succes sive winds are separated by bands ol soft snow, which would cause the blocks to break. When the snow is selected he digs a pit to the depth of eighteen inches or two feet, or about the length of the snow block. He then steps intc the pit and proceeds to cut out the blocks by first cutting down at the endj of the pit and then at the bottom af terward, cutiing a little channel about an inch or two deep, making the thick ness of the proposed block. Now comes the part that requires practice to ac complish successfully, The expert will with a few thrusts of his knife in just the right places split off the snow bloci and lift it carefully out to await removal to its position on the wall. The tyro will almost inevitably break the blocfe into two or three pieces, utterly unfit for the use of the builder. When two men are building an igloo one cuts the blocks and the other erects the walL When sufficient blocks have been cut out to commence work with the builder marks with his eye, or perhaps draws a line with his knife, describing the cir cumference of the building, usually a circle about ten or twelve feet in diame ter. The first row of blocks is then arranged, the blocks placed so as to in cline inward and resting against each other at the ends, thus affording mutual support. When this row is completed the builder cuts away the first and sec ond blocks, slanting in from the ground upward, so that the second tier, resting upon the first row, can be continued on and around spirally, and by gradually increasing the inward slant a perfect dome is constructed of such strength that the builder can lie flat upon the outside while chinking the interstices between the blocks. The chinking, is however, usually done by women and children as the building progresses, and additional protection secured from the winds in very cold weather by bank ing up, with a large wooden snow shovel, the snow at the base often being piled to the depth of three or four feet. This makes the igloo perfectly imper vious to the wind in the most tempest uous weather. When the house is completed the builders are walled in. Then a small hole about two feet square is cut in the wall on the side away from where the entrance is to be located and is used to pass in the lamps and bedding. It is then walled up and the regular door cut about two feet high and niched at the top. It would bring bad luck to carry the bedding into the igloo by the same door it would be taken out. Before the door is opened the bed is constructed of snow blocks, and made from one to three or four feet high, and occupies three-fourths of the entire space. The higher the bed and the lower the door the warmer the igloo will be. From an Artie Eccplorers' Reminiscences. He Lost by It. A Griswold street lawyer was looking out of his window yesterday when he recognized a familiar figure and made hurried preparations.to vacate his room, leaving on the desk a card bearing the legend: "Gone over to circuit court be bach in two hours." He was scarcely out of sight when the individual seen from the window entered the room, read the card, and at once planted himself in a chair with the look of a man who meant to sit right there for twice two hours if necessary. But it wasn't necessary. He left the room in about half an hour, and the owner hur ried back, to find a note reading : "Deak Sir I came up this morning to borrow $5 of you to help me out on my board. You were not in, but one ol your clients has called and left $10. have receipted for the money in youi name, and will consider it as a loan until I see you again. Ta-ta." The lawyer wasn't over ten second realizing that he could have saved $5 bj staying there and lending as much, and he wasn't of any good the rest of the day. Free Press. The ravages of diphtheria in Austra lia have been so extensive within the last few years that the government of fered a large reward for any certain method of cure, and among other re sponses to this was one by Mr. Great herd, who at first kept his method a secret, but afterward communicated it freely to the public. It is simply the use of sulphuric acid, of which four drops are diluted in three-fourths of a tumbler of water to be administered to a grown person and a smaller dose to children, at intervals not specified. The result is said to be a coagulation of the diphtheretic membrane and its ready re moval by coughing. It is asserted that where the case is thus treated, and has not advanced to a nearly fatal termin ation, the patient recovered in almost ery instance, Bravery of Female Soldiers. Female soldiers have been more nu merous in foreign armies than in .the English service. I may mention a few. In tho French army, for instance, there were (among others) Louise Houssaye de Bannes, who served from 1792 to 1795, and was at Quiberon; Angelique Bralon (nee Duchemin, for she was married), sous-Lieutenant of. infantry, decoree with the Legion of Honor, who was born in 1772, and died, I believe, in thelnvaiides about 1859; Tkerese Fig ueur, who served as a dragoon for four teen years, from 1798 to 1812, and had four horses killed under her; she died in 18G1, at the age of eighty-seven, in the Hospice des Fetits Menages at Paris; Nirginie Chesnieres, who served during the Peninsular war as a sergeant, in the Twenty-seventh regiment, and died in 1873. Louisa Scanagatti was a lieutenant of infantry in the Austrian or Sardinian army during the Napoleon wars. Marietta Giuliani and Hermiula Manelli fought under Garibaldi in 18G6; Herminia was at the battle of Custozza. Augusta Kruger fought in the war of liberation against the French as a sub altern in the Ninth Prussian regiment, and was decoree with the Iron Cross and the Russian order of St. George; she (after leaving the army) married a brother officer in 1816, and in 1869 hor grandson received a commission in his grandmother's regiment. Bertha Weiss s said to have fought at Spicheren in 1870, but I am not sure that her case is genuine. The most recent instances that I know of are the following three: A young Russian officer (her name Is not given) whom the Times correspond ent, on September 5i9, 1877, reported to have fallen at Kacelyevo, after display ing the most brilliant gallantry in rally 1 ing her men against the Turks; Sylni Mariotti, a private in the Eleventh battalion of Bersaglieri, who served from 1866 to 1878, and who fought at Custozza; and Dolores Rodriguez, cor poral (at the age of eighteen) in the First regiment of Peruvian Sappers. She, it appears, fought in the present South American wars, and is still in ser vice. 'Notes and Queries. Some Curious Facts. There is a stalactite cave at Herchberg, Austria, in which the jaw-bone of a man, with the teeth well preserved, has been found among a plentiful deposit of the remains of the Ursus spleasus. From statistics of deaths from acci dent, negligence, violence and misad venture compiled in Great Britain, Mr. Cornelius Walford infers that the risk to life and limb increases 'in a certain ratio with the progress of civilization i conclusion which will evidently bear 9, very considerable qualification. Some shells lately received from Lakes Tanganyika, N'yassa, and other like waters of Africa, at the British Museum, are of great value to naturalists, because they bear several marks of having been the decendants of certain marine ances tors. Mr. Edgar A Smith read a com munication on the nature and structure of these shells at a meeting of the Zoological society, London, February 15. In a paper on dew and fogs Herr Dines says that morning fog along a river course arises when the water is warmer than the air over it, the evap oration going" on more quickly than the vapor can be carried away, and is, therefore, condensed and spread as fog. The evening fog on moist, low-lying meadow land he attributes to a lower ing temperature of the grass surface by radiation, and a consequent condensa tion of the aqueous vapor in the lowest layers of the atmosphere. Statistics show that since 1851 there has been an increase of risk from light ning in various parts of Germany, Aus ria and Switzerland, while there is no corresponding increase in the number of thunder-storms. Herr Holtz, who has been investigating the matter, in clines to the belief jh&t the causes for the greater liability of danger from lightning are to be sought in the changes produced of late by man on the surface of the earth; such as the clearing ol orests, the increase of railroads, and ol the great use made cf iron in the con struction of houses. Telegraph Statistics. In 1841 there were forty miles of line and no wires. In 1848 there were 2,000 miles of line and 3,000 miles of wire. In 1853 there were 14,675 miles oi line and 22,013 miles of wire. In If 60 there were 17,52 miles of line and 26,375 miles cf wire. In 1866 there were 29,412 miles ol line and 50,294 miles of wire. In 1870 there were 53,403 miles oi line and 107,245 miles of wire. In 1877 there were 111,652 miles oi line and 257,974 miles of wire. In 1880 there were 142,364 miles ol line and 350,018 miles of wre. The first line of telegraph in the Uni ted States was established between Bal timore and Washington in 1844. This was the Morse plan, which has fcince be come the almost universal system of the world. Fifty million mt usages were sent during the year 1880 The compa nies employ 24,000 persons, and lave 14,000 offices, ITEMS OF INTEREST. Opium kills 3,000,000 Chinese every year; so the missionaries say. An Illinois butter factory uses up two hundred thousand pounds of milk a day. It is easy to pick holes in other peo ple's work, but far more profitable to do better work yourself. Cicero has said of men : "They are like wines ; age sours the bad and bet ters the good We can say that mis fortune has the same effect upon them. D. O. Mills, the California millionaire, has paid $1,400,000 for a lot on Wall street, and will put up a building on it to cost as much more. In reply to tho question, "What are the wild waves saying ?" we would sug gest that it must be, "Come and see us next summer, and don't forget we charge m a clay tor board." Pashence is a good thing for a man to hav, but when he haz got so much ov it that he kan fish all day over the side ov a boat without eny bait on hiz hook, lazyness is what's the matter ov him. Josh Billings. The oldest church in the State of New York is in Tarrytown. It is built of stone and brick, the latter having been imported from Holland for the express purpose. It has an antique belfry, high windows placed above the range of Indian arrows, and hipped roof. A quantity of flour was exposed by a French experimenter to a pressure of 300 tons, reducing it to one-fourth its original bulk. A portion of it was then put in cans and sealed, the same being done with some impressed flour. A year afterward the cans were opened, when the unpressed flour was found to be spoiled, while the pressed was in ex cellent preservation. Speaking of smallpox, the surgeon in charge of the smallpox hospital in Chi cago says : In Cincinnati there died in 1872, 1,179 ; in 1873, 658 ; in 1876, 722; in 1876, 929. For 1879 the death rate in the State of Wisconsin, where there was no hospital was 26.25 per cent.;. in the city of Montreal it was 28.43 per cent., and in Chicago it was nearly 17 per cent. In Chicago, the cases treated at the hospital within three years num bered 310, and the deaths during that period were 49. This was a record which had never been equaled in London, England, during a period of one hundred and nineteen years. Some Literary Feats. In one year Dryden produced four of his greatest works: " Absalom and Achi- zophel," "The Medal,"" The Religio Laici" and " Mac Flecknoe." He was only six months in writing " The Hind and Panther," three years in translating the whole of " Virgil," and twelve morn ings in composing his "Parallel Be tween Poetry and Painting." The orig inal draught of "Alexander's Feast" was struck off at a single sitting. Dr. John son's " Rasselas" was written in a week to defray the expenses of his mother'u funeral. Sir Walter Scott's rapidity is one of the marvels of literature; he wrote literally as fast as the pen could move, and when he dictated his aman uensis could hardly keep pace with him. The original manuscripts of the Waverly novels may still be seen; they are frequently for many pages unde- formed by a single blot or erasure. Beckford's " Vjathek" was completed by the unbroken exertion of three whole days and three whole nights, the author supporting himself during his unnatural vigil by copious draughts "of wine, and what adds to the wonder is that the work was written in French. Mrs. Browning's "Lady Geraldine's Court ship," a poem of great length in a pecu liarly difficult meter, was completed in twelve hours, while the printer was wait ing to put it into type. Steele and Fielding wrote many oi their essays while the press was waiting. Johnson, bke Gibbon, wrote at first with labor, but afterward found that, with practice, a stately and highly finished style came as naturally as ordi nary expression comes to ordinary peo ple. We learn, for example, that somt of the best papers in the "Rambler" were penned as easily as a letter that forty-eight octavo pages of the "Life of Savage," a singularly polished work, were completed at a sitting, and that the "Lives cf the Poets" cost him no more trouble than a slipshod article costs a professional journalist. But Johnson was, we may add, indefatigable in revising. Ben Jonson tells us that he wrote "The Alchymist" in six weeks; Fenelon that " Telemaque" was produced in three months, and Brough am that his Edinburg Review articles averaged a few hours. But the most portentous example of literary fecundity on record is, beyond question, to be found in the person of Lope de Vega. He thought nothing cf writing a play in a couple of davs, a light farce in an hour or two, and in the course of his life he furnished the stage of Spain with upward of 2,000 original dramas. Hallam calculates that this extraordi nary man was the author of at least 21,300,000 lines. Temple Bar. It ?rs i r, ft 1 : 1i .1 m HI- 4 1 I
The Chatham Record (Pittsboro, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
May 5, 1881, edition 1
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